Bragging Rights

My hardworking husband has been pulling 60-hour weeks since October 1st - and that's not including the hour-long commute that has forced him to rise every morning at 4 am (6 days a week).  It's been a stressful October for all of us, and I didn't even make it past the first week, getting up with him like we had planned.  Thankfully, this is a temporary gig - he'll be back in his regular location, regular schedule come November 5th.  But even with the stress and crazy hours and reduced family time, he still makes sure I know how much he cares.

These were delivered today:

 And check out the note:

All jokes aside about my "other husbands," it really is true.  Who could ask for a better one?  

Thank you, Lord, for an opportunity to really understand just how good we have it!

It's been while, my poor little bloggie...

Wow - so it's been a month and a half since I've posted ANYTHING on here.  Kinda shoots my goal of posting more regularly in the butt.  But that's OK.  It only means that real life has been moving along and, as a nice change of pace, has been fuller than ever socially for our family.  Which is awesome!

In the last month or two, we've been frequenting a local Armata Bianca group that meets weekly.  (And who knew?  There's even a website!)  My little guy is still suspicious of the whole "pray first, then play" structure of the group (sitting still for an entire Rosary followed by Fatima prayers and a short talk given by the priest amounts to sheer torture for an active not-quite-3-year-old, but the experience is affording us all growth in all sorts of different arenas.  I actually see other Catholic moms regularly for unstructured and very enjoyable conversation.  The kids have slightly older kids to horse around with and I've even found myself starting a St. Louis de Montfort Total Consecration to Mary class, complete with the consecration taking place on December 8th (Feast of the Immaculate Conception) potentially at the cathedral.  Sweet! 

We also recently celebrated Jelly Bean's 1st birthday - they get so big so fast!  You want to tell them to stop growing, but then you'd be changing diapers for the rest of your life!  (And holding them back from their full potential, blah blah blah...)  I'll have to post pictures soon of the cake (and cake eating - love it)!  We also had family pictures done, including birthday shots for the kids.  I'd love to tell you all about the photographer - she was AWESOME - but that would disclose our location and the agents would have to give us new identities and all that bothersomeness (yup, new word - you heard it here first).  That being said, if you know me in "real life", I will happily disclose where you can get some of her photographic expertise going.

If you've read these posts regularly, you may notice my unmistakable "Early Morning" writing style today - Hubby is reporting to another location for work today (and for the next 3 weeks or so).  The commute and earlier start time require him to get up at 4 am! (!!!!!)  He's been requesting that I get on the same sleep schedule with him for this, and though I've been whining and carrying on about how horrible it "will be" and how "I'm exhausted just thinking about it!", and even though he totally gave me an out this morning when the alarm went off, I have been up for nearly 4 hours now, and the kids aren't even up yet.  I'd been doing OK with getting up around 7/7:15 for a session of Shorter Christian Prayer up until a week or so ago - this is only an extra 3 hours earlier - right?  So I'm sure I'll crash around lunch time, but for now I can delight in the fact that I've already started the laundry, run the dishwasher, balanced the checkbook and had breakfast.  Maybe later in the day I can work on the adorable shoes I started making for Jelly Bean - who knew you could make shoes?!

SOOOOO CUTE!!!!  (Apparently I've been up long enough to wonder if this would be an appropriate placed to interject:  "Squeee!!!")  ::Sigh::  I'm scary in the morning.

Naptime in the Jurassic Jungle

What is it about sleep that small children find so horribly... well, horrible?  I remember when I was really young, the rule was you don't come out of your room before 7 am.  These days, that would feel like quite the feat.  My whole life I've had a love/hate relationship with sleep - as in hate to go to bed, at night, then hate to get up in the morning.  Some people would chalk it up to a "night owl" personality.  I consider it a form of biological inertia:  an object in motion tends to stay in motion, and an object at rest (me) tends to stay at rest.  As a mom, it's become more of a love affair with sleep, complete with "absence makes the heart grow fonder."  Every morning as I hear the stirrings in the next room, I beg God for "just 5 more minutes!"  (Or 20?  An extra hour?  Please???)

And why is it when you have multiple young children, the naptimes ALWAYS overlap just enough to cause severe emotional stress - on the part of the mother??  Having noticed wake-up noises over the baby's monitor, I listen at the bottom of stairs to my 2-year old son "winding down" (a.k.a. decrying the atrocities of naptime), knowing he has probably already removed every article of clothing except (hopefully) his diaper and dumped all his stuffed animals out of the crib onto the floor.

I'm desperately trying to figure out how to make "the switch".  Every mother of two or more knows that touchy undertaking of retrieving a newly awakened napper from an adjacent upstairs room without further disturbing the other napper.  In our home, it typically ends up feeling like a scene out of Jurassic Park - clutching your 7-month old, you creep back out into the hallway, trying vainly to hush your own panicked breathing, praying she'll remain quiet in your arms until you can dodge back down the creaky stairs.  You pause with bated breath, listening...  Sudden and complete silence overwhelms you - he is aware of your presence on the 2nd floor!  Two options remain:  a) wait for the muttering/whimpering/bargaining to resume, thereby masking your whereabouts and allowing you to escape without further notice, or b) make a break for it, hoping against hope that he "won't notice."

 
I went with option b.  In my panic and hurry, I hit every creaky spot on the way down.  If my son were a velociraptor, I'd be a goner.