This Kid...

Pictures speak Many Many words with this kid....!

And then there's My Girls...

Gosh, I'm blessed!
(Had to put some 'candid shots' in there of M! I especially love the irony of the picture with her brown shirt on! You can see why their brother needs to have a 'larger than life' personality!!!!)

Feeding the Ducks...

Ah! 'Twas a gorgeous warm and sunny Florida afternoon, and we wanted to make the most of it! So, looking for an educational opportunity to sneak into our planned excursion to a nearby park, I grabbed two wonderful library books that the kids have grown to love, the last two slices of bread in our house, and (of course!) our camera, and off we went! This sweet little park is only 10 minutes from our place, and it seems to be the residence of a variety of local ducks and birds. So! We all sat down on a bench and Mama read "The Story About Ping" and "Angus and the Ducks", both by Marjorie Flack, and both perfect stories to read before a highly anticipated...duck feeding! (Now, I might note that I noticed when we got to the park that there was a sign as we pulled out that said something like "Please Respect the Ducks... Don't Feed the Ducks... It will interfere with their natural habits and the natural ecosystem.....um...I don't actually remember the rest of what the sign said, but that's the basic gist of things...) When we finished reading and talking about the books, I debated for a moment whether we really shouldn't feed the ducks, after reading the sign. However, during our little storytime, it was hard not to notice the two or three other families that were lavishly feeding "KIX" cereal and other less than 'healthy' commercial foods to these eager ducks/birds. I looked at our meager two slices of bread, now smushed lovingly by the kids, who were making sure the pieces were small enough for the birds ("so they won't choke, Mama"), waiting and begging me to give the green light to get off the bench and head to the edge of the duck pond and do what we came to do: feed the ducks! Mother Earth, forgive us if we interfered with 'the natural ecosystem' and upset the way of life here at the duck pond! But I daresay, these ducks looked pretty well used to folk like us, and afterall- our two slices of bread were 100% whole grain! M and L thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon, and C was greatly entertained by watching her brother and sister having so much fun. What a great little pond- with at least 5 different kinds of birds/ducks, and a large family of turtles sunbathing on the opposite side of the pond (we tried to get close to them, but they scuttled into the water faster than I could snap a picture when we got even remotely close to them. Oh well!) It was such a refreshing afternoon with my three lil' Ducks!

A Ba-woon for Jesus!

L: Mama! Wook! A ba-woon! (pointing to a solo white balloon far in the distant blue sky)

Me: I see it! There it goes!

L: Up, Up, Up! Is it going to Jesus, Mama?

Mmmm. I like that thought. :)

Happy Lent!

Today we begin yet another new season of Lent to prepare us for the glorious celebration of Easter!
Ah, how I love Lent! Strange thing to say, I know... but I look forward to it every year. I love having an actual liturgical period set down on the calendar to specifically look at myself, search myself for areas I need to work on, find ways to 'purge' attachments in my life that are not holy. I think it's the more contemplative side of me that loves these opportunities, because it's almost an 'excuse' to take more time to examine myself and have a 'goal' in mind (holiness, of course! But I mean, even just nitty-gritty little goals to help me attain baby steps!) I LOVE the liturgical richness surrounding Lent and Easter...the focus on sacrifice, prayer, almsgiving; Stations of the Cross; the daily readings that prod us along towards Holy Week; even the traditions among different parishes, my personal favorite being 'soup dinners' every week at Church, where we can go to either Mass or the Stations (depending on the parish), and feed our soul and spirit first, then continue as a family and a community to feed our bodies with a simple meal of soup and bread. I love all the incredible things Lent offers us to teach our children. I always wondered, when M was just a baby, at what age children would really be interested and want to really try and 'participate' in the different riches offered during Lent. Today, I talked to M about Ash Wednesday and asked her if she wanted to 'give something up' for Lent this year. She tilted her head, closed her eyes a second, and pondered my question very sincerely. A moment later she informed me, "I think I'll give up picking my nose and watching movies." Wow. Now, I'm not joking when I say the nose picking thing is going to be an exceptionally difficult 'sacrifice' for my daughter! At any given moment during any day, I can look over at either my beautiful, sweet, proper 4 yr old daughter OR my sweet, rough and tumble 2 yr old son and catch either of them with a finger up their nose. It has become a constant mantra in our house lately: "Finger out of your nose! Stop picking!" So, when M declared that she was going to give this up for Lent, you will understand my great surprise and immense skepticism! Bless her heart- she recognized this, too, and her immediate follow-up comment was, "But, how am I going to be able to do this? It's going to be so hard!" I told her that Mama and Papa will help her by reminding her if we see her starting to pick, and even more importantly, we can pray and ask Jesus for grace to help her with this sacrifice. Never forgetting a single thing that is ever said, she did this very thing tonight during bedtime prayers. (After Papa saw her finger start to veer upward and gently reminded her of her 'nose-picking fast'), she bowed her head and prayed, "Dear Jesus, please help me not to pick my nose at all this Lent." And let me tell you- if my daughter can give this up for Lent, I better make sure I'm sacrificing something mighty difficult myself! Oh, the amazing things they teach us- even in the strangest things, like less than desirable habits! And how precious to a mother's heart to see her child actually wanting to sacrifice and participate in an opportunity to 'deny self' and demonstrate some self mastery...at age 4! If only I had such desires at 4 yrs old! At Mass tonight, she asked me, "How does the priest know so much about Jesus and how can he be so wise?" I told her that he prays a lot and spends a lot of time with Jesus, getting to know him really well. "Well, we can do that, too, right, Mama?" Ah. Why do I feel like they're always the ones teaching me!?! Absolutely, dear child. Absolutely. Would that I can say I know Him with the faith and innocence that you do, my Precious One.

I Want My Mama!

Here I sit posting this at 12:45am for a very specific reason: to keep myself awake as I wait for Auntie Courtney to bring my little L home from an 'unsuccessful' slumber party. It was to be his first official sleepover somewhere else without Mama and Papa, and I was truly confident that there would be no problems at all. In fact, I said to my own mom this afternoon, "Of all the kids, he's the one I'm least worried about having a hard time with something like this!" Sweet Auntie 'Tor-tee' has been subtly prodding us to let the two older kids each have their own special slumber parties at her house over the past couple of months. A month ago, M was her first visitor...and they had a blast! They made cookies, watched a movie, read books, ate mac 'n cheese... when she called us to say goodnight, you would have thought she was a teenager checking in with her parents out of a quick obligation, so she could get back to having her fun! And when she came home the next day, she was actually a bit perturbed with us that she couldn't stay longer! Now, this is the same little girl who tends to be a little bit of a mama's girl, not liking me to leave her, and especially at night is quite the whiner when Mama leaves the room. She's been getting a lot better about it, fortunately (!), but I was pretty surprised at how well she did at her first sleepover. This past weekend, Auntie Courtney asked if she could have L over for his turn at a special evening and sleepover. So, we spent the day hanging out with her and then I left with M and C, leaving L to enjoy his special time with his Auntie. We said our goodbyes... no problem. We called him a few times... no problem. He was having a ball- went to the park, ate snacks, did puzzles, hung out with his Uncle Matt and Auntie Cami, played with his new cousin Baby Eoghan, watched movies.... no problem. Until, I'm sitting up checking my email and facebook, and up pops a little instant message from Auntie Courtney asking if I'm still up and saying that L was still up...I scolded Auntie for not getting him to bed much earlier than now (11:15pm!) She got 'offline' and tried putting him to bed, after 2 movies had evidently failed to 'conk him out'. I was sure I wouldn't hear from her again. But 5 minutes later another message pops up: "He is NOT happy at all now." She wrote "He's miserable and wants his mama!" Oh boy. I called her and could hear my boy sobbing in the back, "I want my mama!" It didn't take long for a decision to be made: he was coming home. Sweet Auntie Courtney drove him home and- as we both knew would happen- by the time she reached here he was completely and totally asleep! But hey- at least he'd wake up next to Mama in the morning! I did ask him the next morn what happened and why he didn't want to stay with Auntie Tor-tee. "I just not want to sweep with her, Mama! I just want to sweep wit you!" Well... how can a mama feel bad about that?! (Just FYI, Auntie Courtney- the next morning he did tell me about all the fun things you guys did, and he said, "I just wuv Auntie Tor-tee. She's so nice." Oh well! I guess we'll just have to try again later! (Post note: 3 days later, out of the blue, we were driving in the car somewhere and L said "Mama, I want to pway with Auntie Tor-tee and sleep with her...can I want to just do that now, pweeze?" Oh boy.