Playing with the look...

I want to give the blog a warmer feel...but I'm not so good with the blogger layouts...or html...or knowing how to tweak the layouts that you can find online. So, bear with me as I fiddle with everything. Hopefully I'll get it figured out.

Big picture update on Cababy coming soon.

xoxo!

Playing Catch Up...8 Months and 2,000+ Pictures (Part 1)

It's been a while since I've gotten a good baby post up and put any Cababy photos on this site. As most of you know, there is a site dedicated to our sweet girl (that has also been neglected in recent months). But, in going through pictures, there were some that didn't make the cut for the other site...but I wanted to put them up so people could see them anyway. I'll try to put these in some semblance of order, but due to the number, I'm not touching up or cropping them. And, thanks to my super cool hubby I was able to get them all sized down for web using an "action" (a macro for MS users). So, let the fun begin!

June and July:

It took a while for the summer weather to hit us here in the PNW. This was taken early in June. She's so tolerant when we put things on her. She still doesn't complain or try to pull off her sunglasses. What a good girl!

When the heat did hit us, it hit hard. We saw 90s and 100+, which is hard with no A/C and a small house. So we went to Uncle Steve and Aunt Kerry's basement for a whole week! Thanks again for saving our bacon. :) We lounged around wearing little but onesies and sitting in front of the fan.

Sometimes even a onesie was too much.

We tried more rice cereal. Still not getting the whole concept of swallowing once you take a bite.

We had to improvise since we were away from home during the heat wave. Say hello to our impromptu baby bath! A little cramped, but it did the job. :)

Cutest baby EVER!

She keeps us so amused. I'll be sad if we don't get some of her babbling on video...she's so funny.

We hung out with "God-sibling" Michael. (His parents are Cab's Godparents and we are his)

Mikey is 3 months younger than Cab, but he was already almost the same length in these pictures!

boy oh boy...

That's what we've been thinking around her for the past week. We found out on Thursday that we'll be welcoming a bouncing baby boy in January, Peter Augustine. (That's "uh-GUS-tin" not "aw-gus-TEEN"). No update on the ultrasound picture...the one that they gave us wasn't as good as the last one (Group Health radiology vs. Washington Imaging...makes a difference). That's all, just a little update!

The Domestic Monastery

A friend sent this to me, thanks Anne. What a beautiful meditation on our domestic church. I have felt the withdraw from society very acutely these past 6 months. Anyway, give it a read, it may speak to you the way it spoke to me. Definitely puts the daily duties into spiritual perspective. You can find the original article here.

The Domestic Monastery...

Ron Rolheiser OMI

January 7, 2001

Carlo Carretto, one of the leading spiritual writers of the past half-century, lived for more than a dozen years as a hermit in the Sahara desert. Alone, with only the Blessed Sacrament for company milking a goat for his food, and translating the bible into the local Bedouin language, he prayed for long hours by himself. Returning to Italy one day to visit his mother, he came to a startling realization: His mother, who for more than thirty years of her life had been so busy raising a family that she scarcely ever had a private minute for herself, was more contemplative than he was.

Carretto, though, was careful to draw the right lesson from this. What this taught was not that there was anything wrong with what he had been doing in living as a hermit. The lesson was rather that there was something wonderfully right about what his mother had been doing all these years as she lived the interrupted life amidst the noise and incessant demands of small children. He had been in a monastery, but so had she.

What is a monastery? A monastery is not so much a place set apart for monks and nuns as it is a place set apart (period). It is also a place to learn the value of powerlessness and a place to learn that time is not ours, but God's.

Our home and our duties can, just like a monastery, teach us those things. John of the Cross once described the inner essence of monasticism in these words: "But they, O my God and my life, will see and experience your mild touch, who withdraw from the world and become mild, bringing the mild into harmony with the mild, thus enabling themselves to experience and enjoy you." What John suggests here is that two elements make for a monastery: withdrawal from the world and bringing oneself into harmony with the mild.

Although he was speaking about the vocation of monastic monks and nuns, who physically withdraw from the world, the principle is equally valid for those of us who cannot go off to monasteries and become monks and nuns. Certain vocations offer the same kind of opportunity for contemplation. They too provide a desert for reflection.

For example, the mother who stays home with small children experiences a very real withdrawal from the world. Her existence is definitely monastic. Her tasks and preoccupations remove her from the centres of power and social importance. And she feels it. Moreover her sustained contact with young children (the mildest of the mild) gives her a privileged opportunity to be in harmony with the mild, that is, to attune herself to the powerlessness rather than to the powerful.

Moreover, the demands of young children also provide her with what St. Bernard, one of the great architects of monasticism, called the "monastic bell". All monasteries have a bell. Bernard, in writing his rules for monasticism, told his monks that whenever the monastic bell rang, they were to drop whatever they were doing and go immediately to the particular activity (prayer, meals, work, study, sleep) to which the bell was summoning them. He was adamant that they respond immediately, stating that if they were writing a letter they were to stop in mid-sentence when the bell rang. The idea in his mind was that when the bell called, it called you to the next task and you were to respond immediately, not because you want to, but because it's time for that task and time isn't your time, it's God's time. For him, the monastic bell was intended as a discipline to stretch the heart by always taking you beyond your own agenda to God's agenda.

Hence, a mother raising children, perhaps in a more privileged way even than a professional contemplative, is forced, almost against her will, to constantly stretch her heart. For years, while raising children, her time is never her own, her own needs have to be kept in second place, and every time she turns around a hand is reaching out and demanding something. She hears the monastic bell many times during the day and she has to drop things in mid-sentence and respond, not because she wants to, but because it's time for that activity and time isn't her time, but God's time. The rest of us experience the monastic bell each morning when our alarm clock rings and we get out of bed and ready ourselves for the day, not because we want to, but because it's time.

The principles of monasticism are time-tested, saint-sanctioned, and altogether-trustworthy. But there are different kinds of monasteries, different ways of putting ourselves into harmony with the mild, and different kinds of monastic bells. Response to duty can be monastic prayer, a needy hand can be a monastic bell, and working without status and power can constitute a withdrawal into a monastery where God can meet us. The domestic can be the monastic.

Baby part deux

Well, we ended up having an ultrasound on Friday. Everything is perfectly fine, just some heat-related weird stuff. But, silver lining was that we got this awesome picture of our new little baby!

Okay, it's sticking!

For those that don't know yet, consider this your news bulletin. We are officially at 13 weeks of pregnancy. If you didn't notice the little baby gadget to the left...I'm the "Mommy". So, super excited. A little frightened when I think about the logistics of managing 2 babies 11 month apart, but God wouldn't give these blessings and leave me high and dry. I'm confident that He'll be showering our family with everything that we need. And just to be sure, I'm talking to His mom a lot. :)

Just had a doctor's appointment today. Heard the baby's heartbeat for the first time. Gave me goose-bumps. A strong 160 bpm. Yay! Everything looks good and we're officially in our 2nd trimester!

At the end of August (the 20-week mark) we'll likely be able to tell the baby's gender (yes, that's right, we're finding out. Don't worry, we'll be plenty surprised when they tell us...at the ultrasound. Then we'll be surprised and happy all over again when we get to meet the little guy or gal in person) and they'll do a 3-D ultrasound. Which is, seriously, one of the coolest things. You end up seeing your baby's face. No guessing if that black hole is an eye or just space. We're really looking forward to it!

The only lame-ish thing is that I have to switch OBs. For a lot of reasons, but mainly financial, we're opting for the Group Health plan at E's new job. I know, I know, there are commercials and billboards out there right now advertising that you can keep your doctors with GH now. Well, only if you have the "Options" plan and unfortunately that's not on the menu for us. C'est la vie. I'm not going to let it bother me too much at this point. The part that will bother me is giving up my thyroid doc. I think I'll still see him through the pregnancy and just count it as part of the cost. It's just too important to switch right now.

Okay, that about covers it then. I don't think this is a shocker for too many people out there. If it was, sorry about that...how do you think we felt? :)

Anywhodle, I'm off to try to sleep. It hasn't been the easiest thing for me lately.

Hope everyone had a nice Tuesday!

I'd like to teach the world...

...the correct usage of "I" and "me". Seriously. Don't get me wrong, I'm no grammar-nazi. You have only to read a paragraph of this blog to be assured of that (just like I'm not a spelling-nazi or a punctuation-nazi (my love of the comma and ellipse are fairly obvious)). I'm also not speaking to any one person, because there are gobs and skads and tons of people...college educated people...who don't seem to know this little grammar law.

Maybe it's because of my mom (sorry mom) or my english-major husband, but I cringe inwardly and sometimes physically flinch when I hear or read this infraction. Okay, so here is my schpiel.

First, the incorrect:

"Bill and me went on an awesome hike the other day."

"Here's Bill and I on our way to the big game.

The way you can tell these are wrong is by dropping the other person from the sentence (with some minor changes to the sentence to make it for one person) to see if it still makes sense.

"Me went on an awesome hike the other day." Um, not unless you're Animal from the Muppets.

"Here's I on my way to the big game." Again, not quite right. However, you could use "I" by further altering the sentence, but I don't want to muddy the lesson at this point.

Then there's the one that makes my eye twitch. You NEVER have to try to make "I" possessive. Ever. The proper possessives are "our," "my" or "mine" So, you should never do this:

"Bill and I's party was the bomb." mmmmuuh, I can barely type that without my head exploding.

Okay, so here are the correct ways to write all of these sentences...just for the sake of clarity.

"Bill and I went on an awesome hike the other day."

"Here's Bill and me on our way to the big game." Yes people, you can use "...and me" and it IS correct.

"Our party was the bomb."

If you are one of the people who abuse "I" (and you know who you are), trust me, proper usage (especially in business situations) will make you sound a whole lot more competent.

Okay, I'll step down off of my soapbox and return this blog back to its more frivolous nature. Thanks for letting me get that off of my chest.