melted smoosh

  1) May Crowning. May has been known as a special month to honor Mary, the Mother of God, ever since the 1700s (I had to look this up!). both our church and our school had special May Crowning ceremonies where the children process into the church and lay flowers at the feet of Mary, and a specially selected child places a crown on Mary's head. before I joined the Catholic church, I thought such Marian devotions were idolatrous. the only figure we should be crowning is Jesus, I thought (and should we even have figures at all?). of course, any tradition has the potential to be misunderstood and divert focus away from the true intention of the practice, which is to honor Mary just as Jesus honored her. the act of worship is reserved for God, but the act of celebrating our universal spiritual mother is a welcome foil to the cultural denigration of women over the centuries. 

it's about time for a good old airing of the grievances. while we have ever so much for which to give thanks, sometimes we need the catharsis of enumerating our woes, big and small. (you can read the 2023 edition here.) _________________________________________ first up, potty training.  I buckled down and trained Greta and Cecilia both around age 2 1/2, and it went fairly well (I'm a big fan of waiting until the kid is practically ready to train themselves). Elizabeth turned 2 1/2 near the end of the school year, and logically it seemed like a great time to buckle down -- we wouldn't be driving around to after school sports and activities and we'd have more time at home. I kept waiting for the day when I'd wake up full of excitement and motivation to strip off the diaper and chase a naked toddler around the house. and ... shockingly ... that day never came. then we were preparing for our trip to Seattle in July and it definitely didn't seem like the right time...

this makes the third year that Greta has attended the sweetest Christian camp about an hour and a half north of Pittsburgh. I have never seen it advertised and it never comes up in the ubiquitous summer camp suggestion posts on various local Facebook groups. the only way I know about it is from a friend who attended as a camper herself as a child, then worked there as a counselor, and has been sending her own daughter for the past several years. she said it was absolutely wonderful, so two years ago, Greta and her daughter shared a cabin for primary camp, which lasts just over 48 hours (drop off is at 5 p.m. Sunday and pickup is at 9 a.m. Tuesday). then last year they moved up to the junior camp bracket, which encompasses 6 nights! that's a long time to be away from home for a 9-year-old, but Greta absolutely loved it and couldn't wait to go back this summer for another full week of camp.  she picked a bed far away from the door for less disruption due to night-time bathroom t...

Cecilia turned 6 in November, and she still comes out with hilarious one liners and observations on the world! after I created a list of their morning responsibilities so they could just follow the steps: "oh, so this is like a vacation from you telling us what to do!" "I'm doing jumpkin jacks!" using her booklight from Auntie Kris as a music stand light while playing mass while trying to stump her with spelling words at her request: "I can't spell 'through'. Give me a short word, like 'Cinderella'."  when I told her to clean up after dinner: "I can't. I'm as tired as a sloth who's been up all night." "having the tiny Elizabeth is better than getting Kona ice, because after you eat the ice, it's gone!" talking about ancient history, as in when Jesus was born: "you mean like the 1960s?" posing with a toy she wants to add to her next birthday list "what's a discount?" (i expl...

it's been almost a year (!) since i shared some of Cecilia's musings on life, but i have been steadily documenting them in the Notes app on my phone -- enjoy!  "I know what windmails do! When the wind blows they spin around, and they mail us the electricity. That's why they're called windmails!" (no one ever better correct her on this.) before Elizabeth was born, a few times a day she would come up to me, pat my belly, and ask, "Mommy, how's the baby going?" glancing from the pork on her plate to me and back again: "Are humans made out of meat?" it's 8:30 AM and we finished eating breakfast an hour ago. Cece, hopefully: "Is it lunchtime?" one evening i was kissing, hugging and snuggling her in her bed. Cece, looking pleased: "This is like how Jesus loves me!" and the best of all ... after watching a kids' show about science, she proudly announced: "Mommy, I know what light is made of! Tiny, tiny little t...

 somehow i feel like i'll be writing these posts for the next ten years -- i'm obviously biased, as her mother, but Cecilia is just such a hilarious little person and i love these insights into how her brain works!  the girls have been playing with a cane and crutches we have down in the basement. one day, Cecilia carefully examined the cane (which has a large foam grip on the handle), and announced: "a cane is like a unicycle without pedals!" (she's not wrong!) displaying the anklet she made (one of the amazing doctors in my practice gave the girls this jewelry kit!) "Mom! i can say the Plegible Legiance!" "Mommy, i'm the grown up and you're the kid, so you have to listen to what i say. and what i say is that we have to get ice cream." the girls working together to build a blanket fort, following specific instructions from their Auntie Krista (to help with one of her college assignments!) smelling a candle that had been in a box in the...

(for posterity's sake, Cecilia is 4 years and 3 months old.) while walking out to the car: "Spiderwebs can't hurt you! They don't have any arms!" she grew tired of playing by the rules and decided to play school with the pawns instead after going through the McDonald's drive-thru: "Ahhh! The fresh chicken nugget air!" "Sometimes we cry when we're so happy that we can't even hold the happiness anymore." one of many treasured self-portraits i discover on my phone "Mommy! We have arms so we can move our hands! If we didn't have arms, we just couldn't move our hands!" very excited about the girls' new matching comforters from Nana! this last exchange tells you everything you need to know about her glass-half-full philosophy. while racing toy cars with me, she announced: "I win!" me: "I lose." Cece: "No, you just won second, Mommy!" (linking up with Rosie here !) 

  Cecilia’s vocabulary is an endless source of entertainment. Here are a few of the latest things that made me smile:    “Can you help me search for Greta?” “Mommy, mend this!” “I can do it easily!” While reading Make Way For Ducklings : “Ducks don’t eat peanuts! They eat roast toast!”  “Do you know why we meed fingers? To gwab things!”  When Nick cooked dinner for me when I was sick a few months ago: “Daddy, you’re the best hero in the ever!”  While pointing to the empty back of her tricycle: “This is my pet bird. You can’t see him because he has camouflage.”