Alphabet and the Alpha and Omega

Recently Maria has been learning her alphabet. She loves the letter W and is very happy to pick it out on the pages of various story books. She also likes M, which she generally calls "upside down W," since I explained M as looking like an upside down W. Last night however she looked and an M and said M leaving me hopeful that my teaching tactics aren't totally wrong.

She likes to sing the Alphabet Song as well. Her version goes something like this: "abcd...xoy...w..xoy...z...now I know...abcd's...sing with me!" One day as she was singing this it struck me..."she knows the beginning and the end of the song! ...the beginning and the end of the alphabet!" This was a principal we learned in one of my psychology classes...people tend to pay more attention to/remember the first and last things in a list (or in a speech or series of events). I know this principal has some fancy name, but I recall it right now. Must be something I learned in the middle of my schooling.

In any case, this human bias towards attending only to the beginning and the ending seems to me to play out in our spiritual lives as well. Even one of our names for God reflects this bias... Alpha and Omega. Not that there is anything wrong with this name for God, for He is the beginning and the end of all things. But some people focus only on these extremes.

Some focus on God as the beginning... as the Great Author of All Creation, who sets the world in motion and then sits back and watches it turn, without becoming involved in the daily lives of the people that He has created. For others the end of all things takes precedence and they end up with a morbid focus on the end times, studying prophecy, building stockpiles, etc. They see God only as the Supreme Judge who will return at the end of time to punish the wicked and reward the good.

But I think that it's important to remember, especially now at the beginning of Lent that God is not just the Alpha and the Omega, but He is also everything in between. He didn't just come down at the beginning to start things up and then leave until the end of time. He is intimately involved in every moment of every day for every person on this earth. All we have to do is tune in to His presence with us.

Lent is the perfect time for us to shift our focus. As we pray and fast and sacrifice, let us keep in mind the God who is with us... the one who walked this earth and calls us to follow Him into the desert to be purified. To once again repent of our sins and come into an ever closer and deeper relationship with Jesus, the one who gave His life so that we might always know His presence. For God is not just the Alpha and Omega, He also Emmanuel, God with us, and He wants us to turn and follow Him once again.

News?

I was watching the noon news today and heard a story about how some archaeologists found Jesus', Mary's and Joseph's bodies in a tomb outside of Jerusalem. So, I decided to check out some blogs for the real scoop. But it took my a while to find anything anywhere. Then I found this.

So it turns out the real story is 26 years old, and it's just now being made into a documentary which will air today. Hmm.... that's really relevant news for you. Sometimes I wonder why I bother with watching the news at all.

Ash Wednesday

At our Ash Wednesday Mass yesterday I couldn't help but notice that some children were given ashes and others were not. Neither Maria nor Amelia received them, but a little girl Amelia's age who was sitting in a different section of the church did. I saw one mom take her children back through the line in one of the wings of the church after her three year old twins did not receive ashes from the center line.

Now I've consulted with a few people (and the EWTN Q & A page) and it seems that anyone, even the unbaptized can receive ashes. So this left me wondering if maybe I should have done as that other mother and taken Maria and Amelia back through to receive ashes. Then I went to the Vatican Website and found this:

Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy, Part Two, Chapter IV:
125. In the Roman Rite, the beginning of the forty days of penance is marked with the austere symbol of ashes which are used in the Liturgy of Ash Wednesday. The use of ashes is a survival from an ancient rite according to which converted sinners submitted themselves to canonical penance. The act of putting on ashes symbolizes fragility and mortality, and the need to be redeemed by the mercy of God. Far from being a merely external act, the Church has retained the use of ashes to symbolize that attitude of internal penance to which all the baptized are called during Lent. The faithful who come to receive ashes should be assisted in perceiving the implicit internal significance of this act, which disposes them towards conversion and renewed Easter commitment. (italics added)

That last sentence struck me. While I think that I might be able to bring Maria to some understanding of what the ashes mean, Amelia would have no clue. So now my question is this, while children can receive ashes should they and if so at what age? Should you wait until they reach the age of reason? Or just until they have some basic understanding of what the ashes mean?

Anyone have any thoughts on the matter?

Storytime

Just one reason that I love my husband.

The ups and downs of stock...

So I recently attempted to make my own chicken stock. I got the idea several months ago when CCL's Family Foundations magazine had an article about how to do it, and how much more nutritious it can be compared to store bought stock. Well, always wanting increase my "crunchiness" I decided to give it a go.

I combined two recipes, one from Nigella Lawson and one from the La Leche League cookbook. Here's what I did: When I first read the article, I started saving up chicken bones (when I remembered). So I ended up with three frozen carcasses, with some meat and skin left on them. I took these and threw them in a large pot. Then I added a sliced onion, some chopped carrots and celery, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme, celery seed, a bay leaf and nine peppercorns. Then I put in enough water to cover, and set it to boil for about three hours. At that point I strained it and put it back on to boil down to about 6 cups of stock. After it cooled, I put it in the refrigerator to chill in a large bowl. Then the next day I skimmed the fat off the top and separated it into cup size portions to freeze for later use.

Now here are the problems that I had: I was interrupted several times in the beginning when I was chopping the veggies...first by Maria, then by Amelia. At one point I was frantically trying to get things into the pot and get it starting heating while I was holding Amelia and trying to nurse her. The books don't tell you how to deal with a situation like that.

Once it was on the stove, things went well, since you really don't have to watch it. It was only later, trying to decide where to put it (the downstairs fridge was the only place it would fit), how to skim the fat, and wondering why it looked like gello, that I began to question my sanity. I had to call my mom to find the answer to the last question. Apparently, if you want it to be a thin, non-gelatinous liquid, you have to strain it through a cheese-cloth. Ah, if only the recipe had mentioned that. Now I'll have to buy a cheese cloth and strain the stock before I use it. All-in-all though it was an interesting experiment, one worth trying again a I think.

Rollin', rollin', rollin'...

...watch that baby rollin'! Roll-on! Yeah!

Yep, Amelia's made her first moves...yesterday one roll, today many. Now she just has to figure out how to get back.

Here's a pic of how I found her after her first roll.

"Hey, how'd I do that? That was pretty cool!"

And here's a pic of the magical rolling outfit from the front. See, it just so happens that Maria was wearing the exact same outfit for her first roll. There must be something about that giraffe.

"Oh, ya! I'm doing that again as soon as I get a chance."

A shoulder to spit on...

Amelia: WAAAAAH! WAAAAH!

Me: It's okay Amelia, Mommy's got you now.

Amelia: Spluuup!

Me: Arrrhhh! Not again! Just needed to spit, huh?

Amelia: (BIG SMILE) Ga!

Yep. Lots of laundry around here.

Boo-boos

Lately, Maria has been obsessed with boo-boos. It's not like she's had that many in her life or even any very recently. She's just started thinking a lot about them one day and hasn't stopped...for two weeks. Every time she bumps into something or falls or slightly pinches a finger, she comes running to me screaming, "Uh, no! Boo-boo! I NEED BAN-AID!"

I can't figure it out. Even when she has boo-boos we don't really put band-aids on them because they stick too much and are hard to get off or they stick too little and get lost in the bed or in the living room or on the bottom of my sock. I think once we went to the doctor and she got a Dora band-aid after a shot. But that was months ago. Funny what kids remember.

Co-incident with this "ban-aid" obsession has been her desire to "Go docker." So maybe she is really remembering that Dora Band-aid of months ago. She goes through a whole routine. "I go docker, now!" "Docker check mouth, ahhh!" "Docker check nose!" "I yike docker n nurse."

What amazes me about all this is the glimpse it gives me into how her brain works, how little things we say can trigger memories or form connections for her. For example, Jim and I were talking at the dinner table and he remarked that, that morning when the alarm went off he spent some time staring at the position of my arm... Apparently, I was sleeping with it above my head and jammed between the slats of the headboard. He was worried that I'd injured myself. This prompted Maria to start looking at my arm and saying, "mommy, boo-boo, arm! Oh, no! Mommy need ban-aid." It was even funnier the next morning when she climbed into bed next to me and looking at my arm (again in a weird position) said, "oh, no! Mommy hurt self, need ban-aid."

All this makes me realize just how much kids pick up from every day occurrences - places they go, things they hear and things they see. It kind of scares me to think how easily she is influenced by the world around her, especially since I'm the one who is primarily responsible for the content and scope of her world at this time. I can only hope and pray that I'm doing a good enough job that what she learns from her 'world' ultimately leads her to the "Doctor of Souls", Our Heavenly Father.

Maria's 2nd Birthday.

Here are some pics from Maria's birthday dinner.

For some reason, I feel compelled to bake and decorate birthday cakes for Maria. Can anyone guess what this is? I'll give you a hint: to Maria it's a "towman."

After the party Maria had fun with her new dress-up clothes.

Dinner conversation

When we all get a chance to eat dinner together (i.e. when I'm not in the living room nursing Amelia), we try to have pleasant conversation and we always try to get Maria involved. We usually turn to her and ask, "So, how was your day?" or "Tell Daddy what we did today." So recently she has been turning to us and asking, "So how day?" It's really very cute and I'm glad that she wants to be involved in our conversation.

Like tonight, she was obviously listening as I told Jim about a dream that I had last night. I had dreamt about eating a large plate of chocolate chip cookies (can anyone tell I'm trying to lose weight). Maria got a funny look on her face and said, "Chocolate chips?".

So I said to her, "Yes, Maria, mommy was dreaming about chocolate chip cookies last night... I was thinking about cookies in my sleep. What do you think about when you're asleep?"

To which Maria answered, "I wake-up."

Hmm... yes, Maria you wake-up. Glad I asked.

Starting Solids...

So this morning, I was getting breakfast for myself and Amelia was fussing in her bouncy seat. Maria was running around underfoot, eating a "cookie" - really a cereal bar. So as I often do to buy myself a little more time before Amelia really starts to wail, I told Maria, "Go talk to baby Amelia, she's lonely." Away Maria runs... "Ah, good!," I think, as I hear Amelia calm down and stop crying. Then Maria comes running back into the kitchen. "Mommy, Mommy! Baby Mee-ya like cookie!"

"WHAT!" "oh no!"

I ran into the living room to find Amelia, smiling up at me from her bouncy seat, with drooly cookie crumbs trailing down her face... Quickly, I did a sweep of her mouth to make sure there were no large pieces for her to choke on. Finding nothing I breathed a sigh of relief, and couldn't help but laugh a little as Maria came into the room, insisting "Baby Mee-ya like cookie!"

Who's teaching who?

Today at lunch Maria and I had the following conversation:

Me: "Maria make sure you eat that chicken."

Maria: (looking at the plate of chicken) "Oh, no! Me fegot pay."

She then precedes to place a hand on her head, getting peanut butter everywhere.

Me: "Maria, stop, what are you doing! Don't wipe peanut butter in your hair!"

pause... Maria staring at me with wide eyes hand still poised just above her head...

Maria: "In name da fadder..."

Me: "Oh, OH!... Yes, Maria we forgot to pray before we started eating...Let's do it now, but first let me wipe off that hand..."

It's after a scene like this that I have to ask myself, who's teaching who here? It's pretty humbling to have your child remind you to pray. But isn't that what is supposed to happen in a family...each one in his or her own way working together to help the others reach heaven, with even the littlest ones playing a role.

Dropping the Ball...

Ha! I bet you think this post is going to be about a certain ball-dropping tradition that will take place soon. Not so. Instead, I have a question for all of you, my loyal readers (however few of you there are). In the Volpe household this year, I think we did a pretty good job of celebrating Advent. We had nightly family prayer, complete with candle lighting, special reading (a children's Advent book), and an Advent calender. We celebrated St. Nicholas' day, and decorated in preparation for Christmas. Maria very much enjoyed her "candle book" and the special prayers that we said. In fact she's been asking for it ever since we stopped on Christmas Eve.

This is where the ball dropping comes in. Now granted that I have been sick, and feeling rather like I'm observing the family goings on from Pluto, I still feel that we should be doing something more to celebrate Christmas. I tried, briefly, to find prayers to use with children for the Christmas season, but with no luck. So really, we haven't been praying to together as a family, and I don't feel like we adequately explained what Christmas is really about to Maria. I fear the large mound of new presents is doing the talking for us.

Now that I'm feeling somewhat better, I want to return to some nightly prayer, appropriate to the season and to Maria's age, so that we can do a better job of explaining Christmas to her. I realized we probably have a few more years before she's ruined for life and only thinks of Christmas in terms of presents, but I don't want to wait that long to try to teach her the truth.

This is where you come in. What are you doing in your homes to celebrate the Christmas season? Are there specific prayers you use, and if so where did you find them? Am I crazy to try incorporating the liturgical year into our family prayer, with children so young?

It's one of my goals for the new year to more faithfully pray together as a family. So before the ball drops tonight, I'm hoping you can help me avoid 'dropping the ball' in our prayer time.

More Volpe Christmas...

Here are a few more pictures of our Christmas Eve/Day Celebrations this year. Unfortunately, we took very few stills due to the fact that I had a pretty nasty cold which started on Christmas Eve eve and is still hanging around. Fortunately, thanks to a Mom-mom and Pop Volpe we have a new digital camcorder so we have video of the Christmas morning present opening. If I figure out how to, I may post some of the video here in the coming week. For now this will have to do:

A first taste of Mom-mom's pasta with anchovies....mmmmmm-yummy!

First look at the tree with presents underneath.

Hey! Where'd those candles go!

Amelia also enjoyed her first Christmas morning.

A Volpe Christmas...

For now this is all I can manage... one picture of the tree on Christmas day, after Grammy and Pappy Simcisko arrived bringing their load of gifts to add to our pile... Hope to post more later.

White Elephant Party

As promised here are a few pics from our bible study white elephant party. For some reason all the good shots were of the kids...

Liar, Liar....

As usual, I spoke too soon when I said at the party that "once we gave money to them, we stopped receiving the chant CDs." As it turns out, when Jim got the mail yesterday there was a mailing from the good monks at the Clear Creek Monastery, complete with a new Gregorian Chant CD. Call it a case of "open mouth, insert CD."

Sorry to all for the misinformation.

(here's a link to another blog with more info on the monks)

Christmas Novena

Thanks to Danielle Bean, my favorite blogger/author/mom, who had a link to this site for a Christmas Novena. All you BSers at who attended the party now have no excuse not to continue the prayers. Blessed Advent!

note: I will try to post party pics soon, maybe tonight if the little ones allow.

You know you're a parent when...

You go to adoration for some quiet prayer and meditation, and instead spend the time: thinking of the many things you need to do in the next few weeks to get ready for Christmas, wondering what makes daughter number one squirm like that, and finally hoping that daughter number two's intestinal noises and smells are not loud enough or smelly enough to disturb anyone else, while desparately stiffling your laughter.

In the end all you can do is pray that God made prayer happen somewhere in there without you noticing.

Easing in...

Trying to catch a smile from a six week old, you get alot of shots like this:
You may finally get a shot like this:

At which point you may enlist the reluctant assistance of big sister...
who finally gives in, thinking: "If Ican't be the center of attention, I can at least entertain her."