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."

Test post

This is a test of the blogger system.... this is only a test. Don't expect to find anything of interest in this post. In fact I can promise you it will be very boring. I can't imagine why you've bothered to read this far. You must be really bored by now.

Once I compose something really interesting I'll post it here. However, there's no telling how long that will take, so if I were you I'd check back once a week or so to see if it's happened yet. Mostly, I probably be posting my strange thoughts, mental ramblings and stuff about my kids... (KIDS? when did that happen...man they really sneak up on you...)

Tthis test is now complete. We will return you to your regularly scheduled blank space.