Sorry for the lull in posts. It has been a busy week. Last week was the usual daily life of three little ones plus getting ready for this past weekend. We were out of town this weekend up in New Jersey for a family party. Last Friday was my grandmother’s 80th birthday as well as my grandmother’s and grandfather’s 60th wedding anniversary. So, of course, we had to have a big family party! Family came from Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York to celebrate together. There was a professional photographer to take pictures during the events and I eagerly anticipate seeing and sharing those photos, but here are a few from yesterday, at my grandparents’ house.

My dad plays with Cecilia and Felicity with my brother Michael looking on. I played with those same blocks when I was little visiting grandma and grandpa.

Cecilia made a camera and takes my picture while I take hers.

Grandpa holds Michael’s person creation inside the fort much to Cecilia’s amusement. Felicity doesn’t seem impressed.

Good thing neither my dad nor Michael are going into architecture as their structures cannot even stand up to the abuse of a 1 year old or a 3 year old. But Cecilia got a kick (literally) out of it.

Ohhhh, Ahhh. Look at the bubbles and fish in the multicolored light tube. Hypnotic isn’t it? Well, it amused them for a little while. On the far right you can see my cousin’s daughter Hailey. She is about 2 months younger than Felicity.

Not even two years old and they are sharing! Victory! Conquest! Yes! Yes! Yes! Seriously, they played together really well.

My other brother’s, Jonathan’s, girlfriend Olga played with the girls as well. I think Cecilia is ready to adopt her into the family. Last night during bedtime prayers she interrupted my prayer intention list to include Olga’s name. No pressure, Jon.

My grandpa used to work on the railroad and he has this hanging in one of their rooms. I remember staying in that room one time and liking the poem so much I memorized it (back when I could get in trouble with my parents for saying the word “hell” – now I get in trouble with my kids) so I had to grab a picture.

HA! HA!

These two remaining pictures are from last week but too funny not to share. Felicity saw Elizabeth sitting there and thought she would like toys to play with. But, more is always better right? Well, maybe not.

Cecilia jumped in when she saw me taking pictures. Can you still find Elizabeth? Yeah, her patience eventually ended for Felicity’s onslaught of toys. LOL.

It has been an interesting two weeks. I’ve been doing a lot of tinkering, mostly with the sleeping habits of our girls.

For Elizabeth, I have resisted putting her in her swing during the day. She naps in her crib or in her car seat during the day. This means her naps are not prolonged by the motion of the swing and do tend to be shorter. It also means that she goes to sleep between 7pm and 7:30pm. She has been sleeping in one stretch until between 2:30am and 3:40am until this morning when she went until 5:40am. Where this is heading I’m not exactly sure. Is it sustainable? I don’t know. But I’m enjoying my sleep at the moment.

Since Felicity moved to her own bed in Cecilia’s room (now The Girls’ Room) just before Elizabeth was born, she was particularly sensitive to having James lay down with her to get her to sleep. She also has been waking during the night almost every night and needing someone to help get her back to sleep. So I tried to shake up their routine a little before bed. Instead of James getting them to sleep, I do it and I insist each lays down in their own bed while I read, by book-light, in the dark. Then I kneel between the two beds and lead them in bedtime prayers. On the one hand, Felicity has been content to insist on holding my hand while she falls asleep rather than having me lay down with her. On the other hand, Cecilia went from falling asleep with no assistance to wanting me to hold her hand. But there seems, so far, to be one exception to this. If, after I finish our standard bedtime prayers (Our Father, Hail Mary, Angel of God, Litany of Family Saints, Prayer Intentions, Prayer to St. Michael) I jump right into a rosary, so far, the girls will just fall asleep on their own with no need to hold on to me while I recite the rosary. I’m very curious to see if this continues. Last week Felicity had a few outstanding nights without waking all night. This week it has been hit and miss, but I hadn’t been saying the rosary every night. I’m so curious to see if that rosary will make the big difference.

In other Elizabeth news, she absolutely shocked me this morning. She is 17 weeks old and has absolutely mastered pulling up her head, neck, shoulders and chest while on her tummy but I didn’t realize just how much she had been working her back muscles. This morning I laid her on her back with the boppy pillow for a bit of support to prop her up for a little bit better view. When I looked back to check on her, she had done a sit up and was, in fact, sitting up. She is still wobbly while sitting up, but I had no idea she was so eager and ready to begin practicing sitting up.

She eventually winds up in this leaning position. She is still a bit wobbly and can’t stay up for very long, but I’m still shocked by her self-motivated sit-ups.

I read Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilema. It was a fascinating and disturbing read.
It is divided into three parts. The first follows the path of corn in our country as it is regulated by the government to be one of the largest produced foods in our country. Our farms grow massive amounts of corn and, thanks to government regulation, risk bankruptcy to do so. Our pigs, chickens and cows are fed corn to try to consume some of the massive amounts of corn we have. And our food scientists develop process after process to squeeze every fiber of sugar and starch out of every kernel. The problem? Corn is a high calorie food that is simply energy. It makes more calories from the same air and water and soil than most other plants can. So the cows that eat it (not that they were naturally designed to) have more “marbling” or fat in their meat. The grocery store is stocked full of processed foods mostly made of sugars from corn. And the foods we eat are often worse for us having been made to such a great degree with this high calorie food. The obesity epidemic in this country should take a good hard look at the role corn and its sugars play in the American diet. And the voters should take a good hard look at how big government has played such a vital role in causing the modern obesity epidemic.

The second part of the book takes a closer look at the Organic food market as well as farms that strive to grow foods according to their nature. The chickens roam and eat bugs, the cows eat grass, etc. Local chefs praise such food products as being superior in color and taste. They do cost a bit more, though one farmer said he could compete better with lower prices if the government didn’t try to regulate the small farm the way it does industrial food.

The third part, I found, a bit silly and impractical. He creates a multi-course meal from foods he has hunted or foraged or grown. The practicality of this for most people, or lack of practicality, made this section less interesting for me.

One important point he tries to make from a secular point but was heavy in my mind from a Catholic perspective is the social teaching that God made human beings the stewards of the earth and we have to question just how well we are fulfilling that role if we are keeping chickens in such small cages that they stress out to the point of hurting each other or if we are treating pigs such that they stress out to the point of eating each others’ tails. No matter how you look at it, the human race is failing to be good stewards of the wonderful creation God has endowed to us. Just where is our respect for nature or for God in our food practices?

I think the point Pollan is really trying to drive home is to challenge us to ask ourselves just how much do we think about what we eat, where it came from and why we are eating it? Do we just grab something and chomp or is there some thought behind it? How much do we really know about what we put into our bodies? How much should we know? It is irresponsible to ourselves, to creation, and to God, to be so lazy regarding our own bodies and the creation around us to not consider the significance of their God-given value. Are we so focused on hi-definition and cell phones that we have become blind to what we put in our very flesh? If you are what you eat, what are we? For all the rants against government and big corporations, why do we blindly trust what they tell us to eat?

While I wasn’t nodding with Pollan over every page, there was some great value to this book and it is worth reading, even if, like me, the part on corn sex does make you want to bang your head against the wall. There is definitely food for thought to be found in it’s pages.

As a side note, Pollan recently put his 2 cents on the current healthcare reform rebate.

The American way of eating has become the elephant in the room in the debate over health care. … But so far, food system reform has not figured in the national conversation about health care reform. And so the government is poised to go on encouraging America’s fast-food diet with its farm policies even as it takes on added responsibilities for covering the medical costs of that diet. To put it more bluntly, the government is putting itself in the uncomfortable position of subsidizing both the costs of treating Type 2 diabetes and the consumption of high-fructose corn syrup.

 

I so wish people would stop asking the government to do everything. The government is fit to do very few things well and they demonstrate that time and time again.

I’ve been trying to get to the Newseum for over a year now, but, well, with little ones in tow, I don’t get into the District very often. For my birthday, I asked to go. Unfortunately, with Cecilia and Felicity sick last week, our planned trip was postponed. But, happily, we were able to go today. It was definitely worth the effort to go.

Upon entering, in the main foyer, you are met with history. There is a piece of the Berlin wall on display that you are invited to touch.

The text says, “This is an original fragment of the Berlin Wall, the concrete barrier that separated communist East Germany from democratic West Germany for 28 years. The graffiti on the wall’s west side – some of which you can see on this piece – provided a vivid contrast to the untouched east side, a testimony to the struggle between open and closed societies. On Nov. 9, 1989, the wall was toppled as communist regimes fell across Eastern Europe. To mark the 20th anniversary, we invite you to touch this piece of history, and then go downstairs to view the largest display of Berlin Wall pieces outside of Germany.”

So downstairs we went. But we did two other exhibits before getting to the Berlin Wall exhibit. First we went to G Men and Jounalists: 100 Years of the FBI. This was the exhibit that had received a news article and first piqued my interest in the museum. Included in the exhibit was the local D.C. sniper’s car.

It was from inside the trunk of their car that they shot and killed in the area in which we live.

The exhibit also had a segment on Nichols and the Oklahoma City Bombing.

One impressive section was on the Unabomber.

It included his infamous shack from which he built his bombs.

The next exhibit we went to particularly interested the girls as Snoopy and Charlie Brown made an appearance.

They have a hall devoted to Comics. Can’t go wrong with peanuts.

Then we got to the very impressive Berlin Wall exhibit. The West side:

The East Side:

The East Germany Guard Tower:

Cecilia and my dad inside the guard tower:

Looking up inside the tower:

There was also a fallen statue of Lenin:

There is also a neat exhibit on Abraham Lincoln and his assassination. The photograph used by those who searched for John Wilkes Booth:

An original playbill from Our American Cousin:

The view from the top floor overlooking the main atrium. You can see a news satelite and a news helicopter suspended.

One neat Exhibit was called Great Books. It had some wonderful old copies of some fantastic books. Including a 1542 copy of the Magna Carta:

A 1475 Summa Theologica by St. Thomas Aquinas:

A 1690 An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by Locke:

A 1774 copy of The Intolerable Acts of King George III to the American Colonies:

A 1792 reprint of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense:

A 1787 first printing of our American Constitution:

A 1788 First Edition of The Federalist, Vol. 2:

An autographed 1893 reprint of Frederick Douglas’ autobiography:

There was also an interactive newsroom where you can try your hand broadcasting the news, newspaper first pages from the current day from every state and many countries, a memorial to journalists who died doing their job, a history of reporting, and other exhibits. But one particularly moving exhibit was on 9/11.

Headlines from around the globe the day after 9/11:

The Antenna from atop the North Tower:

Felicity before a piece of wreckage from Flight 93, when ordinary citizens became heroes:

Felicity before a piece of the Pentagon:

Watching my almost two year old innocently look at rubble from such evil, I couldn’t help but cry.

 

If you can, I heartily recommend a visit to Washington, D.C.’s Newseum.

Cecilia is a very imaginative little girl but also a little girl who is very anxious to try new things and do many things. I’ve heard, “One day I want to go into outer space,” a few times. Every day I hear, “One day I want to …” multiple times. I decided I’d try to record some of the “One day”s she says. So here goes:

One day I want to feed a chicken.

One day I want to go in a boat.

One day I want to play a drum.

One day I want to go to gymnastics school.

One day I want to catch a firefly.

One day I want to feed a cat.

One day I want to see a Thomas DVD.

One day I want to take a picture of deer.

One day I want to feed a cow.

One day I want to live in a library. (Girl after my own heart!)

One day I want to play tennis.

One day I want to hold a caterpillar.

One day I want to ride on a horse and say “giddyup.”

One day I want to find an igloo.

One day I want to climb one. (an igloo)

One day I want a banjo.

One day I want a studebaker.

One day I want to turn into a baby.

One day I was born.

One day I want to climb an igloo. You need something. You need a jacket.

One day I want to see a moose. They’re nice.

Elizabeth turned 4 months today so I did her monthly weighing and measuring. I knew she was getting big, but boy she is growing like a weed, especially for an entirely breastfed girl.

She weighed 13 pounds, 8 ounces and measured 26 1/2 inches. Here are some pictures I took today.

I’ve noticed her recently trying to drag herself forward using her hands. It doesn’t work of course, but she has mastered lifting her head, neck and chest enough where she is now interested in learning how to chase her big sisters.

Cecilia couldn’t resist the camera.

She likes to grab the blanket and bunch it up under her face and then gum it. She has been gumming more and more lately and while I haven’t notices more drooling per se, she is sucking on her lower lip so much she is irritating her chin and lower lip.

Surrender to the blanket.

A few years ago my mom brought me back some coasters from Ireland, each with a bit on it about the Claddagh Ring.

Felicity has been putting all sorts of things her in mouth lately and we are constantly telling her to stop eating everything from crayons to remotes. So I wasn’t too thrilled when I noticed one of my coasters peeling.

I checked to see how bad the damage was only to discover something quite unexpected.

Underneath the information about the Claddagh Ring was information about the Book of Kells. Go figure. I have to laugh about it, but I find it even more humorous that Felicity accidentally discovered uncovered this unknown mystery. I can’t decide if I should try to glue back on the top layer or not.

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Last week I put up pictures of our pumpkin carved Elmo. Well, Elmo didn’t last so long. He started caving in on himself until Elmo more resembled Animal. So, pumpkin go bye-bye.

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Cecilia has started doing something I absolutely love. She makes up songs. She tells me that now she is going to sing about deer and grass or now she is going to sing about Jesus protect us and not crying. And then she makes up a song that basically says what she said it was about. As if little ones’ voices couldn’t get more adorable, her made up songs are just so precious. I love it when she does this.

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We watched The Letter: Based on W. Somerset Maugham’s novel and directed by William Wyler, this drama stars Bette Davis in one of her nastiest film roles. After shooting Geoffrey (David Newell), Leslie (Davis) tells husband Robert (Herbert Marshall) and their lawyer (James Stephenson) that it was self-defense. But Leslie’s case begins to fall apart when a letter reveals that she may have planned the murder, and Geoffrey’s widow (Gale Sondergaard) attempts blackmail. Personally, I didn’t care for this one much. The premise was fine and most of the film okay, but the ending didn’t do much for me. Overall, I thought the ending was kindof strange and I’m still not sure what the point of the film was.

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We also watched Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: Unlikely hero Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) and his foxy girlfriend, Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox), return with tough-as-nails Capt. Lennox (Josh Duhamel) to assist the Autobots in another epic battle against the evil Decepticons in this supercharged sequel to the 2007 megahit. Blockbuster impresario Michael Bay brings his trademark pyrotechnics to the proceedings, while comic whiz Rainn Wilson joins the cast as a college professor. I’m not a Transformers fan per se, but James has been since the 80s. We both found it to have far too much foul language and sexual content. The ending also was anticlimactic. The special effect though very impressive. Unfortunately it takes a lot more than special effects to make a good film.

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It was one year ago today, indeed, on my birthday, that I first learned that Elizabeth was on her way. Quite a birthday present that was, indeed. Now, a year later, and tomorrow she will turn 4 months old. So many reasons to celebrate!

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I’ve been trying to get to the Newseum for over a year now. We were planning on going today for my birthday but Cecilia and Felicity have been battling a fever/cough thing this week, so we cannot go today. Hopefully sometime soon though! I really want to see some of their exhibits including one on 9/11 and one on the media’s relationship with the FBI, including during the case of the unabomber, john dillinger and the D.C. sniper.

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Are you on Facebook? Do you play Farmville? I love this game. It is so much fun and you don’t get roped into hours of play. You can just check your farm once or twice a day, take care of the farm, and continue with life. And you have neighbors who are your friends. If you’ve played it, do you like it?

See more Quick Takes at Jen’s.

Celebrating the little things…

1.I finally cleaned off my desk. I had forgotten what the wood looked like. In doing so, I remembered to order new Christmas stockings for Felicity and Elizabeth and a “Baby’s First Christmas” ornament for Elizabeth and request reimbursement forms from health insurance company, all of which I then did. I have a few other reminders to follow through on just from clearing off my desk. Amazing how one little chore can make so many more but also remind you and help you to get them done.

2. Not too long ago, I had enough food frozen and enough leftovers in the fridge that I literally ran out of containers in which to store food. So, for my birthday I asked for and received new Tupperware. I got them all washed and put away. Yeah for more storage!

3. I got the Wii Active for my birthday. I did a 20 minute workout on Saturday and was so sore I wasn’t stable on stairs until Tuesday. But I began their 30 day challenge yesterday.

More Small Successes!