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liralenI think, on Sundays, the only real peace I get is after I've gotten to church and gotten Jet to Sunday school and/or after I've made the first three pots of coffee for the parents of church school goers or the adult program folks.
I usually bring my knitting and I sit in the sunshine in the area that's used for the coffee/fellowship hour and one wall is all windows out to the garden. I can see the roses from there, and the stained glass upper windows turn all the light into rainbows on the floor. I sit in the row of seats in the sunlight, and I get out my knitting, and then I hear the choir as they practice for the service. They're quite a good choir. Good enough I can just close my eyes, knit, and enjoy the peace for a while.
It was fourth Sunday, so I had to make coffee. John was sick, still, and almost decided not to do Children's Worship, where they were going to make rainsticks. He'd been up a good portion of the evening, before, making up the tubes, getting the stuff ready for the actual making of the things. When he'd medicated himself thoroughly in the morning, he surprised himself by actually feeling pretty good, good enough to go in and give it a go.
So I got to stay in the service by myself. Jet was with us for the early part and played with Sage, Orion, Grace, and Kallen over, under, and across the pews. He went to children's church with the other kids, and John had two other helpers, so I had no qualms about just listening to the service.
It was a very cool sermon about complaining. About how, to a certain extent, it's a useful and sometimes even necessary thing, but beyond that it can get in the way of doing ANYTHING. Complain, then do. She had an excellent quote from a book that I forgot to get the author or, but I guess I can ask Sara later. I complain so little. I just take it until I can't take it any more and then explode because I hate being seen as a whiner, but I think I got a little more of why it's good, sometimes, to actually complain to someone that can do something about it rather than just murmuring and muttering to myself.
From the end of the sermon, I stayed for the prayers of the people, and then headed to the kitchen to make the rest of the coffee and signal John that they were about to begin the last hymn. All the kids trooped into the sanctuary with their new rainsticks and did a little concert. :-)
Whew. They were done, and ran happily wild afterwards.
I made coffee until it was obvious it was enough. Then we socialized and talked and I exhausted some of my social abilities. Then we went home, and Jet fell asleep. John went to sleep, too. I ran to the grocery store for STUFF for dinner that night, and then proceeded to have a grocery-store sushi lunch. I then made "Oriental Cabbage Salad", one of Isabel's salad recipes, it was really good stuff, and easy with a food processor to take care of a whole head of cabbage. I doubled the recipe and it came out quite nicely.
John and Jet got up a bit after that, played video games, and I knitted. I astonished myself by finishing a pair of tiny baby booties in less than an hour. Yeesh. Those things are TINY!! And with the baby recipient a preemie that's finally getting to come home, I don't doubt that they'll fit her for a bit.
We then headed, at 5, to a Family Dinner of four families getting together, and each providing a part of the dinner. I think it divides to main course, vegetables, bread and salad, and dessert. Pretty simple, though this host family did appetizers, spaghetti with or without sauce and with or without cheese for all the kids. That was an excellent idea, as the adults had to eat later as one adult couldn't get there until 7ish. The kids ate quite happily, had their dessert and happily reposed before the TV with a movie by the time the adults sat down, and it worked out quite well.
We talked until 9. It was really nice to be with a bunch of people with children exactly the age of Jet with some of the exact same problems, passions, and such. It was nice to be able to be with other religious liberals and not have any doubt of that, along with knowing that they all knew small kids and wouldn't be offended or taken aback by anything that happened with that inevitable set of interactions during dinner. :-) Along with everyone taking, well within stride, the inevitable meltdowns at 9. It was par for the course, and no one took inappropriate guilt at the crying.
It was also cool to find all the diversity as well, all the different things that various people had done that we'd never known about them. To really get to know these people we work with to try and make the world a better place was very cool.
John and I host the next dinner next week. Hee. The other couple was supposed to have done it in January! We were supposed to have done it in February. So the next couple will have to figure out when in March or April they'll get to it. *grin*
My day, today, with Jet was great. We had a blast, and I took it really easy and just enjoyed it all with him.
It started with me getting up a bit late, John had been up with Jet when they both got up a bit after 7. I wasn't up until 8, and John was kind enough to let me have a shower. So I showered, went down, roasted some Panamanian coffee, and brewed it up in the vacuum brewer and dumped all but a mug of it into my thermos bottle. It's beautifully light with a very pleasant citrus acid high notes, and a light, sweet body that got sweeter and deeper (richer?) as it cooled. Almost like the sweet scent of cedar wood and the creaminess of almonds. I now see why it won some best of cup awards.
It was very good. John had started Jet on a movie, so I finished up some reading and cleaned up the kitchen before Jet said I had to do an exercise video. Yay! Motivation from the kid! So we got out my exercise pad, and he went happily crazy driving his choo-choos around my feet as I did the Leslie Sansone beginner walking video. A mile in about twenty minutes, with lots of arm exercises that Jet actually stood up and emulated, and I actually felt a lot better for doing it. I should do it more often, when I know we're not going to be going to the Rec. Center.
When we were done with the video, I got him out the door with a promise to go to McDonald's Tubes. He hasn't been there for a few weeks, and it must have been spring break as there were, literally, DOZENS of big kids there, along with the little tykes. Usually, there's only five-year-olds and below, today there were huge ten and twelve-year-olds jockeying for position with the tots. Luckily, the really big kids were very considerate and careful of the little guys and kept the really rambunctious, medium sized kids in check. So nothing got broken, but a few medium kids ended up crying rather a lot when they got checked away from a tiny tot.
Jet held his own, quite happily, and joyfully told me he'd pushed one of the REALLY big boys down the slide, and then told me, that, really, they were just playing choo-choo. The big boy looked very pleased at that, and I thanked him for letting Jet do that to him. Hee.
Another of the bigger boys helped Jet look for his plastic basketball after Jet dropped it and lost it. He found it under our table, where all the legs met, and Jet caroled a thank-you to the boy that even made his rather dour looking dad smile.
If you don't have kids and really want to see what it's like, go to a McDonald's for lunch during a school break. You'll see the worst and the best all at once. Some of the shrieks were amazing, some of the arguments very intense, and the crying... :-) All normal, really. Jet came up to me and cried and hit my chest and told me it was NO FAIR when I told him he had to eat another chicken nugget (his third) in order to get his ice cream with M&M's. Jet wheedled with me at first, "Don't you want ice cream?" "Uhm... no, not really. I don't like their ice cream." "Oh..." and then tried the crying tactic, and finally just sat in my lap and ate his third nugget, faster and faster as he recovered.
After ice cream, we went to the bathroom because I had to go, and after we were there, and he saw how the potty flushed, he just took off his pants and went, too. No fuss, no muss, no argument. He just had to go and did so. Yay!
From there we headed to Target, and wandered around for a good hour and shopped and looked at things. The dollar bins are getting very cool, there, lots of interesting stuff for a buck, including a few things I'd been kind of hankering after. We'd made a bunch of Thank You cards that had pictures of Jet either playing with the gift or opening it, and I'd had to glue the pictures to the card, so it was very cool to find picture corners, that I'd be able to just lick and put in so that people could take the picture out and use it for something, if they liked. Jet wanted me to get fingernail polish, as he has a lot of fun painting his nails and helping Joanie and Halley paint theirs at their house, but I refused. I know I'm not going to use the stuff. We got a little squeeze bottle for me to put some of my GIANT COSTCO sized conditioner in, and some of his chewable Sudafed, and we spent a lot of time just looking at Hot Wheels and Thomas Electronic train sets. He knew he had to have enough stamps to buy anything, but looking never hurt and it sure does keep him motivated so far as potty using goes.
We bought a bag of Easter-colored peanut M&M's as the doctor said that if he ate more peanuts it would help with some of the proteins. And Joan always gets him to eat a peanut butter sandwich at her place. I don't know how, but habits are habits and Jet seems, if nothing else, a boy with very strong food habits. A few more peanut slipped in, disguised as treats, may not hurt. We looked for the ball weights in the Walk Away the Pounds video, and a croquet set gave me the idea of just using the croquet balls we already have. Not that heavy, but certainly not light, and about the right size for my hands. And we already have them. No reason to spend money on them.
So for about fourteen dollars, Jet ran all over the store, and we got well entertained in the process. Best of all, he fell asleep on the way home, and I have a little time to catch up on the last few, crazy days...
Whew. I'm not sick, yet, and I hope not to be. I'm taking that Air-borne stuff with some frequency and Jet's taking it too (at a quarter dose) and seems to be doing okay as well. It's fizzy, and he's happily calling it "My fuzzy medicine!". Hee.
I usually bring my knitting and I sit in the sunshine in the area that's used for the coffee/fellowship hour and one wall is all windows out to the garden. I can see the roses from there, and the stained glass upper windows turn all the light into rainbows on the floor. I sit in the row of seats in the sunlight, and I get out my knitting, and then I hear the choir as they practice for the service. They're quite a good choir. Good enough I can just close my eyes, knit, and enjoy the peace for a while.
It was fourth Sunday, so I had to make coffee. John was sick, still, and almost decided not to do Children's Worship, where they were going to make rainsticks. He'd been up a good portion of the evening, before, making up the tubes, getting the stuff ready for the actual making of the things. When he'd medicated himself thoroughly in the morning, he surprised himself by actually feeling pretty good, good enough to go in and give it a go.
So I got to stay in the service by myself. Jet was with us for the early part and played with Sage, Orion, Grace, and Kallen over, under, and across the pews. He went to children's church with the other kids, and John had two other helpers, so I had no qualms about just listening to the service.
It was a very cool sermon about complaining. About how, to a certain extent, it's a useful and sometimes even necessary thing, but beyond that it can get in the way of doing ANYTHING. Complain, then do. She had an excellent quote from a book that I forgot to get the author or, but I guess I can ask Sara later. I complain so little. I just take it until I can't take it any more and then explode because I hate being seen as a whiner, but I think I got a little more of why it's good, sometimes, to actually complain to someone that can do something about it rather than just murmuring and muttering to myself.
From the end of the sermon, I stayed for the prayers of the people, and then headed to the kitchen to make the rest of the coffee and signal John that they were about to begin the last hymn. All the kids trooped into the sanctuary with their new rainsticks and did a little concert. :-)
Whew. They were done, and ran happily wild afterwards.
I made coffee until it was obvious it was enough. Then we socialized and talked and I exhausted some of my social abilities. Then we went home, and Jet fell asleep. John went to sleep, too. I ran to the grocery store for STUFF for dinner that night, and then proceeded to have a grocery-store sushi lunch. I then made "Oriental Cabbage Salad", one of Isabel's salad recipes, it was really good stuff, and easy with a food processor to take care of a whole head of cabbage. I doubled the recipe and it came out quite nicely.
John and Jet got up a bit after that, played video games, and I knitted. I astonished myself by finishing a pair of tiny baby booties in less than an hour. Yeesh. Those things are TINY!! And with the baby recipient a preemie that's finally getting to come home, I don't doubt that they'll fit her for a bit.
We then headed, at 5, to a Family Dinner of four families getting together, and each providing a part of the dinner. I think it divides to main course, vegetables, bread and salad, and dessert. Pretty simple, though this host family did appetizers, spaghetti with or without sauce and with or without cheese for all the kids. That was an excellent idea, as the adults had to eat later as one adult couldn't get there until 7ish. The kids ate quite happily, had their dessert and happily reposed before the TV with a movie by the time the adults sat down, and it worked out quite well.
We talked until 9. It was really nice to be with a bunch of people with children exactly the age of Jet with some of the exact same problems, passions, and such. It was nice to be able to be with other religious liberals and not have any doubt of that, along with knowing that they all knew small kids and wouldn't be offended or taken aback by anything that happened with that inevitable set of interactions during dinner. :-) Along with everyone taking, well within stride, the inevitable meltdowns at 9. It was par for the course, and no one took inappropriate guilt at the crying.
It was also cool to find all the diversity as well, all the different things that various people had done that we'd never known about them. To really get to know these people we work with to try and make the world a better place was very cool.
John and I host the next dinner next week. Hee. The other couple was supposed to have done it in January! We were supposed to have done it in February. So the next couple will have to figure out when in March or April they'll get to it. *grin*
My day, today, with Jet was great. We had a blast, and I took it really easy and just enjoyed it all with him.
It started with me getting up a bit late, John had been up with Jet when they both got up a bit after 7. I wasn't up until 8, and John was kind enough to let me have a shower. So I showered, went down, roasted some Panamanian coffee, and brewed it up in the vacuum brewer and dumped all but a mug of it into my thermos bottle. It's beautifully light with a very pleasant citrus acid high notes, and a light, sweet body that got sweeter and deeper (richer?) as it cooled. Almost like the sweet scent of cedar wood and the creaminess of almonds. I now see why it won some best of cup awards.
It was very good. John had started Jet on a movie, so I finished up some reading and cleaned up the kitchen before Jet said I had to do an exercise video. Yay! Motivation from the kid! So we got out my exercise pad, and he went happily crazy driving his choo-choos around my feet as I did the Leslie Sansone beginner walking video. A mile in about twenty minutes, with lots of arm exercises that Jet actually stood up and emulated, and I actually felt a lot better for doing it. I should do it more often, when I know we're not going to be going to the Rec. Center.
When we were done with the video, I got him out the door with a promise to go to McDonald's Tubes. He hasn't been there for a few weeks, and it must have been spring break as there were, literally, DOZENS of big kids there, along with the little tykes. Usually, there's only five-year-olds and below, today there were huge ten and twelve-year-olds jockeying for position with the tots. Luckily, the really big kids were very considerate and careful of the little guys and kept the really rambunctious, medium sized kids in check. So nothing got broken, but a few medium kids ended up crying rather a lot when they got checked away from a tiny tot.
Jet held his own, quite happily, and joyfully told me he'd pushed one of the REALLY big boys down the slide, and then told me, that, really, they were just playing choo-choo. The big boy looked very pleased at that, and I thanked him for letting Jet do that to him. Hee.
Another of the bigger boys helped Jet look for his plastic basketball after Jet dropped it and lost it. He found it under our table, where all the legs met, and Jet caroled a thank-you to the boy that even made his rather dour looking dad smile.
If you don't have kids and really want to see what it's like, go to a McDonald's for lunch during a school break. You'll see the worst and the best all at once. Some of the shrieks were amazing, some of the arguments very intense, and the crying... :-) All normal, really. Jet came up to me and cried and hit my chest and told me it was NO FAIR when I told him he had to eat another chicken nugget (his third) in order to get his ice cream with M&M's. Jet wheedled with me at first, "Don't you want ice cream?" "Uhm... no, not really. I don't like their ice cream." "Oh..." and then tried the crying tactic, and finally just sat in my lap and ate his third nugget, faster and faster as he recovered.
After ice cream, we went to the bathroom because I had to go, and after we were there, and he saw how the potty flushed, he just took off his pants and went, too. No fuss, no muss, no argument. He just had to go and did so. Yay!
From there we headed to Target, and wandered around for a good hour and shopped and looked at things. The dollar bins are getting very cool, there, lots of interesting stuff for a buck, including a few things I'd been kind of hankering after. We'd made a bunch of Thank You cards that had pictures of Jet either playing with the gift or opening it, and I'd had to glue the pictures to the card, so it was very cool to find picture corners, that I'd be able to just lick and put in so that people could take the picture out and use it for something, if they liked. Jet wanted me to get fingernail polish, as he has a lot of fun painting his nails and helping Joanie and Halley paint theirs at their house, but I refused. I know I'm not going to use the stuff. We got a little squeeze bottle for me to put some of my GIANT COSTCO sized conditioner in, and some of his chewable Sudafed, and we spent a lot of time just looking at Hot Wheels and Thomas Electronic train sets. He knew he had to have enough stamps to buy anything, but looking never hurt and it sure does keep him motivated so far as potty using goes.
We bought a bag of Easter-colored peanut M&M's as the doctor said that if he ate more peanuts it would help with some of the proteins. And Joan always gets him to eat a peanut butter sandwich at her place. I don't know how, but habits are habits and Jet seems, if nothing else, a boy with very strong food habits. A few more peanut slipped in, disguised as treats, may not hurt. We looked for the ball weights in the Walk Away the Pounds video, and a croquet set gave me the idea of just using the croquet balls we already have. Not that heavy, but certainly not light, and about the right size for my hands. And we already have them. No reason to spend money on them.
So for about fourteen dollars, Jet ran all over the store, and we got well entertained in the process. Best of all, he fell asleep on the way home, and I have a little time to catch up on the last few, crazy days...
Whew. I'm not sick, yet, and I hope not to be. I'm taking that Air-borne stuff with some frequency and Jet's taking it too (at a quarter dose) and seems to be doing okay as well. It's fizzy, and he's happily calling it "My fuzzy medicine!". Hee.
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