Recent Musings!!...includes creatures of the night!

Many, many thoughts going on lately and I've been trying to keep them all stacked and organized in my brain which doesn't take to this naturally so I'm pretty sure I've been mostly unsuccessful.  However, I'm going to attempt to get some of them down on paper....er...blog.

1. So a few weeks ago my hubs and I were up late late late again...most likely watching Downton Abbey which we crazily just started watching a few weeks ago so we had many, many seasons/episodes to catch up on.  And then we spend 13 million hours watching that and then it's late and then we want to talk of course so it's been late.  What happens to me when it's waaaaaayyyy too late is that I actually can't get to sleep, and then Mike falls right to sleep and starts snoring and yeah, that makes it even more impossible.  So he got up to go out to the couch until I got nice into sleepyland. Hooooo, hoooo, hoo!!  What the heck are those kids doing up downstairs at this hour and what in the world are they doing????!!  Hoooooo, hoooo, hoo!!  Over and over again.  Ok, one of them, meaning Evan, must be up sleep walking/talking.  There's a break.  Thank God!  Hooooo, hoooo, hoo!!  OH. MY. GOSH....I'm going to be a zombie tomorrow!!!  I've got to go out and confer with Mike about this.  We can hear it still but not quite as loud.  I go back to bed and he's going to go downstairs and check it out, make sure everyone's ok, and that there's not a wild animal in our basement.  Next thing I know he's at the bedroom door.  "Do you want to see it??"  What??  See what??  "The Owl."  Um, yes!!!  I'm a bird and owl lover and um yes, I would like to see a real live owl, in my subdivision!  Why is an owl in a subdivision!?  But yes, there was a real, live, huge, hooting owl, IN MY SUBDIVISION, across the street, on top of my neighbor's chimney!!!  Opened the screen to the bitter cold and watched and listened.  So, so cool creature of the night.  And then I went to bed!

2. Speaking of Downton....yeah, finally got to the end of season 3 last night. Up again until 23 million o'clock.  Wow.  And....Wow.  I've been eating, sleeping, dreaming, and drinking this show for the last several weeks...no seriously, so I'm not sure how I'm going to live without it until next year!  Hoping to find something similar to tide me over for, oh, only about 10 months!

3.Back to creatures of the night.....I wish I could have had that owl come live in my house because a couple weeks ago I came out into the kitchen in the morning to get the world started when I happened to turn and see something smallish and dark scurry from the powder room towards the fireplace area.  Mike happened to walk out during that as I was not freaking out!!!  Darn those children!  I know they left something open and that's what happened!  Wait, but oh yeah, I sort of remember leaving the front door open for Liam to look out the day or two before, and our screen door has some nice big holes in the bottom where it's supposed to be sealed off(another story for never).  Crud!  So Mike saw it just as it went to make it's self comfy in the fire place vents.  I'm crazy all day over it.  Got some traps.  Long story short they don't work....unless your a mouse who enjoys having cheese and peanut butter served up on a nice little platter by your homeowners.  Tricky little thing.  New traps.  Looking promising.  Days and days and days and days go by, no mouse. And almost no sign of the mouse anymore. I'm thinking it probably came to it's senses, realized this was not a nice peaceful place for a mouse to spend his days, and took the first hole outta here.  When low and behold I had an awful feeling when I opened the side of the pantry he seemed to prefer yesterday morning to find the poor little nasty thing perished in the trap.  EW. And GOODBYE!  I have Owen remove it still connected to the trap to the garbage outside only for Mike to remind me that there might be more and we need the trap.  More???  Help, I can't deal.  So, to be continued...???

4. Lent is chugging along.  I don't feel like I've really gone anywhere spiritually and even feel like I've gone backwards at times.  The never ending Winter makes it harder I think to keep up faithfully with our my Lenten fasts and promises.  At least if you have some sun and above 32 degree weather you get a little mental nourishment to plug on faithfully.  Not so for the most part, so it's been a challenge to say the least. And Liam's been climbing the walls(for real) and everything else and that gets old real quick....for us both.  Although I was reminded recently, and experience has shown me, which I remembered after I was reminded, that sometimes the growth happens often invisibly at times, when we appear to be in a standstill or even moving backwards.  It's only sometime in the future when we feel and/or see some new sprout in us and then our mind looks back and our eyes are opened to what God was doing when we appeared to be lazy and he appeared to be absent.  Trust He is working even when we are not at our best.  

5. Speaking of Liam

Happy Valentine's Day from my favorite place to be!

Winter is fun!...when it's above freezing!

Who doesn't love a happy face balloon just because!

Last but not least, I love my Dad's water bottle while sitting in my train box!

So about Liam....CUTEST. THING. ON. EARTH.....and he's cray.....but we love this baby!! God is so so good.

6. Owen finished basketball first for the season and Evan just recently.  As much as I love watching them play, I always look forward to the Spring off from sports for the boys.  And Claire has just started her first season of high school soccer.  Looking forward to this new passage of parenthood with Claire.  She is an amazingly wonderful child....although not completely exempt from typical teenagerness.  But I find her actually being an example to me more and more these days. Her striving for holiness is something to be admired for me. She recently had an amazing experience at the March for Life in Washington D.C.  

7. Habemus Papam!!!!  Need I say more???  Our beloved new papa Francis!  I was absolutely blubbery watching our Pope Benedict fly away from the Vatican...and there is a bit of an emptiness when the chair of Peter is vacant.  It feels so great to have that filled by such a wonderful disciple of Christ.  First Jesuit!  First Francis!!  But not Francis I quite yet!  God's blessings to him!  We already love him!  Faith came in off the bus yesterday heralding, "We have a pope!  Pope Francis!!  Pope Francis!!".  Love that girl!  So we celebrated!  Pulled out some cookies from the freezer.  "Mom, I thought you were saving those for the next meeting!?", says Owen. "I was....that is, until the Holy Spirit decided to give us a new Pope today!!", says ME.  Eat cookies!! 

CMATTS....read on, I know you're curious!

Every once in a while I get the urge to pick up a magazine or two...or three...from the grocery store.  I can go months or years without buying one and them, BOOM, one day I feel compelled and I come home with several.  Maybe it's the Winter months, maybe it's because I gave up Facebook for Lent, or just looking for some inspiration, but I picked up three this week!  Anyhoo, I came across a funny little article in Parents Magazine called "Sick Daze".  I thought it was actually going to talk about all the maladies I know all of our families are dealing with this time of year but it pointed out maladies that seem to strike year round.  

The malady that made me chuckle with....I'm not sure with what, but it made me chuckle, probably because it's just what goes on here with<----- my little man every waking second, minute, day!!  It's called CMATTS, Carry Me All the Time Syndrome.  Symptoms are: The child refuses to be put down over a 12 to 13 hour period. Patient is unable to extend his or her legs enough to stand and will make horrible noises whenever falling anywhere beneath a parent's waistline. In extreme cases, the child won't permit the parent to sit down, sometimes resulting in Collapse of the Caretaker(COTC).

Did I mention that I recently came down with the under-diagnosed COTC!!!