Night wakings

It's 3:45 a.m. as I'm writing this. I'm listening to my son yowl in the next room. He's actually alternately dozing off and then yowling "MAMA" and I can't go in to him. It's a killer. At least he's still in his bed. It took 16 times putting him back in before he'd stay. We've been at this since 2:45. Awesome.

My son doesn't know what hit him. Poor little tyke. He's been running this house for . . . well, for about 23 months. And he can't figure out why I'm not in there nursing him. Because I've been an idiot for 15 months. This won't cure the 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. waking. That's a whole different creature. But this will set some boundaries.

Did I mention we've done this before? Repeatedly? I'm trying to sound optimistic about this . . .

But while I listen to him wailing and depriving everyone in the house (including himself) of sleep, I want to focus on something that makes him a cuddly wonderful Buddy Bear. Every evening now, I sing him at least the opening verses of "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes (set to music by Loreena McKennit). He nurses while I sing. This relationship has lasted much longer than it did with Ellie, who was done by 14 months and never looked back. But this little guy is definitely a mama's boy (hence "MAMA!" coming from the next room every few minutes -- it's a mixed blessing) and he loves mama time. So when I sing, I come to the verse, "One kiss, my bonny sweetheart," and he always unlatches and kisses my chest. It is the sweetest, most beautiful little boy kiss. And it makes these long, long nights less miserable to think about it.

The ADD flea

My son, whom I adore, is a pip. He won't sleep. He's entirely unwilling to play nicely with his sister and acts exhausted all the time. But, as I said, he won't sleep. And each time we sleep train, we have massive regressions within weeks. Just contemplating sleep training him is exhausting.

But I have to think that this failure or refusal to sleep only makes his unfortunate proclivities that much worse, the worst of which is his inability to focus on one task or occupation for more than 3 minutes, literally. He has the attention span of a flea. A flea with ADD.

Tonight I decided to include him in dinner prep while his sister was still napping, so I told him he could put the carrot slices into the steamer basket after I cut them up. The two things he did manage to fixate on were the stray carrot scrapings in the sink ("Eww! Eeewwww!") and the one piece of carrot whose cut was crooked. That truly appalled him, and he refused to have it in with other carrots. It was the pariah of the bunch. But once we got past that, he could not put more than 3 pieces of carrot in the steamer basket without moving on to bigger and better things.

Splashing in the sink.

Reaching for knives.

Acting like his stool bars were the parallel bars in a gymnasium.

It was quite remarkable. It took him 25 minutes to get slices from 3 carrots into a steamer basket. He seemed to be having a lovely time doing it, but it was excruciating for a "git 'er done" type like myself.

And then there is his sister, who finished a 200-page children's version of Arabian Nights in one day today. Nothing like some quality reading time with Daddy on his sick day.

The Twelfth Day of Christmas

We focused this year on making sure we didn't have the Great Deluge on Christmas Day, and instead stretched out the Christmas season, both as a sort of silent protest against the secular pre-Christmas bedlam that starts at Halloween and climaxes with a crashing halt on December 26 that is lifted only by the promise of the Valentine's Day paraphernalia that is put out by ill-natured drug store elves during the early-morning hours of the day after Christmas; and as a consciously Catholic recognition of the importance of the Epiphany. It went quite well, really. I think the kids are still young enough that the promise of one present each night excites giddiness, rather than irritating materialistic tendencies. Tonight, they opened their final presents. Buddy Monster got some lovely blocks; Bear Cub got some fun princessy Halloween costumes for dress-up; and then there was a final joint gift of play doh. Who wouldn't love that? Of course, the prospect of sharing the play doh resulted in a regrettable meltdown, but I suppose that goes with the territory. And a lovely bath was had with the new "water dolly" given by Gramma and Grampa. She so desperately wanted a dolly who could be in the bath with her. What she got was this truly bizarre mermaid-like critter with a tiny body and a head of such immensity it's almost troubling. But she can go in the bath and she is dearly, dearly loved. And she has been named Tinkerbell Emma Kluvitt (pro. Kloovit). I have no idea.

As we listened to the wind whipping about the house and anticipated markedly sub-zero temperatures and high winds, we felt the warmth of family life with which we have been blessed. We are truly, truly blessed on this Epiphany, both by our temporal comforts and our eternal hope.

And so we welcome the Gospel in the western world, and we recall the true meaning of Christmas, which, as Father Matthew Pfeiffer has pointed out, is always overshadowed by the cross, our true salvation and victory. Just as we have done our best to shun the secular Christmas Holly Jolly madness, we likewise recognize that Christmas is not utter rapturous joy. The God of all became a human being -- one of His own creation, and lower than the angels -- so that He might die for us. God in a manger -- a feeding trough. Heavenly host rejoicing that their Lord had become one of those who was beneath them. God as man. All a contradiction, just as Simeon had predicted. And God -- God as man -- would hang on a giant contradiction before the mocking crowds. And by his death, He would bring life. But that tiny baby in the manger whose virginal mother watched over Him -- over her own God whom she had just borne -- though entirely innocent, would die, as God knew. May we remember each year that the joy of Christmas must give way to the agony of the cross, and, in so doing, may we embrace our Saviour's incarnation with fervent hope, faithful joy, and eager anticipation for our salvation.

Deo gratias.

Curious beyond her years

I will never really understand my husband's choice of reading material for our daughter, but it seems to work for both of them. It's what allowed her to be able to say that she'd read all of The Lord of the Rings "except the appendices" by the time she was 3 1/2. I suppose that's some sort of badge of honor.

Right now he is reading her a children's version (actually, probably more a teens' version) of Canterbury Tales. I would be scandalized but it's pretty tame, really. The Miller's Tale was censored quite a bit, which set my mind at ease. He last read it to her about a week or so ago.

Yesterday in the car, she said to him (out of the blue): "Daddy, will the world really be destroyed by water at the end of time?"

He was surprised by the question. As I would've been. "What, honey?"

"Will the world really be destroyed by water at the end of time? Like in the story you were reading me the other day."

"You mean Canterbury Tales? The Miller's Tale?"

"Yep. That one," she said.

"Well, honey, that was kind of a trick in the story. One character was trying to fool another one. But that's really good that you noticed what was happening. And you know, honey, the world will never be completely destroyed by water because God promised after the flood that He would never do that."

"Noah's ark, Daddy?"

"Yes, sweetie. Remember the rainbow that came, and how God promised he would never destroy the world with water?"

"Mm-hmm. I do. But Daddy, where was Jesus during the flood, because sometimes I see a cross on top of the ark in the Bible story books."

And she's right. There is a cross on one of the arks in a Bible story book we have. We chose not to inundate her already hard-working mind with the idea of the ark as the prototype of the church building, and the timelessness of the cross, etc. I think it was a wise move.

Poor kid. I'd like to just get her not-even-four-year-old-psyche past the idea that the world will be destroyed at all!