Movie Mondays

I promised another Movie Monday; so, here goes. These are shots of our time at the Logging Museum a few weekends ago. I will not include any captions as they are pretty self-explanatory and the baby just hit his head and is crying. I will, however, note three things: Joseph really loves spitting into water; Joseph also has a very distinct walk (notice the practically immobile right arm); and Jacob is admonished in all four videos for good reason (do you now understand why I fear for his wellbeing?).

One more thing: I need to say that I taught today and had a friend babysit the four children. Wow, she was incredible!!!!! When I arrived home, the house was as neat as a pin, the dishwasher was unloaded, the floor swept, the table wiped and the kids were all in one piece and happy as clams. It was wonderful to arrive home and not have to spend the evening cleaning up the day. God bless this wonderful woman; may she be granted long life.

A Daily Dose

Every family has its routines. One of ours is the distribution of cod liver oil at breakfast. Each child receives a half teaspoon of this super food with a glass of water at breakfast. I introduced this routine about 2 years ago. Consequently, Joseph is the only child who has received cod liver oil almost from birth (3months). Instead of the recommended synthetic Vitamin D drops that all nursing babies are supposed to receive, Joseph has always had a daily dose of naturally-occurring-Vitamin-D-rich cod liver oil in which Vitamin D is both abundant, naturally occurring and able to function in conjunction with Vitamin A. However, the real point of this post is to prove that if a baby gets used to taking something early enough (even something that most people consider a little foul), he just might grow to love it. The proof is in the pudding or, in this case, the pictures: the minute Joseph sees the spoon coming, he drops his breakfast, opens his mouth wide and puts out his tongue. He even smiles after his dose - what a good boy.

Seven Quick Takes Friday

1. Dave is home from work today recovering from a head cold. Thus, I was able to take Jacob to the hospital this morning for a follow-up x-ray. The x-ray tech is the mother of Hannah's godmother and, ahem, we were allowed to see the x-ray images. Don't tell the doctor. I also saw the initial images of Jacob's arm and these ones didn't look too different. As our friendly x-ray tech said, "It was a bad break, Elena. Let's see what the radiologist has to say." Indeed.

2. Jacob is sitting next to me and, when I blog, he is only interested by two things: the title (pronounced tittle) and the spellcheck function. He now wants me to tell you that he was allowed to borrow three books from the hospital until next week (The Pixie Trick books). He has been waiting a week since his last check-up to finish reading where he left off. I just hope the books are not harbouring some nasty bug.

3. Because Dave is home, I am contemplating going somewhere by myself this afternoon. I just can't think of anywhere to go. And, no, I really don't want to go to the grocery store.

4. Benjamin is a denialist. If you ask him anything, he has to respond in the negative. For example, I was re-telling his birth story to someone the other day, when he piped up to say, "I not born, Mommy!" He is always very emphatic in his denials and often thrusts his finger into the air to bring home the point. He also denies his baptism quite frequently. Dave's mother said, "So, Benjamin, you're an atheist then?" I replied, "Forget the existence of God; this boy denies his own existence." Dave's mother also claims that this denialist trait is directly inherited from her husband.

5. Jacob just asked me what a dentalist is. He also just asked me to check the spelling.

6. The kids had soccer practice for the first time last night. Dave is helping coach the JK/SK kids. Poor Dave. His group consisted of Jacob and Hannah; two children who only spoke French (I provided translation but kept inserting Spanish verbs. No wonder the poor dears left before the end claiming that they needed to see Maman.); the remaining kids were all homeschooled and unused to following directions in a group. Overall, not much was achieved but I think that Dave is now grateful for teaching gr.7/8. Also, we checked with our doctor if Jacob could play soccer with his cast. Her reply was: "Just watch out that he doesn't hurt anyone."

7. I have resolved to only use Burt's Bees products for moisturising my hands. However, the hefty price tag has now given rise to a new resolution: to stop moisturising my hands.

Never Again

Joseph is 18 months old today. That means that he is half of Benjamin's age, 3 years (36 months); in turn, Benjamin is half of Jacob's and Hannah's ages: 6 years. I do believe that this half-birthday of sorts will never happen again. And I didn't even bake a cake. At least I have a picture of them in the back of a 1950s logging truck - what better way to celebrate.

Gerber's

For the few of you who wondered where Gerber's Nursery is: here's a slideshow. For my reader who is of the first cousin variety: Gerber's is on the Reserve in Golden Lake and, if you would like, we could take a little trip there this summer, hint, hint. Also, it's open year round; my mother-in-law goes there in February for a shot of colour. For the other reader who is of the maternal variety (I mean my own), apparently flights are $69 and that doesn't seem unreasonable for a trip to a first-rate garden centre...

Grey Days

It is raining in these parts. I actually don't mind the rain - it reminds me of home. In this case, home means Halifax which, I suppose, is no longer home. However, the place where one's parents reside and where most of one's growing-up years were spent is, in a sense, always home. So, when the rain comes, I actually feel a sort of relief come over me. In fact, I absolutely love to walk in the rain and have taught my children to do the same. My neighbour commented on our rainy walks the other day,
"I'm beginning to think that you only walk when it's raining."
"It reminds me of home. I like it."
"But maybe the kids don't."
Oh. Sorry. I think they do.
Nevertheless, a grey day can always do with some brightening. So, this morning, instead of Dave taking the van to work, we drove Daddy to school and took ourselves to Gerber's nursery. Gerber's is a little piece of heaven. I don't know of any "garden centre" like it. I put garden centre in quotes because Gerber's is more like stepping into a scene from the Sound of Music. It consists of a German style home surrounded by old barns, greenhouses, paths, and gardens, gardens and more gardens. This is not the Walmart garden centre. (For those of you familiar with the beauty and earthiness of Madonna House, Gerber's is a bit like the Lutheran version of MH.) The proprietress, an older German woman, whose accent is as thick as her eyes are kind, sits in one of the greenhouses potting plant after plant. When I commented that her home and grounds were like a piece of paradise, she took her hands out of the soil, looked at me and said with the knowledge and pain of many years, "Paradise is much better."
Until then, Gerber's will do.

Movie Mondays

As I write this, I am listening to a researcher on the radio talking about massage's effect on muscle recovery. So, he just mentioned something called "delayed muscle soreness". Yeah, so that's how my quads feel today. Someone else whose quads might be feeling the ache is Archbishop Andre DuRocher of Cornwall who, according to Archbishop Prendergast's blog, ran the 10K on Saturday as well. I couldn't resist checking Sports Stats (Dave's favourite website) to find out his time: 52 minutes and change. Pretty good. Funny to think that a bishop was running a few kilometres ahead of me. I wonder what he wore.
Anyway, onto other things. I have decided that Mondays will be Movie Mondays. We'll see how long this lasts; it might just be a ruse to let me post this clip which I found on Mumologic. How I wish I could dance. Ahhh, the human spirit.

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's a self portrait for my sister, Rebecca who asked for a picture of the new haircut. This is on a day where I just let it dry on its own to see what would happen. I don't know, Rebecca, but the older we get, the more we seem to look alike when we smile for self portraits - at least to me. When I first saw this shot, I thought that I was hoisting a beer up to the camera but it turns out that it's just the phone in the background.

And while we're at it, here's another new hairdo. Hannah was the stylist and Joseph was completely unaware.

And, what could this be about? The rest of the family is dining out on trans fats while Mommy sat off to the side with a nervous tummy and a computer chip tied to the laces of her shoes...

And there she is waiting for the start of the 10K. Note the Miraculous Medal around her neck - grace for running.

Shameless promotion of the Running Room or a shot of the computer chip? You decide.

A good shot of the new blue cast. I noticed that our deacon blessed it at Mass today: our deacon is also a doctor who once won Family Physician of the Year. I imagine that his eye is easily distracted by blue casts and other signs of injury.

OK, this shot is a total pose as it was taken on Sunday morning and I ran the race on Saturday night. But, Dave had to juggle all four kids in the downtown surrounded by 9000 + runners, spectators and supporters. Not to mention that Joe had napped for a whopping 40 minutes in the van and by the time that I approached the finishing line, Joe was also nearing the end of his race. Thus, Dave was somehow unable to manoeuvre the camera out of the backpack and into capturing-mommy-in-motion position. So, I put on my running gear again this morning and posed. By the way, I was too lazy to throw on socks for the picture - I am not one of those runners who runs without foot protection. Also, note the black mark just below my running number. As part of pre-registration, you can choose to have your name written on the race number so that people can cheer you on by name.

Well, here's a secret: I didn't register for the race - a man named Bill did. But, Bill couldn't run on account of heel spurs; so last Monday, after my first longer run of the season, his daughter asked me if I wanted his race kit. For some odd reason I took her up on the offer. Therefore, my race number said Bill. Dave told me to relax because no one would notice. However, my eyes seemed inextricably drawn to everybody else's names and I hadn't yet found a man or woman with a name of the opposite sex on their bib. So, at Wendy's I asked for a marker and the cashier gave me a red one. I crossed out Bill and Dave told me that I had effectively highlighted my "name". Hmmmm.

Dave, the kids and I parted ways and I walked to the race start trying to shield my moniker. No word of a lie: I began to wonder if people might suspect me of running for transgendered rights so I accosted a man and woman at their car and asked for a pen. Turns out she had the biggest perma-black marker that I had ever seen and she even did the crossing out for me. I thanked her and she replied, "No problem, Bill." I am not joking.
I made it over to the starting corral which was so packed with people that it could have easily induced a panic attack and waited for the start. As I stood in this haze of humanity, I noticed that almost every woman around me had some sort of tattoo. The best by far was a young woman in front of me who had a bar of music with a treble clef marked on the back of her neck. The exceptional nature of this tattoo was that the treble clef was backward: I even traced one in the air to be sure. I wonder is she knew; or had she thanked her tattoo artist and walked confidently out of the ink shop after viewing her tattoo in the MIRROR? Poor girl.

Anyway, the last time I ran this race was 4 years ago when I had only two children. I told myself that this run better be an improvement on the last in which I had stopped several times. After all, I had now successfully delivered two more children without the aid of drugs so I had better be able to run 10 K without stopping. I did it. I sure had times when I wanted to stop, but a combination of three Rosaries, one chaplet of Divine Mercy and Dave's voice in my head got me through. I think that my Guardian Angel also played an integral role. The kicker was Dave and the kids camped out at the 9 km mark yelling, "Go, Elena!" That was enough to put some spring into my step and I crossed the finish line in ...

OK, wait, I am slow and my goal was to stick with the 65 minute pace bunny which I did for most of the race. At times, I was actually ahead of my bunny but something happened at the 7 km mark. Something is a combination of a water station, a bunny that didn't stop for said water, a traffic jam caused by 9000 runners (it is impossible to politely pass a person plugged into an IPod or run through someone who stops dead in your path) and legs that were desperately trying to tell me that the last time they had run 10 K was, well, 4 years ago. Hey lady, what exactly do you think you're doing to us?

So, I made it across in 68 minutes which could be a recipe for disappointment but I'm not. I am actually very happy and motivated for more. The kids were victorious in my finisher's medal. They had hoped for the $100,000 pot that would have come our way if I had broken the course record. No joke, they really thought that I would win the whole thing! What faith they have in their mother. But, we all went home happy, if not tired, and ready for more. Life sure is fun.

Up Close at the Logging Museum

Grace upon Grace

When Hannah Grace was baptised six years ago we made a late and, at the time, humourous discovery: Hannah means grace and thus her name was a bit of a redundancy. However, Jacob's godmother quickly reminded us of the line from the Gospel of John where we are told that we will receive grace upon grace. And grace upon grace is the very essence of our little girl. We laughingly refer to her as our civilizing factor but she is far more than that: a rose among thorns; a second mother; a little girl of surprising intuition; and the possessor of a wicked sense of humour. We visited the Logging Museum at Algonquin Park on Monday and my picture taking soon became a log of Hannah's care for her youngest brother who looks to her for guidance, care and comfort. As you will see, she comes through. A frequent mode of transportation.

Yes, he did try climbing up the roof.

Another rescue.

Note the hand on the shoulder. His sweatshirt is firmly in her grasp.

Back in line.

He is in her arms as they enter the sleeping quarters.

And who else would help him look out the window?

Or keep him from jumping overboard?

A little tired? Jump on board. She may be small, but she's mighty.

And even when he's not on her back, in her arms or firmly in her grasp, he still likes to be around her. Who wouldn't?

It was inevitable

When one's approach to life is so reckless, I mean, carefree, there are certain repercussions that are inevitable.

I do expect that a good portion of our family life will be spent in emergency rooms. This mishap was the result of a quick stop at friends to deliver a goodwill meal. Unfortunately, while Mommy was on a mission of mercy, oldest son was on a mission of destruction. As with most accidents, it happened in the blink of an eye. Jacob climbed up to the family's rope swing and successfully navigated a few arcs through the air. Sensing danger, his mother sternly ordered him off the apparatus only to be encountered by the selective hearing mode. However, sudden deafness was his undoing and his hands slipped off the just-one-more-time swing and he came somersaulting and crashing to the ground. He struggled to his feet with tears and a right arm resting in a left hand. He was trying desperately to keep the tears in check as the other family was quickly gathering; his bravado showed up just in time. In fact, he was so brave that we thought perhaps, just perhaps, his arm might not be broken.

But, then I saw it; and now I know why sometimes a broken bone is undeniable - it just looks broken, kind of weird and sort of not right. We were 20 minutes from the hospital so we booted it back to the Bay, dropped Dad and the rest of the lot back at home, grabbed the trusty sleepy blanket and headed to the hospital. Luckily the break was such that a trip to the city was not necessary and the doctor was able to set it and cast it at our local unit. Thank God.

I was really quite in awe of Jacob's spirit throughout the whole ordeal as he continued to engage the x-ray tech and various nurses in somewhat stimulating conversation. I was also able to enjoy my alone time with Jacob and ask him what he would like to be when he grows up. He provided me with a list and I asked for the reasons behind each answer. For your enjoyment, here's the list. Oh, and one more thing, he's a little embarrassed about his latest debacle and continually asked the hospital personnel not to spread the news. The doctor replied that his cast would do the talking and Jacob covered his eyes in mortification. In fact, at mass yesterday when he approached the priest for his blessing at Communion, he attempted to cross his chest with just one arm to indicate that he is too young to receive the Host. The priest looked slightly confused and Jacob reluctantly swung the cast into position, received his blessing and quickly retreated to his pew. And, lest you think that his cast has somehow bridled his spirit, think again: we caught him last night scaling our 7-foot fence and throwing himself over into the yard in an attempt to get home before his sister. Cast and all. I am putting in a petition today for a second guardian angel. Oh, yes, here's the list.

1. Priest: In order to serve God.

2. Grocery Store owner: To be rich and give money to the poor (and, maybe, free groceries to Mommy???).

3. Ambulance driver: To bring people to the hospital.

And, last but not least,

4. Ice cream maker: "Well," with a glint in his eye, "Giggle, giggle." (Glad to see your still just a little boy.)

And, one more thing, he knows about this post but, please, don't spread the news...

T-Dog

Guess who I just found in the blogosphere? Well, actually my mom sent me the link. But, I know that many of my readers are avid fans of this man; and, in many cases, more than fans - friends. I am so thankful for this man and will add his blog to my list.
www.archbishopterry.blogspot.com

Mamma Mia

I've already posted about my liturgical tardiness and here I am at it again: we're 10 days into May and I'm just now acknowledging the Month of Mary. But, hey, I think I only just realised that it's no longer April. I found this clip through another blog and I totally want to go out and buy us all white t-shirts and highlighters. Check the highlighters - we're swimming in those. Should I do it?

Benjamin's Three

In the lead up to Benjamin's birthday we had a couple of wonderful visits from his incredible godfather. Said godparent is always up for lots of play and Ben took full advantage of his spiritual pater (as did the rest of the children).

One of the best parts of Fr. G's visits is his vehicle of choice. Here are godfather and godson on their green bikes.

Benjamin turned three on Saturday. I am a little behind on the blogging and a Mother's Day should appear sometime this week. Here he is awaiting his presents. He has been reading a Thomas birthday book lately in which Thomas get presents, balloons and silly hats. Thus, when we asked our preschooler what he would like for his celebration, he replied, "Pesents, baalloons and tilly hats."

These animals are from a plush Noah's Ark that I ordered from a teacher supply company that was on display at Jacob's and Hannah's school. Jacob's and Hannah's eyes grew wide with envy when Ben opened this gift, and they spent the rest of the day courting Benjamin in an effort to play with the animals. As you can see, Ben was quite proprietorial.

And here are the animals and some Thomas trains in his new bucket.

Here he is in his birthday finery all the way from Halifax. As always, he prefers to wear his clothing in reverse. Also, he has officially adopted a camera smile - interesting.

This must be one of the "tilly hats". Don't worry, Dad we only have one real Tilley hat and its wearer is not related to you by blood.

Ben receiving birthday wishes from his Grandma Julie. And, yes, I think that Jacob is lying on Hannah in the background.

Enjoy the videos but please ignore my horrible-way-too-much-body hairdo. And, before you ask, that is a McCain's Deep &Delicious cake - I know how to cut corners when necessary.

Extra, Extra

A new reader popped up from North Carolina and left a comment on "The Week in Pictures". Who knows if she will return; but, she left a suggestion for a new title and I have decided to take her up on it. In her words, what better inspiration than G.K Chesterton? - perhaps one of the finest Catholic minds of the century.
As a result, welcome to "Swimming Upstream". As Dave said, "I guess we had better stay alive then." Here's to life and swimming the 'wrong' way.

Sand Hill

So, the huge pile of sand is from a building site a few doors down from us. The various diggers and cement trucks provided much amusement for the kids during the few days that they were around. However, it was the remaining sand pile that proved the biggest hit. Looking rather Olympic.

Ben (yes, pants are backwards again) determined to scale the mountain that his siblings had already summited.

The third, but no less glorious, summit.

And coming down, after all, is the only reason that a kid would scale a hill of sand in the first place.

The indomitable Joseph who won't be left behind. (This is as far as he made it.)

One more time because, I think, it might just be the best picture that I have ever taken. This will be saved for his wedding, first vows, ordination or whatever the future holds... perhaps the air force or Cirque de Soleil (I'm not so sure about the makeup though).

Ben's a bit more conservative in his descent.

And this begins the first of a series of photos in which I tried desperately to get a shot equal to the last of both Hannah and Jacob.

Number 2

This one really didn't work.

Almost, but not the right angle.

We're getting there.

I'm not quite sure from where he gets this no-fear approach to life. Hannah had to pause for a wardrobe adjustment.

This was the best I could do. An awful lot of cars were beginning to slow and I did fear being reprimanded. Down from the mountain and into the garage where the kids stripped their clothes of sand and then landed below.

A little blurry but it will do.