And to think I thought I had nothing to write about

I logged onto the blog in order to access my blogroll and, horror of horrors, realised that my last post was 10 days ago.  Where does time go?  Actually, I didn't just flippantly ask that question; I really and truly thought, Where did the last 10 days go?  And the answer was the following:

1.  Of course, the ubiquitous chiropractic appointments which, by the way, are over until the new year. They have, thankfully, been extremely helpful.  Not only is my back much better but so is my (drumroll, please) FOOT!!!!!!!!!!  The untouchable foot really is connected to the leg bone which is connected to the hipbone which, in a miraculous chain of musculo-skeletal events, all work together so that when one is righted so is the other.
The overall effect?  I have been able to run again without pain. I do need to listen a bit more to my body and take the necessary precautions to prevent injury especially since my knee is now hurting...  Oh, ageing body, why do you fail me?  The running is truly a balm to the soul and I spend much of it saying, "Thank you, God!  Thank you, soooo much."
A funny side note is that one of these preventative-injury measures is walking backwards for 100 strides/day.  Much to Dave's and some of the children's chagrin, I choose to walk backwards outside for the last 100 metres of my run.  When I told Dave and Hannah this, they both said, "You do that outside?"  Jacob, on the other hand, found me walking backward one day and ran to meet me yelling, "Cool, Mom!  Can I guide you home?"  Dave should be thankful that the majority of my runs are in the early hours of the morning and no one is out to see me except for the three streetlights that I magically turn on and off each time I run underneath them...

2.  When I wasn't driving madly to and from Pembroke I was either at the kids' Christmas concert, Dave's Christmas party or entertaining guests at the house.  Dave told me that I have officially run him off his feet.  I was about to tell him the same.

3.  The Christmas concert was its usual display of the absence of the arts in the public school system.  The evening started with the teachers singing about waiting for Jesus while Dave managed to look all of 17 years old as he sang amidst his colleagues.  Isaac was absolutely overwhelmed by his father's stage career and kept yelling from the back of the hall, "Daddy!  Daddy!"  He later did the same for each of his siblings.  Sarah sat in her carseat looking quizzical and slightly circumspect:  Where have they brought me now?

Poor Jacob and Hannah had to rap about Christmas wrap while holding tubes of Christmas paper and dancing.  When not dancing with the tubes they had to hold them off to the side until the tube dancing started again.  Unfortunately Jacob chose to store his tube between his legs pointing straight out.  This caused me to pray frantically for the end of the song while Dave stared straight ahead and grimaced, "Just pretend not to notice!!"  Dear socially-unaware Jacob.

Joseph made his stage debut in, you guessed it, a shirt and tie.  He sang about the absence of his two front teeth which are, nevertheless, quite present.  His spotty school attendance reared its head as he spent most of the song with his hands thrust casually into his pockets while he either scanned the crowd for family members or stared at his classmates in an attempt to mimic the actions to the song.  He did look awfully cute, though.

Ben played St. Joseph with his best friend Cecelia as Mother Mary.   He remarked that this was their first appearance together on stage.  Perhaps they are planning a Vaudevillian career in the future.  The two saints were thrown in toward the end of the concert as a token mark of Catholicism.  I wasn't really sure what they had to do with the overarching theme of the concert but they served as a reminder that Jesus is the Reason for the Season.  In an interesting turn of events one of the dads in the school (a recent convert to evangelical Protestantism) also noted the lack of any Gospel message and decided to deliver his own on the steps of the church as the concert goers exited.  Complete with Gospel tracts.  Things are always interesting in Barry's Bay.  (Dear Kerr family, you missed a real good one this year.  Enjoy your classical Catholic school.)

4.  The Christmas party was enjoyable and provided me with a chance to dress up in something other than jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt.  Unfortunately I wore a dress that worked at home but didn't work when holding Sarah and trying to carry on a conversation with Dave's colleagues.  Most cocktail dresses are not designed to be worn while juggling a baby at a stand-up bar.  The coverage problem was quickly solved by the addition of a white swaddling blanket worn as a shawl.  The one downside was that the scarf was also adorned with bumblebees.  (Thank you, Theresa R.)  So much for my attempt at sophistication.   I did wear heels - even if they were borrowed.

5.  And the overarching theme of the past two weeks is that Isaac decided to toilet train.  I have never had a child who asked to potty train.  He really did just get up on the toilet and pee.  With each of the others I have always had to place them on the pot and wait ages until they finally peed and discovered that such bodily functions could actually be willed and thus controlled.  Isaac just got up and did it.  He does, however, demand applause which must be duly given if one wants to control his high-pitched screams, "Clap!!! Clap!!!"  And there goes the baby's nap...
The disadvantage of this toilet training is that I don't think that either Dave or I was ready for it.  Thus, we often forget to take his diaper off in the morning or we forget until too late that he needs to be brought to the bathroom.  This has resulted in a definite decrease in diaper use and a marked increase in laundry.  Oh well, we'll all get there one day.

6.  Oh wait, there is one more over-arching theme.  In a fit of exhaustion last Monday afternoon I sat six month old Sarah down for a talk.  I told her that I was sorry but I was going to have to let her cry it out that night as I had full confidence that she was able to sleep through the night without eating.  She looked at me sweetly and, with noticeable intelligence, smiled.  Apparently she is an extremely reasonable and highly intelligent child as she has slept through the night since last Monday without me having to lie awake listening to her cry even once.  Much like Isaac and the toilet, she just did it.  All I had to do was reason with her.  Who knew?  Let's hope my blog-mention of her sleeping doesn't throw the whole thing off.  In the not too distant past she has been known to read with full comprehension.

7.  And here we are in the last week before school.  We are looking forward to the break and, in a characteristic we-don't-know-how-take-a-break move, have decided to redo the boys bedroom over the Christmas holidays.   Right now they sleep in what amounts to a cold, but large, cell.  Is it no wonder that they beg nightly to sleep on the living room couch?  Thus, the addition of carpet and some nice paint might just be a corporal work of mercy.

The end.  For now.