The Mark of my Faith

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday when Catholics attend Mass and receive ashes on their forehead.

These ashes are applied in the sign of the cross with the words 'Remember you are dust, and unto dust you shall return.'

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, a period that is meant to echo Christ's forty days in the desert. A time when we are called to make sacrifices designed to sharpen our focus on Christ's sacrifice for us, and on how we should live our lives in His light.

At least, this is my basic or simplified understanding of Lent - and it is one that I've followed with varying degrees of success or failure (mostly the latter I'm ashamed to say) over the years.

Jay and I received our ashes at Mass yesterday morning while Miss E was at school. We turned up to collect her a little while later and a few steps in the gate of the school I felt the stares, and one mother came right up to me and said 'I have to tell you, you have grease all over your forehead, did you know?'

I instantly felt bad - I felt bad for her that she was trying to be nice and was telling me in case I didn't know, that my face was 'dirty' - but I also felt incredibly awkward in having to explain that it was not grease.

The penny dropped quickly for this mom and she said 'oh yeah, it's Ash Wednesday' then her next question 'Aren't you supposed to wash that off?' And I briefly answered, 'no - part of the point of having the ashes is to wear them all day as a mark of faith'

This happened me last year also, albeit that it was with someone a little more rude.

These experiences bring a multitude of questions for me. Clearly, many people are not aware that ashes are part of the Ash Wednesday ritual for some and this strikes me as odd initially - since I come from an area where the population is pretty much 50% Catholic and 50% non-Catholic - but the non-Catholic population by and large is aware that Catholics receive ashes on Ash Wednesday and so it's not that big of a deal and rarely elicits comments, at least in my experience.

Deeper than this though are the questions these experiences raise about my Catholic faith and how uncomfortable it makes me to have to defend it or explain it - and then I wonder if my discomfort comes from the fact that I don't feel 100% confident in explaining it correctly - and at 36 and a lifelong Catholic, shouldn't I be confident?

Part of my reticence to discuss my faith comes I'm sure from a bad experience after Miss E was born from an Evangelical Christian who pretty much told me Catholicism was wrong, that it was not a true Christian faith and that I was wrong to have Miss E baptised a Catholic. This is a person who loves God, and does on the whole embody what it means to be a Christian - but she refuses to see that we agree on so, so many areas - we are both followers of Christ, the only difference is that I choose to be so within the 'family' of the Catholic Church.

Maybe it's because 'Religion' is one of those taboo topics, like politics, many people don't like to discuss their faith - or hear of someone else's, and so the general trend is to keep mum, and brush it all under the carpet as something personal and private.

But isn't this absolutely contra to the message that Christ give us - to spread the Good News?

I know the answer to this question - yet I am somewhat uncomfortable in discussing my Christian faith in general, or my Catholic faith in particular with people. So does this mean I don't have the strength of faith I thought I had? Maybe - and I'm pretty sure this needs a little work on my part.

Part of what comes as being a life long Catholic is that you fall into a pattern of attending Mass each week, on holidays and holy days - because, that's what you do. But, how much of that time is spent truly absorbing the word of God, and applying that to our lives, families, passing it on to our kids? Like I said, I have work to do.

My parish has a number of Lenten programs running where parishioners have the opportunity to discuss and inquire about our Catholic faith. The fact that these exist reassures me that I may not be alone in feeling this way.

I expect this post will go the same way as my only post on politics - I'll hear cricket's chirping for days! However, please do share what helps you share your faith, if you're happy to do so.

Adventures in Sleep Training

We have reached a major milestone! Miss E, my first born, my daughter of four years and four months, is sleeping through the night!

Quite an accomplishment. It only took her just about four years longer than her peers to do. But hey - that’s my Miss E all over - does things her own way, and in her own time.

I shouldn’t really claim that she’s sleeping all the way through the night. She isn’t quite, but the advances we’ve seen at night are close enough and the quality of my sleep has improved so much she might as well be sleeping all the way through.

Miss E has always been a lousy sleeper. She woke frequently at night as an infant and I, like every mother, instinctively got up, fed her, and settled her back to sleep. As she got older - she still woke frequently, and I did find myself asking ‘shouldn’t this baby be sleeping through the night by now?’ Being a breastfed baby was always the reason offered as to why she wasn’t. None of my friends had nursed their babies and their formula fed babies were in blissful slumber while my lassie was up for milk and shenanigans several times a night. I accepted this as the consequence of my choice to exclusively breastfeed and I was happy enough with that assuming that eventually she’d get it and sleep all night.

A first time mother - I knew no better. Having what we knew very early on was a ‘demanding’ child - I should have known better.

We let a habit develop into her toddler years, and into the preschool stage where Miss E was up several times a night. Looking for a drink, not wanting to be on her own, claiming fear of the dark.

Miss E started scaling her crib and managed to get out at 18 months - after a few successful but fraught with danger escape attempts, we transferred her to a 'big girl's bed' shortly afterwards.

A beautiful big girl's bed - but not enticing enough it seemed to keep our girl in there all night.

Nightlights, background noise, leaving the door open - we tried it all - nothing worked and every.single.night Miss E landed in our bed.

Too tired to face a battle of wills in the dead of night - we allowed her in thinking she needed the reassurance and sure, what harm was it doing?

The bigger Miss E got, the less room we all had. Regularly she would bring some of her friends in with her!

The more she kicked and lashed out in discomfort - the harder it was for either of her parents to get anything resembling a decent night’s sleep.

Meanwhile, her brother two years her junior - also exclusively breastfed was sleeping all the way through the night - 12 hours straight since he was about 6 or 7 months old - so that blew our original excuses out of the water!

Knowing that Miss E was in this bad habit didn’t make it any easier to break it.

We started off with a two part plan. I should explain that connected to this lousy sleep habit was the fact that actually going to bed was a huge battle as well. Our plan was that we’d deal with the going to bed part first - and tackle the night wakings (and wanderings) later. About nine months ago we got all Supernanny on Miss E and enforced a strict bedtime, a strict bedtime routine and after about 5 nights of prolonged screaming - we were dealing with a child who was settling herself off to sleep with minimal fuss by 7:30 each night! With a few blips following our trip to Ireland, and around Christmas time where we seemed to regress - she has been doing great - and is off to bed with nothing more than the normal stalling tactics that every kid pulls - nothing we can’t manage and settle within a few minutes.

The second part of the plan? The victim of procrastination. And laziness. Who wants to have a fight with their kid in the middle of the night? When it literally stings your eyes to open them and handle a disgruntled child, apt to burst into a flailing tempest of indignation at any attempt we might make to settle her back in her own bed.

My kid is 42 inches long, and 42lbs. We have a queen sized bed. Arms and legs flung in the dark of night landing square in your guts will motivate like nothing else I’ve known. Enough was enough - and into her own bed she was going whether she liked it or not.

Thinking back to my experience of potty training her - I was pretty sure if I could find the right motivator - reward, heck call it what it is - BRIBE - I’d probably get her to stay in her own bed. The carrot and stick approach has worked for us before - I just had to figure out what to use this time.

Our city has just opened a fabulous new park. A real testament to the power of mothers - this park is the realization of a dream of two local mothers with special needs kids who felt there weren’t enough areas where able bodied and physically challenged kids could play alongside each other. This park is like nothing I’ve ever seen. The equipment and layout so perfectly designed - it’s every kid’s dream come true.

Miss E, Jay and I had a short visit to this park and Miss E was absolutely DYING to get back. I had my carrot - and struck a deal with Miss E that if she could show me that she could stay all night in her own bed - we’d take her back to the park.

Miss E, shockingly, immediately accepted this deal and knew that when we had seven ticks (check marks) on the calendar - that we’d be going to the park the next day.
Worked like a charm!

She did continue to wake up during the night - and she did protest being put back in her bed - but much less than we had expected. She knew her access to that cool park was completely dependent on her staying put.

We started this in the middle of January - and touch wood - it’s going REALLY well! Miss E still wakes up at least once a night - and comes to our room - but one of us escorts her right back to her bed, tucks her in and she (and we) get to go straight back to sleep.

To any of you reading this post that might be thinking ‘duh, you should have done this when she was a baby’, I agree - we should have. Who knows why we avoid what is patently obvious - sometimes it takes us a bit longer to ‘get’ what other parents have been doing all along. Maybe we’re just masochists - we have to learn things the hard way!

To those of you reading that might have a toddler or a preschooler with the bad habits Miss E had - I say grab the bull by the horns and do what you have to do to sleep train them. Your child will sleep better, and so will you!

I have no doubt that better sleep is what’s helping me lift my mood lately.

If you’ve successfully sleep trained a child - share your tips here - who knows, sharing a success story here or there could help another exhausted parent!