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!

Just because...

I'm not sure if this is the norm in every household, or if I'm particularly slack in the photo department, but I do have to confess that I have fewer photos of Jay, than I do of his sister at the same age.

I don't really have a good excuse other than when we're heading off somewhere, sadly the camera is the last thing I think to pack.

Thankfully, I know other, more organized moms, one of whom we met at the park on Friday for a play date.

She took these pictures of Jay enjoying his cupcake while his sister and her pals played on the slides.

I'm sharing them here along with the resolution, (it's that time of year after all), that I will be taking many more photos of my little man. So be prepared to be inundated with all his handsomeness!

Happy Christmas!

I know most people here say 'Merry Christmas' - but I'm sticking with 'Happy' - as it's what we've always said.

So, Happy Christmas from all of us, to all of you!

"Busy but Benign"

That's what the surgeon said to me yesterday!

I have no breast cancer, and nothing to worry about!

He told me that I have Fibrocystic Breast Disease and the pathology findings were consistent with that condition.

The calcification they removed is benign.

You have NO idea the huge relief this is for me - aside from the obvious.

On Wednesday, I got a phone call from the Radiologist who did the biopsy procedure. Her information was slightly different.

She told me the calc was benign, but they found another area of 'disorganized cells' which in 30%-40% of times becomes 'something bad'. She also said it wouldn't show up on a mammogram until it was 'really bad'. Her recommendation was that I go ahead and have a surgeon do an excisional biopsy.

You can imagine what that did for the old stress-o-meter!

I went to my surgeon's appointment then waiting for him to tell me all of this too. He simply read the report through with me and told me I was in the clear!

I told him what the Radiologist had discussed with me - and he again went through the report telling me it said nothing about disorganized cells, no evidence of atypia at all - just healthy, albeit lumpy, tissue! And, under no circumstances did I need an excisional biopsy. He was quite irritated that I'd been told otherwise.

This surgeon is a very nice, very no-nonsense kind of guy. I trust him 100% - and happily take his diagnosis!

So a weight off my mind to be sure.

Now if I could just get my little man a clean bill of health we'd be good.

We were back with Jay at the doc's today - fifth time in 3 weeks. I think I'm due my own parking space there at this point!

Poor little mite after three weeks in which he's had croup, pneumonia, croup again, congestion and a bad cough (which I was paranoid was a pneumonia relapse) - now has an ear infection!

Please, please let this be the end of it!

Mean is Mean is Mean!

Driving towards school the other morning I got rather irate at an elderly driver in front of me.

Ever mindful that I have two little parrots kids in the back I try to keep my verbal abuse of other road users to an absolute minimum.

Understand though that we are in mid December - the season of Snowbirds. So my patience is tried on a much more regular basis than it would be say from April through October.

If you are a Snowbird reading this, or your parents or grandparents come fly south to Florida for the winter - let me give a friendly suggestion. Advanced driving courses, a map of the local area, or at the very least, the absolute minimum - a quick scan over your vehicle's owner's manual to reacquaint yourself with the turn signal - just sayin'.

Anyway - this other morning I was particularly frustrated at the slow egress through a left hand turn (with lights LONG in his favour) of an elderly driver in front of me.

Trying to keep Miss E from understanding what I am saying at these times - I generally revert to a rather exaggerated version of my local accent - Norn Iron Spake as it is known. I uttered the words

'G'on ye bye yeh'

in order to will the driver in front to discover the gas pedal and apply it accordingly.

Immediately Miss E pipes up from the back 'Mommy, why are you being so mean to that man?'

Apparently mean is just mean, whatever the dialect.

Suitably admonished I now try to keep my dislike for others' driving habits in check. My tongue and inner cheek are suffering terribly though!

No Answers Yet

Once again - very kind readers have been asking for updates on this ongoing biopsy saga. Thank you so much for thinking of me, and taking the time to email me.

I had the biopsy done last Wednesday. Not one of the most fun experiences of my life that's for sure!

The calcification they were after was very far in, right at my chest wall. And, it was very tiny. For these reasons - it wasn't so easy for them to get, and it took three attempts before they were successful.

Add to this that the local anesthetic didn't work and I wasn't numb when they started everything - ugh!

Anyway - a few more shots of lidocaine I was comfortable enough for them to continue. They got what they needed and I expect the results sometime during the week. I have a follow up appointment with the surgeon on Thursday - all I can do in the meantime is pray that the results are benign.

I do look like someone who had a boob job though - but could only afford half a boob job. The swelling is taking a little longer than I expected to go down.

I haven't had much time to blog, or read blogs for that matter in the last couple of weeks and this is part of the reason I haven't been posting updates.

My two year old, has been keeping me on my toes again. Two weeks ago he woke at 6:30am with that tell tale barking cough. Croup. Again.

He was given steroids at the doctor's office that morning -and the barking went away in a couple of days - but he did have a persistent cough for the rest of that week.

By the following Saturday (last weekend) we were back at the doc's office with a very high fever, coughing and a very unwell baby. We had to go to the ER for a chest xray, and lo and behold, pneumonia had settled in. IV fluids and antibiotic at the ER kick started his recovery and he was thankfully a different child by the next day. He's still taking antibiotic for the pneumonia - but his follow up appointment on Monday was good, and the doctor was very pleased with his progress.

Fast forward to this weekend, after a week of almost running at 100% - my boy gets another fever on Friday evening, and wakes up yesterday with the croupy cough again. He is also very heavily congested - so it looks like we're dealing with another viral respiratory infection.

I haven't decided yet if I'll be taking him in tomorrow to the doctor. He's eating and drinking fine, and his breathing is good - he just sounds like a seal when he coughs! So he'll be getting adhoc steamy bathroom visits for the rest of the day - and his humidifier is doing overtime in his room, too. After that we'll play it by ear.

Just that time of year I guess when these kids get slammed with abrupt changes in the weather, and germs. Lots of germs!

We're doing our best to get ready for Christmas. We have a rather anorexic looking Christmas tree - a pre-lit job I bought at Target in the sales after Christmas last year. I hate it. Plus, a whole section of lights at the bottom keeps flicking on and off. How come these things look great in the store, and look crap in your house? I haven't altogether abandoned the idea of dumping it and going back to a real tree - but we'll see.

We were supposed to have my Parents in Law for Christmas, but sadly they can't come now since my Father In Law suffered a heart attack last weekend, and is still in hospital. His Consultant (Cardiologist) has said 'NO WAY' to the prospect of him flying to Florida anytime soon. In light of his troubles, a Charlie Brown-esque Christmas Tree doesn't seem that much of an issue really.

So medical drama simmers on - I don't mind telling you though - I'm ready for it to be over!

I'll post when I get the result of the biopsy - and would love you all to say a prayer like me that it's the result I want.