YAY! The weekend is ending!

I won't post on our whole weekend hubby said it so much better than I could. I don't end up sounding like a supportive spouse, but truth be told, for much of the time I wasn't. Nor was I a very nice Mommy. When Rob's out of commission the stress of doing everything gets on me, especially because generally the work has been piling up for days as Rob's tried desperately to keep his back from going completely nuts by resting as much as possible. Some kids have this switch in their brain that says, "Try harder to be good, Mommy and Daddy need it." We got the other models, the ones that are more likely to say no and get bad attitudes when they sense something is wrong.

Today was better, though. The workload was reasonable, and I could spend a bit of time reading and just being with the kids. Conor, as per usual, wanted to "pay nung-nucks" (play cars and trucks) on the road mat he got for Christmas, so we did. I'd drive a car onto the road, and Conor would instantaneously drive his car over, stop grill to grill, and say, "Hewwo, Nung-nuck!" Then I would say, "Hello, how are you?" and he would say, "Get gas?" and I would say, "Sure" and we'd drive both our cars over to the gas station. This scenario was repeated well over a dozen times, except when I'd surprise him with a helicopter coming in for a landing, in which case his car would suddenly develop the ability to fly, and he'd fly up grill to nose and say, "Hewwo, Copta!" and after that it was pretty much par for the course.

Weekend

Very stressed out weekend. I am dealing with a difficult person and the situation has occupied way too much of my head this weekend. I was also the on-call worker and had more activity on the pager than is usual, including having to attend a crisis situation at which police were involved.

When not thinking about how to handle above situation, I kept thinking about what I could do to not have my mind filled with this the whole weekend. Even Ashlin said to me, "Mommy, why do you have that look on your face?" when I was deep in thought. But then what else is to be expected when dealing with an unfamiliar situation that is causing a lot of tension? Sometimes it requires a lot of thought time, and thoughts don't easily get pushed out the door.

But there were bright moments, too. Conor, at all of 2, is showing empathy. This morning he said he didn't want to hug me. I got a exaggerated pouty look on my face and said that I was sad because I liked my Conor-hugs. He examined me closely, then threw off his towel, stretched his arms wide and threw them around me with a huge smile. Then he leaned back and looked at me. "Kay?" he said. "Yes, I'm okay!" I replied. Later on, when Ashlin was tantruming and I held her, he looked very concerned and I explained Ashlin was upset and we were going to help her. He toddled out of the room, brought back his teddy-bear blanket and put it over her, then took the blanket and started wiping tears off her face.

Bodily connections

One of the things I appreciated about the church I grew up in was although it was categorically Mennonite, it was not uber-mennonite, if you know what I mean. Someone asked me lately about pacifism amongst Mennonites and I had to confess it had never been something I studied much or heard much about. The church I grew up in identified more strongly with the Evangelical movement as a whole than just the Mennonite faith, and I had a sstrong sense of connection beyond the followers of Menno Simons.

That was something I missed at one church I attended for a few years. Not a Mennonite church, it was classified as non-denominational, but it's identification and connections (e.g. the people it got in as speakers) were from a very narrow section of the Church universal. Although I found the scope of connection a bit broader at my next church, generally connection focused within the denomination, although it was a fairly large denomination with a lot of different flavours.

From the emerging church movement I hear people saying: the church is about more than my local body, more than my denomination, more than a slice of other people and bodies whose theology approximates mine. The church is about all who see Christ as their Lord. It's a much wider brush stroke than I've ever seen before. And it seems right to me, as Jesus called for unity in his followers, and church in the NT is generally thought of not as a local gathering but as all of Christ's followers.

I realized today that it is oen thing that now makes me more trustful or more wary of local bodies, movements, or even people. How wide is the sphere of influence? Do they primarily call on speakers, read books and attend events that are from a very small part of the body of Christ? Or is there some sense of connection with the Church Universal?

What to do about sick kids

I read today's Baby Blue's comic (if you access the link after today, bring up Jan. 7 comic)
The kids always come to me first in the middle of the night, too.
I never thought of that, though...

Le Miserables

The woogy sense of thinking and the slight scratchiness in my throat have finally come to the forefront. I am officially sick and have taken the afternoon off. In my 20s I used to go entire years without taking a sick day. There is still a little part of me that says, If you can sit up, you should be at your desk. But I also don't want to infect everybody else at the office, both for their sake and because if they end up sick I may have to teach their classes.

So I'm on the couch, in a blanket, with nothing to read. I just finished Donald Miller's Searching for God Knows What. which I really enjoyed but please don't ask me to tell you what was in it because at the moment I don't remember - woogy, you know.

A date

Tonight Robbie and I had a real, honest to goodness dinner out at the Olive Garden. We struggled for conversation that didn't focus on only 2 subjects (work and kids) but after awhile we got the hang of it. Then we went to Blessings Christian Marketplace and made fun of half the books (Who the **** actually READS the Left Behind Series and can we line them all up so I can easily slap them one by one?). Then we went to a furniture store and critiqued the use of MDF in all the furniture. It was fun.

Post-holidays

Nothing deeply philisophical in this post. I'm just feeling especially satisfied today with life. That's nice. All that stuff I've heard over the years about choosing to be happy is slowly starting to make sense.

We had a good Christmas. We need an extra wing on our house for all the new toys, but no matter. I appreciated Christmas for what it is, no huge expectations, but treating it like a special day, and I wasn't disappointed.

We had fun with the kids over Sunday and Monday. Rob shovelled the snow into a huge hill in the back yard. By hand. I both love him for it and think he was crazy to do it. It's taller than he is. The kids go down it by sled and end up hitting the house. FYI - the sled that goes the furthest is the utility sled, designed for doing stuff like hauling wood.

Taryn turned 7. Conor's talking is becoming conversation - it is so cool. Ashlin is in a time of strong attachment behaviours, and I can welcome that.

Work is okay. I'm getting the hang of supervision, the balance of looking to myself to create an environment that serves staff and clients well while at the same time, and this is important, realizing that others have their crap and they've got to deal with it. I'm not going to own someone else's issues. And that is a growing point.

Update

Hi Everybody. And...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

I sent out an annual update on our family. If you did not receive it and would like to, please email me (address at right) and let me know.