accounting

goodnight, may.

this is us at the end of may 2017. curious to see where june will take us.

turbobooster

just as a side note, we're noticing the kids are taking a real interest in eating vegetables and fruit. the boy has developed a taste for garlic; tonight, he scarfed down not only sauteed mushrooms but both he and his sister ate cucumbers like nobody's business. (this, on top of them discovering orange slices over the weekend.)

lil angler

the boy graduated saturday from a child car seat to a booster seat that uses a real seatbelt. and this weekend, at their lolo and lola's lakehouse, he and his sister may have finally mastered the art of the fishing cast. i might have to bait real hooks the next time we head over.

(the kids also got their first real drive-in visit this weekend: they had hot dogs, french fries and chocolate milkshakes. daddy had a cheeseburger, onion rings and a vanilla milkshake. they both gave their meals a thumbs up.)

the girl actually graduated from preschool last week, which means kindgarten, here she comes. the boy read two "captain underpants" books, starting and finishing his second in one day. hoping he and his sister become avid readers.

(he's nearing the end of his two-month, no-tv punishment, btw. mama, however, now has to follow through on her latest threat — throwing away his legos for putting a piece in his mouth after multiple warnings. that's a few hundred dollars invested; i have suggested giving them away. i suspect she's going to have to walk that one back after an appropriate playtime embargo.)

last day of school

still waiting for word on a permanent gig. grateful for the tremendous blessing that my temporary job has provided after nearly a year. wondering now when i'm going learn to let go and put all my trust in the Lord.

speaking of which, we did our best, in this month of our blessed mother, to say a morning and evening angelus. by this evening, the kids have done well to able to recite the final prayer on their own. (we even got through a decade of the rosary right around easter; hopefully, this helps make prayer a part of their regular life.)

y'know, while this seems to be an eventful month, i'm going to say i just happen to remember this month's events because it seems the milestones are coming and going faster and faster. the skids are definitely greased. i have to trust that this time next year, we'll look back at this time and laugh — maybe a little nervously, but laugh nonetheless.

p.s. — this month marks year 10 of regularly keeping a blog. here's the first one from may 2007. my, how times have changed.)

loosey goosey

the boy told his mom yesterday that he's got a loose tooth — and the reactions to the discovery couldn't have been any more different.

about an hour earlier, he and i were driving to summer tennis camp sign-ups when he remarked that his tooth hurt. i asked him what made it happen; when he would bite down hard, he replied.

"oh, bubbie," i said. "i bet your tooth is getting loose." as apparently the last guy in his class to start losing his teeth, he seemed excited at the prospect. i figured he'd leave it at that.

next thing i knew as i merged onto the interstate, he joyously and giddily announced, "dad! it is loose! my tooth is loose!"

i had no idea that he'd be so thrilled at the prospect.

i went on to warn him that it would come out on its own and that he didn't need to mess with it. once again, i thought the topic was closed, although i'd have to admonish him both to and from the courts to take his hands out of his mouth.

i didn't realized until he rushed to the house once we got home that this was a really big deal to him. by the time i got inside, his mama was bent over, turning on a lamp to get a better view.

teething, 2010

her reaction was about as unexpected as his was, but from the opposite end of the continuum. she was, as she put it, "verklempt," at a loss and taken aback at her baby's turning a corner to growing up.

to be honest, i hadn't grasped the significance until i saw the wind taken out of her sails at his news. (she's always had a better roadmap to big milestones than i did.)

but, yeah, it dawns on me yet again, that doors to their childhood are closing behind us and as maddening as these days can be, we'll miss them soon enough.

water babies

girls picnic lunch

kids last week asked to take a bath together, like they used to. (they've been taking showers on their own for quite a while now.) mommy had to tell them that the time for that had passed. 

i was driving the boy to soccer practice a couple of weeks ago and apropos of nothing, he said sometimes he missed being a little kid. 

while he didn't articulate it as such, i think he was daunted by the future and expectations and was already wistful for not having cares. 

kris sent me a pic from danner meadow this week where she and the baby were having an impromptu picnic. i told her to kiss the baby for daddy, as i'd told her so many times before. but i knew as i wrote that she's not a baby any more. 

nope; we've got children — and they're growing up before our very eyes. 

morn

sometimes all you need to stave off the despair creeping in is a little prayer and a decent night's sleep. thank you, Lord. 

moms

brunch

thank the Lord for them.

geared up

ready as we're gonna be. God be with us. 

3 may

gospel

as feast days go, this one's kind of an ouchie.

on the other hand, got a different call from the 540 today, too, so maybe it was a special gift from my patron.

i swear, though, this feels like a room-sized russian nesting doll of a gift box. i just hope i have the patience to get to the last one.

the worker

St. Joseph has two feast days on the liturgical calendar. The first is March 19—Joseph, the Husband of Mary. The second is May 1—Joseph, the Worker. “Saint Joseph is a man of great spirit. He is great in faith, not because he speaks his own words, but above all because he listens to the words of the Living God. He listens in silence. And his heart ceaselessly perseveres in the readiness to accept the Truth contained in the word of the Living God,” Pope John Paul II had once said. There is very little about the life of Joseph in Scripture but still, we know that he was the chaste husband of Mary, the foster father of Jesus, a carpenter and  a man who was not wealthy. We also know that he came from the royal lineage of King David. We can see from his actions in scripture that Joseph was a compassionate man, and obedient to the will of God. He also loved Mary and Jesus and wanted to protect and provide for them. St. Joseph, pray for us! #Catholic #saints #pray #faith #feastday #workers

A post shared by Catholic News Agency (@catholicnewsagency) on May 1, 2017 at 3:22pm PDT

thank you, Lord, for work, and for love, and for the labor of our love. 

st joseph, pray for us.