BesoMami

My friend Maria from Sweden tagged me for this meme. I needed this today!

Ten things I am grateful for:

1) My spouse
2) My three children
3) Our health
4) Our menagerie (two cats, two dogs)
5) Our church & our faith
6) Our cozy house
7) Chocolate, red wine and brie
8) Books
9) The bathtub
10) Friends & family

I tag Mags, PPB and APBS...

I know this is post #500 because blogger keeps track for me.

I think this is book # 25 (ish) in my reading challenge. I know I've read more than 25 books so far this year, but I have too much mommy brain going on, so I haven't been keeping track very well. So I'm calling this book 25.

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Our dearest Little Mary sent this book as a gift to Brett. He's been out-of-town and is now sick in bed. So LM gave me permission to read this book first. (Happy Birthday to LM! btw).

Father & Son: Finding Freedom, by Walter and Matthew Wangerin. The Wangerins' website describes the book by saying: "Walter Wangerin, Jr and his adopted son, Matthew share their deeply personal story. Each in his own words, father and son narrate the history of their relationship and how they found new meaning --- and new identities --- through times of brokenness, hope and rediscovery. Father and Son is a profound meditation on fatherly love and a son's independence --- and one family's search for reconciliation."

To put it simply, this book is breathtakingly beautiful. I cried numerous times while reading it. Walter Wangerin describes his feelings about his children and adoption (which differ slightly from my own), with such honesty and grace. This is a great book for parents and children who have had any sort of rocky times in their relationships. Precious and perfect. I shared one of the stories in this book with my Sunday school class yesterday. One woman already emailed me this morning to say she went out after church to buy the book and read about 1/3 of it last night! Highly recommended.

David is forever bound in his baptism to the household of faith and the body of Christ. As the prayers were read and the congregation affirmed their willingness to raise him in the knowledge and love of Christ, our youngest child laughed and shouted with joy. When the water splashed across his brow, his eyes widened in surprise, but, just as quickly, his smile returned. God's grace washed over the whole worshipping community.

As each of my children received this sacrament, the words of the apostle Paul have seemed so apt: "just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved." (Ephesians 1:4-6).

What joy we have when we witness the truth that God claims us even before we can respond in faith! Our God is so good. May we each remember our baptisms with joy and thanksgiving. Thanks be to God.

Yesterday went well. It was a very long day, but that was really the worst of it.

We were almost late to David's first day at the babysitter's house. Lily had been playing with his bucket car seat and had tightened all the straps. I managed to loosen them a little bit, but it was a tight squeeze to get Big Baby into the seat. So the babysitter's first impression of me was not great -- I had to ask her to help me figure out how to fix the seat so the air was not been pushed out of baby's lungs. But he LOVED the babysitter. Tom and Lily loved her too, especially the awesome toys she had. Lily will be going to her some in the fall and Tom declared that he didn't want to go to kindergarten, but to the babysitter's house instead. Too bad, Thomas.

Church went well. When our previous music directors left last fall, a few events they had planned did not get assigned to anyone. One of those events was finding housing for 25+ children and adults from a touring children's choir. I was terrified that some of my volunteer families would not show up and I would have a number of children on the floor in my den, sleeping in sleeping bags. But my volunteers arrived! Thomas and Lily were very wound up when we finally arrived home past 9:00 last night. Thomas is still sleeping, actually. I'm going to need TNT to get him out of bed in a few minutes.

I am off to see my spiritual corrector later this morning. She's been out of town for a month, so I am looking forward to seeing her. My mom and dad fly in later today, so I somehow need to clean the house and go to the grocery store. Oh, and get to church extra early to receive the choir members back from their host families.

This is probably the most boring blog post ever. Sorry. Oh, in case anyone wants to know, Frank Lloyd Wright designed the Guggenheim in NYC. Why do I mention that? No reason... Have a great Wednesday!

Brett hates stuffed animals. For the past five years he has begged my parents not to give the kids too many stuffed animals.

Brett went out of town this morning. This afternoon, the mailman delivered a giant package to Lily...

http://www.bureauofcommunication.com/

One of my favorite forms:

Baby D went to the doctor today.

Fa·ther's Day (fä'thərz dey)
noun.
1. The third Sunday in June, observed in the United States in honor of fathers.
2. A day of "Father's-giving", observed in our house by "eating ice cream" (according to Thomas).

A very cool site!

http://www.factcheck.org/

Our Mission

We are a nonpartisan, nonprofit, "consumer advocate" for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. We monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews, and news releases. Our goal is to apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship, and to increase public knowledge and understanding.

The Annenberg Political Fact Check is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. The APPC was established by publisher and philanthropist Walter Annenberg in 1994 to create a community of scholars within the University of Pennsylvania that would address public policy issues at the local, state, and federal levels.

The APPC accepts NO funding from business corporations, labor unions, political parties, lobbying organizations or individuals. It is funded primarily by the Annenberg Foundation.

The level of crazy around here is about 142%. I've lost track of what I've read. Here are a few recent ones I can remember:

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

Evening is the Whole Day by Preeta Samarasan

A Church of Her Own by Sarah Sentilles

Ever have one of those weeks where you have so many things to blog about that you don't even know where to start? This has been one of those weeks. A few examples.

• Head of Staff is out on emergency family leave. So instead of working my 1/2 time 'maternity' leave schedule, it looks like I will spend the next few weeks working 1 1/2x to 2x my regular schedule. At least that's what it has been like for the past couple of weeks, due to staff vacations and other issues. I am tired. But things are pretty good at church.
• I inadvertently, unofficially officiated at a memorial service with a Catholic priest who retired early for alleged misdeeds with minors. I know. It is in BOTH the 99th percentile for creepy and the 99th percentile for icky.
• David has started the baby inchworm scooting technique. It won't be long until he is crawling.
• We took Thomas, Lily and Tom's best friend, Lucas, to the circus yesterday. Even though PETA and my friend Cyndi don't approve of the circus, the kids had fun.
  
• We finally got our air conditioning working. It seems that Becky the Basset Hound chewed through an essential wire of some kind.
• Our confirmands led the worship services this morning. They did a great job.