1. Finding Time. Yikes! I'm getting more and more "laid back" with my weekly post and trying to have it done by Thursday morning. You'd think that by living with my parents and having help with the boys more often that it would be the easiest time for me to write ever. And I really thought that this week would finally be more relaxed and afford me a little more "me" time. But as I've discovered, this whole moving-to-a-new-city-selling-a-house-buying-a-house-having-a-baby scheme I've got going on here is just one thing after another. Non-stop. So last night when I went to ponder what I'd write about today, I found an email in my inbox from our lender at the bank asking for a whole plethora of additional documents...to have to him by noon today. Why anyone thinks that giving someone a deadline that's twelve hours away to collect a bunch of financial documents is a feasible request is beyond me. So this morning was spent scrambling to get the documents, scan them, send them, yadayadayada. Oh, and make it to a 10:20 sonogram as well. See? Never ends. But all's well that ends well and we're just hoping it all ends well.
2. Gunny. Quite the momentous event occurred for one, Rudy Mark Asmussen, this week. Most of you are probably aware of my child's addiction to his pacifier "Gunny or GunGun" and our blatant disdain for the vile thing. To be real honest, I always thought that the whole my-kid-refuses-to-give-up-his-pacifier thing was a bunch of hog wash. Be the parent! Just take the thing away from him! After all, Kolbe did have a pacifier that he loved to chew on, but since he wasn't able to suck until after his first year of life, it wasn't very difficult to give it up. I had no idea how strong the sucking addiction could be. So when Rudy came along, I had no problem letting him have one. And let me just remind you...in my own defense...that I had two babies. A fifteen-month-old and a preemie newborn. Both still requiring baby care and attention, neither one able to adequately communicate (in words) with me, etc. At times I was desperate for a little peace from one so I could tend to the other. So the paci became a little bit of a crutch for me as well as the tyke. But then the attempts to get rid of GunGun began and so did the nightmares. To say that Gunny had become Rudy's attachment item (such as a blankie or stuffed animal) is an understatement. We'd catch him doing bizarre things like rubbing it all over his cheeks and forehead. Crazy, I know. A few months back we were finally able to get it to where he understood that he could only have Gunny when he was sleeping. He had to be in bed and if he got out of bed, he had to turn Gunny in to the powers that be. He became OK with this system, though any time anything emotional happened, he still asked for it.
Then on Monday when Rudy woke up from his nap, he came to give me a few cuddles and as I took Gunny from him I told him that it was stinky and nasty. I told him that we needed to throw GunGun away because it was yucky and big boys didn't need a GunGun and since Baby Brother would be here soon and Rudy would officially be the big brother, he didn't need Gunny. Without any prompting, he walked over to the trash can, took the lid off, and threw Gunny in. I was shocked, to say the least. Not wanting to abandon the open door, I cheered for him wildly and decided we had to go with it. After leaving the room I snuck back in and removed Gunny. (Lord knows he'd go looking for it later...) And that night was the first night without the beloved GunGun. There certainly have been tears and lots of clinging to Mama as he goes through withdrawals in order to fall asleep...I've had to talk him down from the ledge a time or two. But after a few days, he has stopped asking, and when he does, he's willing to accept the fact that the trash man already came and took Gunny away. Whew. Finally jumped that hurdle. And really, we should have done it a long time ago, but with the moving and all the other changes, I couldn't bare to add any more emotionalness to the situation. I'll definitely be re-evaluating my view on the paci once the baby arrives. But then again, in every sonogram we've had he's been a thumb sucker so we just may not have that problem!
3. Holy Week. In the Catholic Church, this week is known as Holy Week. The days leading up to Easter. Such a great time for reflection, adoration, praise, awe, and appreciation for what Christ did for us so many years ago. Ironically, as a child, I cringed when my parents loaded us up in the van to head to every single event held at the church during that week. Now as an adult, I yearn to go but find it next to impossible during my current season in life. My good friend Melanie posted this quote on her facebook page this week:
"It is most laudable in a married woman to be devout, but she must never forget that she is a housewife. And sometimes she must leave God at the altar to find Him in her housekeeping." -St. Frances of Rome
I've found a lot of solace in that quote this week...how cool, right!?! 'Cause so many times I've been plagued with that feeling that I'm just not doing enough in my relationship with God because I'm constantly taking care of the house, tending to the babies, handling the myriad of other duties (as mentioned in #1, for example) instead of truly diving in further to my relationship with the one who has given me all of these blessings. But really discerning the notion that I am exactly where God has put me for a reason has been eye opening. Just because I'm not at each of the "public events" doesn't mean that he isn't alive and meeting me constantly in the five minutes it takes to run the vacuum, the moments that I lie in silence waiting for the babies to fall asleep, or even the few seconds it takes to fill yet another sippy cup. And just because by the end of the day when I'm so exhausted that I crash instead of thumbing through a Bible study doesn't mean that I'm not growing. In fact, these years of straight service just might be similar to the many years of unrecorded time in Christ's life where he too was "just in service." My time will come some day when I'll be able to attend each and every religious event I've every wanted to partake in. I'll gladly go. And probably sadly miss the ones that used to keep me from them.
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