We were in Saskatoon this weekend, and when we were driving home from mass yesterday Jason says "Dad, does your name have a 'p' in it?" Chris said "Does my name have a

'p'? Yes." (He meant in Christopher). Jason says, "Okay, well I just saw a sign that says 'No P's. No, No, No. No P's this way or that way." Chris was very touched that he was so concerned that we would drive down a street where he may be discriminated against, because he has a p in his name.

My New Job!!

I was offered a contract a few months ago, to do Medical Transcription at home, by a company called Accentus. I was finally offered an account last week, and will start my training soon! I'm so excited. I've worked an endless amount of crappy, thankless jobs since becoming a mom, so this will hopefully be a nice change. It's the first time I don't have to clean stinky, gross bathrooms!! And I don't have to figure out baby-sitting, etc. Now, I just need to get organized enough to make sure that I don't neglect my kids for the sake of my job, or neglect my job for the sake of a clean house. Let the typing begin!!

So, a good hint that supper wasn't overly edible: When your four-year-old makes you pinky swear not to make it again. Whoops!

An awesome clip on youtube.com:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0nSjxDKJEo

What an affirmation of my faith!!

Mama Knows Best
Jonah moved the bottom bunk of the boys' bunkbed when he was about 15 months old. It's been a rough go of it. Fighting him until 10pm every night, him constantly getting out of bed crying. I DREADED bedtime every night. At Christmas he slept at my mother-in-law's house really well, and it dawned on me that he's afraid of the bunk bed!
When we got home I convinced Chris to saw the bunk bed in two and make twin beds instead...
Wouldn't you know it. That night he got out of bed one time, and I disciplined him. He went to bed and only woke up twice for a drink. Now he naps every day at noon, goes to bed at 7:30, and slept 13 hours last night!! (except for needing drinks again).
All I need now is for Chris to ADMIT that I'm always right. ;)

Well, we're back in the swing of things. Jason went back to school on Monday, and Mary had playschool yesterday. We spent a week in Saskatoon with Chris' family, and came home for New Year's weekend with my family. Lots of celebrating, little sleep. We ALL ended up with colds by the end of it. All three kids went on antibiotics on Friday, and we've been battling coughs, fevers, sneezes, and yet more sleep loss. (Oh yeah, and battling Jonah, who refuses to take the antibiotics and the nebulizer on which he was put....)

A few weeks before Christmas, Chris decided he would like to start celebrating Ukrainian Christmas at our house. So the week after we got home I got busy making perogies, cabbage rolls, borscht, kolache (braided bread), and other goodies. (Did I mention I'm Irish/Scottish???) My family came on Saturday night, and Chris' mom showed up on Friday night, and we had our first Ukrainian Christmas celebrated on Ukrainian Christmas Eve.

It was really exciting for me to prepare all these dishes, knowing that many generations of women before me had worked the days before Christmas to put on a feast for their family to celebrate the birth of Christ. I struggled a lot with Advent/Christmas this year. I found Advent really difficult, because while I'm supposed to be "preparing" for the celebrations, and preparing my soul for the birth of my saviour I was already partying it up with staff parties, school concerts, church concerts, bake sales, etc. from about November 22 on. To top it all off the all you hear on the radio or TV is (paraphrase) "Tis the season to spoil your kids rotten, spend all your money, and gain a tonne of weight!!" Which is NOT at all what I want Christmas to mean in our family.

Then the season for which we've been waiting for four weeks (well, technically three this year) is here, and it's time to celebrate, and all of the Christmas stuff gets ripped off the store shelves, the Christmas carols are no longer on the radio, and people are no longer saying Merry Christmas, because it's now "Happy New Year!!"

Anyway, the point of that rant was to say that I struggled a lot with everything to do with Christmas. I didn't want to do any of it, and would have gladly stayed home with my family in our house and hid from the world. However, the opportunity to have a big Christmas celebration with cultural traditions that had NOTHING to do with commercialism or society was so exciting and rewarding for me. Even many of the dishes symbolized something to do with our faith. Chris and I researched some of the traditions, and did some that of which we liked the idea. We had garlic on the corners of our table, and an axe outside our front door to ward off evil from our family. The braided ring on our table was shaped in a circle to symbolize eternity, and stacked in three to symbolize the Holy Trinity. The kutia (a dish made of wheat) that we served at the beginning symbolizes abundance and fertility. At the beginning of the meal we tossed some on the ceiling of our kitchen, and it stuck! This means that it should be a good and prosperous year.

Anyway, I just find it a little interesting or funny that I have taken so much from a culture that I know so little about, and it really was the highlight of my whole Christmas season. It really ended the season on a positive note for me, and now I can focus on the year to come with our family!