Help! Mothers out there who have ever had a near two year old and a newborn, help! I realize I have been down this road before, but it was so much easier last time.  Caecilia is crazy and if she is not trying to “love” Benedict to death, she is either doing things to wake him up or to get herself hurt.

She tends to get in to trouble when I cannot get up to get her, like when I am nursing. (Poor Benedict, he has to deal with meal interruptions a lot.) I notice that some of her actions are not mischievous, but “helpful”, like climbing up on the table to help clear it. However, some of her actions seem to be very well calculated to be able to get away with the most she can while I am unable to get her.

Anyone? Advise? How did you nurse and deal with a toddler?

This weekend…we were busy busy busy as we have been for the past few weekends.

Friday I had the van, so we picked Joshua up from work and went to the park. We went to one by Valdosta High School. While the kids played, Joshua and I sat on a bench and talked. (Then I got a phone call from an unnamed reader looking for directions to the airport, in Ohio! Great call!) We got to see the visiting football team arrive, with a police escort. Two cars from the city/county they were from. We went home, ate dinner and I fell asleep on the couch after nursing Benedict. He slept for about five hours that night, only waking around five to eat. Of course, he was up for two hours, then he fell back to sleep. I did too…

…sleeping 930. Joshua made breakfast and suggested making crackers and yogurt this weekend. I nixed the yogurt because I had a few other kitchen things to do and yogurt is a bit time intensive as well as space intensive. While he worked out in the yard, I made some homemade wheat thins. I think with a bit more practice on rolling them out and making them uniform, they will be pretty good. They are much more substantial than the ones bought at the store. I also made seven layer bars for the parish picnic and baked some chicken for dinner. (We eat A LOT of chicken around here). I had thought of taking the kids to the movies for Margaret’s feast day, but ended up just having Joshua pick up ice cream when he went to the store. He needed to pick up a part for the cradle and said he would take one of the kids with him. Usually, I say “take Karol and Margaret” or just Karol. Saturday, I told him to take Caecilia. It was nice to get dinner started with out wondering what she was getting in to. She is by far the most mischievous child we have had. We ended up watching Wind in the Willows and eating ice cream in the evening then I headed to bed early.

Yesterday we went to Mass then to the parish picnic at our new parish. We had a nice time visiting with all the people there and my kids loved running around all afternoon. They are all nice and toasty colored now. Note to self: Sunscreen is needed in October here. When we got in the van, we had four sleeping kids within five minutes. Our ride home was nice and quiet. We drove by cotton fields and fields of newly planted crops! I think one of the fields may have been tobacco, but I am not sure. We also drove by a pecan orchard. I am excited for pecans to become available and hope they are much cheaper than 8.99/lb.

Some plans for the week…work on the budget. I am so very particular about making sure the bills are paid and things are budgeted for that I actually look forward to payday and paying bills.

We are going camping in November (I know, crazy, but it is on the ocean!) so I need to prepare a menu plan for the few days we will be gone. I am looking for ideas that don’t involve fresh meat, Spam will do just fine.

If I find some time for myself, I want to… I have given up on this concept! 🙂

Some prayer intentions…That our house closes soon and very soon.

Something that makes me smile…Caecilia taking herself to the bathroom, all by herself.

h/t to Suzanne McG!

I have actually been meaning to post pictures of the house here, but I never think the house is clean enough, so I hold off. Of course, for each room that is clean, there is one that is messy. Today I figured most rooms look decent, so here you go!

**In the kitchen pictures, please pardon the things on the counter, thanks!

**In the bedroom, please pardon the baskets of clean laundry. I washed it all today but did not get a change to fold it all.

**Notice all the things stacked on the bookshelf, away from Caecilia. The top of the bookshelf is mostly school books for Karol and Margaret.

**The kids were in bed when I started this post, so I did not get a picture of their room. The other bedroom is used as the office and well, the room where we put boxes of books and things we did not want to unpack yet. In other words, I am not going to post a picture of it because it is too messy!

**I will try to get outside pictures tomorrow if my tired body makes it outside.

Here are some pictures of our Tententen Day Dinner.

Well, the music wasn’t a fluke last week, it was just as wonderful this week as it was last week! Also, people remembered us from last week and we got a “Oh good! You came back!”. Father’s homily was well thought out and not fluff. Did I mention the music was good? My kids paid attention and the only time they moved was to get a better view of the Altar during the Consecration! Okay, I lied a bit there, they were fidgety for the most part during mass. However, Karol did ask me to help him pray after Mass.

Next weekend is the parish picnic. We are so going! It has been such a long time since we have look forward to belonging to a parish and actually participating in its activities, this is a wonderful change.

On another note, I found via Fr. McDonald’s blog today:

Today is the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. Originally called the Feast of Our Lady of Victory, we honor Our Lady today for her help in the victory over the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Lepanto. The victory in this battle prevented the spread of the Ottoman Empire and prevented the spread  Islam through Europe. Look here and here for more information about the Battle and Our Lady.

I also found this wonderful article from the Opus Sanctorum Angelorum it is a bit long, but worth the read, as is a peak around the rest of their website!

Things to do today, aside from the obvious of praying the Rosary:

1. Make a Rosary Cake.(we will be doing this today, but are only making a decade)

2. Share with others how to pray the Rosary.

3. Have your older children draw a picture of the Battle of Lepanto.

4. Have your younger children draw a picture of the Rosary.

5. Try some things out from this page. (A wonderful resource and one that I visit just about every day!)

6. Checkout this blog and enter to win the Rosary.

Tonight, at 8pm on EWTN Life with Fr. Mitch Pacwa, will feature a segment on Pope Pius XII. I am sure most of you know that he is often called “Hitler’s Pope” as people think he did nothing to stop the sad killings of millions of people in Concentration Camps during World War II. He actually did many things to help save Jewish people during that time. He made visas available for safe passage of Jewish people as well as opened many convents and monasteries for the Jewish people to hide in.

If you do not have cable, EWTN can be viewed online at EWTN.com!
Edited to add a website with information about Sister Margherita Marchione, the Sister who spoke on EWTN Live this evening.