Heard Around the House

Sean has been quite holy lately-- he recently started kneeling in mass with us, and now bows his head for prayers in addition to folding his hands.  He started learning the sign of the cross, but mostly just likes the "holy spirit" part.  The other day we were learning about money and he told me he was going to take his money (a nickel and a penny) to give it away at church.  Sure enough, the next day we were at the Pauline Bookstore and he put it in their mission fund on the counter.  So sweet.  This conversation takes the cake though:

Erin (after some act of baby piety referenced above): Sean, are you going to be a priest?
Sean: Pope.
Erin: You're going to be the Pope?
Sean: Uh huh.   

By the way, for those of you following our international travels-- we are supposed to be on a plane to costa rica at this moment, but due to severe weather in Atlanta, our flight out of charleston was delayed enough for us to miss the connection this morning, and we are right back at home now.  This, of course, was after getting the babies up at 4:30 a.m. to get to the airport by 5 for the truant 6:30 flight (which was all after a 3:00 a.m. feeding and crying spurt which had me up until 4:00, and our alarm went off at 4:10!!!!).  Hopefully at this time tomorrow we will be in Costa Rica though.  Cody and I have both been trying really hard to keep our humor and our spirits up today, and we noticed how much more managable travel snafus are when you aren't angry and negative.  Airline travel may be the most frustrating thing in the entire world, but when there isn't anything you can do to control the outcome, the best thing to do is roll with the punches and try to stay positive.  We're working on that right now.  St. Raphael, pray for us!

Freedom Has a Scent (Part II)

We are much happier with Sweet Baby James' sweet scent these days!  Especially because his sweet scent is the smell of the chrism of a holy sacrament!  James had his soul cleaned up on Saturday at his baptism.  Here we are afterwards enjoying his sweet oiled head (which still hasn't been washed because I keep sniffing it!).  Now the top of this newborn baby's head really does smell like freedom-- the freedom of a new soul and a new life in Christ-- free from sin and basking in the grace of the sacraments provided to us by Jesus through His Church.  I think my favorite part of a baptism is when the priest audibly claims the child for Christ... I have such a powerful image of satan scheming for this soul and the sacrament of baptism knocking him down and claiming the battleground of my son's soul for Christ.  Reminds me of yet another U2 lyric "And the battle's just begun, to claim the victory Jesus won" (Sunday Blood Sunday for non-U2-holics).  Jesus already won the victory over Satan when he sacrificed for us-- it is simply up to us to claim the victory now.  And on Saturday Msgr. Martin Laughlin (James' middle namesake) claimed the victory and ensuing freedoms for baby James.  The sweet smell of freedom now rules over the stench of rotting umbilical cord (a metaphor for sin and death perhaps?) in our home! 

   

Many thanks to James' second cousins in WV who provided this adorable baptism onesie the night before.  More photos of the actual event and surrounding weekend to come. 

Freedom Has a Scent...

...Like the top of a newborn baby's head...

I've always loved this lyric by U2, and its been especially appropriate in our house lately, as you can imagine.  What I never imagined is that our little boy would hang on to his rotting belly button/umbilical cord for 5 weeks and 2 days after his birth!  Like Bono, at first I delighted in my newborn baby's smell.  However, as the umbilical cord stump hung around, so did an unwelcome smell.  It was so bad I began to understand think about when people on TV or the movies (think Law & Order) get sick when they find the rotting body in the old warehouse.  OK, a little dramatic as James' stench was only coming from a 1/2 inch in diameter belly button, but it did concern me (and gross me out). I took Jamesie to the pediatrician last week because I thought it might have been infected, but no, he said its just fine and has a few more weeks on it!  Yikes!  I was starting to get a little disdainful when Bono would croon his newborn love song over our iPod.  One of the redeeming qualities of a new baby after a long night of crying is supposed to be his lovely smell.  Right???  Why did my baby stink!?  Then, at James's last diaper change last night-- blissful relief took over the Groeber home.  FINALLY he parted with that stink machine. 

And today I'm listening to U2 again and delighting in my newborn's smell.  Yea :). 

My Happy Mother's Day

We had a wonderful Mother's Day here in Groeberland.  It started with Cody getting the boys dressed for church in a fashion he knew this Mama would just love:

Continued with some quality baby-time on the couch:  

And ended with a little one of these from my wonderful husband:

We took it for a (walking) spin today and it is awesome!  I had been pining after this BOB for awhile--almost like a teenage girl over one of those teenage-vampire boys (Taylor something? or Edward?), I had been pulling up the picture on the internet, talking about it nonstop, reading about it in books, dreaming about it at night (not really), but it always seemed unattainable to me.  Cody did me a HUGE favor and just pulled the trigger and ordered it for us without my knowing.  That in itself is a present for me, as I tend to be gun-shy when it comes to actually spending money.  This is an investement though, and I am so excited to get back to walking and running and bringing our little family on outdoor outings together. Thanks to everyone who gave us recommendations about the BOB!