Well...

It's going to be an interesting year (as though the last 14 haven't had enough excitment). But now I have two in middle school and hormones are raging through our house. Sarah Katherine and Christohper alternate between being confidantes and wanting to kill each other (back to the hormones). I love that they talk and use each other as sounding boards. Well.....most of the time!

This morning Christopher asked Sarah Katherine, "What's it like being a girl?" Now there's a profound question and one I'm certain many males would like the answer to even if it's just so they can try to understand. Long quiet pause, I'm sure Sarah Katherine was trying to figure out how to answer a question she neither had the answer to (got to stay one step ahead as she's the eldest)nor had anything to compare it to. Last I checked she doesn't know what it's like to be a boy. So she's thinking, I'm holding my breath thinking this could really affect Christopher, and Caroline pipes up, "Well.....you pee sitting down." And that my friends is what it's like to be a girl.

The Bells

This past week we moved onto the seminary campus. As I was walking home from class one afternoon, the sound of the chapel bells was so peaceful. I thought to myself how much I was going to love hearing them on a regular basis.

The next afternoon, I was walking with Sarah Katherine and the bells again began to ring. I was just about to turn to her and comment on the peacefulness and the beauty when she says, "Hey where do you think that ice cream truck is?"

I don't think I'll ever be able to hear them quite the same way!

Just Another Saturday

I’m sure you don’t really want the play by play of health at our house, but if I don’t laugh about it, then I’ll cry. So this morning William writhing on the floor complaining of a headache—I tell him to quit being dramatic because I did in fact have a headache (self induced but pounding nonetheless). He gets up and I take his temp only to discover that I no longer am in the running for Mother of the Year (Although I was eliminated on January 1, the committee decided to reinstate me on the grounds of mental anguish caused by children’s illnesses). William’s temp was 104—guess his head really did hurt. Fast forward several hours and several room punishments for Caroline and Christopher who were both being worse than horrible. Arguing with each other, me ,Chris and I’m sure the wall got blamed for something. Throw in a couple of full blown temper tantrums from Caroline. The last one as she is shouting at me that she’s cold and I need to do something about it. Throws herself on the couch in tears kicking and screaming and saying, “Daddy needs to hurry up and take us out of here I’m cold.” I have a brief moment of compassion (previously it was all thoughts of how I can kill her and get off with justifiable homicide—going to hire Katherine Kingren for that)and think, “cold; irrational crying fits hmmm..Fever?” And as Sarah Palin says, “you betcha!” 103 for Caroline. Two nights ago I moved William into Caroline’s room so he wouldn’t contaminate Christopher and now I’ll move Christopher in there in the hopes he’s not already contaminated. I’m seriously considering moving myself to a mental hospital—we’ve already reached our medical deductible so it would be covered 100%.

And now that I’ve filled you in I’ll go back to writing my paper on the controversy between Cyril and Nestorius considering the Christology of the Alexandrian and Antiochene schools and the Nicene Creed—should be a short paper as I don’t even understand the questions!

GO CARDS!

A Professional Acolyte Only Needs to be a Good Listener

We feel very blessed that our children do not give us much grief about going to church; in fact, they really don't rebel at all except for what to wear, but that's minor to attendance! Not only do they willingly attend, but they are involved in various ways. They all acolyte, but Caroline LOVES to acolyte. She wants to be there every week early in case someone doesn't show up (which is usually the case).

Our church has three services a weekend--a high liturgy on Saturday evening, 8 am and 10 am Sunday morning. Due to William's soccer game today, the late night U of L game last night, and the spring forward time, we decided to attend Saturday evening service. Caroline, true to form, raced in to see if they "needed her help" and in fact they did. After getting home last evening, we looked at the schedule and realized that William was on the schedule to acolyte this morning. Caroline readily volunteered to stand in.

I dropped Caroline for the 10 am service. When I picked her up after Sunday school, she got in the car, looked at me with a very serious expression and said, "That was the exact same service as last night." Good to know she listens!

On the flip side, she's not very observant--last night Fr. Charles left after the sermon I believe due to not feeling well. When I asked Caroline today if he was able to stay through the whole service her response was, "He left early last night?"

We Live in a TB War Zone

The problem with not blogging for awhile in our family is that too much happens that is too unbelievable and then I don't know where to start. So I'll start with today. I'll start at 5:00 today. I switched off children with Chris--Christopher has been in the hospital for five days with throwing up, asthma, fever, William and Caroline at home with deep gut wrenching coughs and fevers, and I went to pick up Sarah Katherine from school (carting along the unhospitalized walking wounded). We had to get tights, fake eyelashes (yes they really still sell them), and another leotard for her performance this Thursday night. And did I mention that we also had to stop at Joanne Fabrics so that I could make her a skirt (by tomorrow) for the show. So I get home, start cutting out, make a mistake, back to Joanne's more fabric, and then back. At this point my bridge or more well known as fake tooth comes out for the fourth time in two days--so I fix it with fixodent-no time for the dentist right now. Make the skirt and get the younger two to the doctor. Meanwhile Chris calls me to tell me that Christopher's fever has gone up and he's coughed up a bit more blood, but they're sending us home. The receptionist at the doctor's office warmly greets me (and I do mean warmly becuase I'm certain our co pays are paying her heating bills this year). The doctor from behind the wall calls out, "are there Doyle's out there?" That would be yes and please get us back there asap. Leave the doctors office with 2 prescriptions for z-packs. I love going to the pharmacist where they also warmly greet me with "hello Mrs. Doyle how many are sick today?" (again think paying their bills). So as I sit here tonight all my children are under one roof and they're all coughing--except Sarah Katherine who will probably start on Thursday because that's when we're supposed to go see where our thousands of dollars are paying off. I'm pretty sure they'll all need therapy to recover from their father shouting at them to stop coughing and their mother looking glassy eyed and saying, "not again!"

So what have we learned from this? Well we've learned that had I been blogging in Pittsburgh our first winter you would have been reading the same thing; and we've learned that we have much better friends here than we realized. The move hasn't been easy, but I tell you when push comes to shove you see where you're loved, and we are loved here by some--albeit they may have brain cells missing--they do take our children in coughing, throwing up, fever, whatever, but they show us the love of God--the completely selfless giving at their own expense, at their family's own expense. They barely know us, but last night Chris and Charles were exchanging underwear on our front porch! (and that will be another blog!)