Jesus Loves You

I've been going to church lately and taking Andy to Sunday School. Thanks, I do feel pretty virtuous about it. What's odd though is despite that, I didn't really expect Andy to come home and ask this, "Mommy, do you love Jesus?" Crikey. The right answer, of course, is to say yes, but since I'm not particularly religious, it feels a little disingenuous. For the record, I did say yes, and that made him happy. He then started singing "Jesus Loves You."

Part of me is amazed by this. Seriously, he's gone to Sunday school maybe three or four times. He spends most of that hour looking in the aquariums in the room, doing puzzles, playing with the other kids and asking for more juice at snack time. When did he have time to learn anything? The good news is that this Christmas, when I tell him it's Jesus' birthday, he probably won't try to tell me, "No, Mommy, it's Santa's birthday."

And in bigger news this week, Meg rolled over by herself over the weekend. Jennifer witnessed her roll from tummy to her back. I'm not sure it was entirely intentional, but I don't care. She's now proven she can do it. Now she can happily not do it again until she's ready to crawl.

More pictures

Here's the actual event. Note Andy in his coat and tie. I am on the other side of Bjorn so you can't see that I'm standing there at all.
Hello little Amish baby.
The best picture in the lot with her smiling.

Here she's not quite as happy.

Dress up party

Today was Meg's baptism and the whole day went remarkably well. She looked adorable in a while outfit my mother picked out (including a bonnet that we omitted at the service since, you know, she'd be getting water on her head and all). There was another baby girl getting baptised at the same service which took the pressure off us a little. We managed to stand up there, look mostly presentable and Meg opted against puking on me. She didn't even mind when they put the water on her head (three times actually, which was nice, but seemed like a lot. Clearly, I'm not much of a church goer).

In the beginning of the service, it was all six of us on the front row. At about 11:30, Mark and Jennifer left to go pick up the food we were serving for lunch. About 11:35, Bjorn took Meg out once she started to make noise. About 11:45, I sent Andy out with my dad as he had to go potty. That left me sitting on the front pew by myself. I would have left with Andy, but it felt wrong for all of us to leave before the service was over, "Yeah, thanks for the baptism. See you at Christmas!"

Afterwards, we had a few family and friends over for lunch. It was kind of nice having a dress up party for a change. Aside from weddings (or, gasp, work), it seems that we never go out wearing our good clothes. I actually have a theory that at work we should have dress up Mondays. We have casual Fridays, why not dress up Mondays? That way, everyone wears their nice stuff once in a while without getting accused of interviewing. Plus, everyone wears their stuff often enough to know that it still fits, rather than waiting until a event to realize the pants are two sizes too small. I think preventing guys from coming to work in a suit two sizes too small really benefits everyone.

Bedtime

It's funny, the past year or so, Andy has been so sociable and fun that I've been getting away from having a strict bedtime for him. It was just so easy to stay out a little later because it didn't seem to back up on him the way it did when he was little (meaning he didn't melt down). Plus, it was more fun for us to stay out later. Then the terrible threes hit. He started giving up his afternoon nap and he began throwing temper tantrums and really pushing my buttons. I've been reading up on how to deal the temper tantrums, but I also read that an earlier bedtime might help. Both those together has made for a much more agreeable kid, which means we're all having more fun (him included).

Meg has also developed a bedtime this week. If I pick her up from Ayesha's around 5:15-5:30, I take her home, feed her, give her a bath and put her down about 7 p.m., she can actually sleep, sometimes waking up once in the middle of the night and occasionally not waking up until morning. It's such a change to have both kids in bed by 8 p.m. I actually have time after they go to bed to eat dinner, do laundry, or, gasp, even do some work. It's nice having a little predictability and time for myself (knock wood, of course.)

What sucks about this earlier bedtime is we really have to be disciplined about not staying out too late. And by too late, I mean 6 p.m. It's a trade off because being home that early sucks in terms of not getting to enjoy our time out, but on the other hand, getting everyone to home and in bed before they're exhausted means the evening goes much more smoothly for everyone.

Meanwhile, instead of our regular summer party this year, we're having Meg's baptism and having a handful of folks over afterwards for lunch. I was so proud of myself. I made invitations and everything, no Evite. The problem is I forgot to tell everyone the service starts at 11 a.m. Or that the church is on Braddock Road. That's right, I am a communications/publications type person and I can't even get the who, what, where, when and why right. D'oh.

P.S. Chris, we got our FiOS and it rocks. They came on time, cleaned up after themselves and everything works. Apparently Verizon likes Kings Park West better than Kings Park. Go figure.

Religion may make you sick

We went to meet with the pastor yesterday at the Methodist church to talk about Meg's baptism. We're very occasional churchgoers, but it seems that baptism is one of those things that you need to do for your kids. We had a 5:30 p.m. appointment at St. Stephen's so all four of us went. Meg had been a bit fussy in the afternoon. She needed a nap, but had trouble settling down so she was a little cranky when we got there.

As we sat down, the pastor was going over the vows of baptism, basically saying that as adults bringing a child for baptism, we needed to commit to bringing out kids to church. I gave my excuses and he was kind about it, and then explained that with kids, there is almost always a good reason not to do it and if you keep up with that, that suddenly the children are grown and you realize you never took them to church. He gave the message without a real lecture, which I was afraid of.

During the discussion, I'd been giving Meg a bottle. She kept complaining when I tried to take it away and with the awkwardness in the room, I didn't force her to stop and burp like I might have at home. Bad idea. After she finished her bottle, she let out a really loud burp. And then proceeded to upchuck the entire bottle all over me, the chair and the floor. Charming. We then felt even more awkward about the whole thing and while the pastor was gracious, his personality isn't one to make a joke and relieve the tension or anything. After that, I had to sit through another 15 minutes of discussion with spit up all over my shirt and hair. And they say motherhood isn't glamorous.

In other news, there was an earthquake with an epicenter in Annandale, Virginia, yesterday, which is a few miles from here. How random is that? I totally felt it, too. I was home with Andy asleep and Meg on my bed when I heard a boom and the house shook. It freaked me out. It felt like something had exploded in the basement because it was definitely the whole house shaking for a second and it wasn't just on one side. I looked outside to see if they were doing any work on the streets and didn't see anything. The kids didn't notice, but the cats were a little freaked out.

Oh no, part deux

Sadly, The Goodnight Train suffered an injury to the hands of my two-year-old yesterday. After waking up from his nap, Andy decided to rip the last page out of the book. The page didn't have any words on it and just had the tag from the Fairfax County Library on it so I could see his point that it was boring, but still. Ripping books is bad. Plus, now I have to go to the already standoffish librarians and fess up to our crime. I have a feeling this is the beginning of a long line of incidents where I/we have to confess to breaking or stealing something. Yay. More stuff to look forward to!

On the flip side, Andy was a darling this evening. Well, after his first time out that is. He kept standing on the dining room chair and after I warned him once and he did it again, I calmly picked him up and put him on the stoop of the stairs for his first official time out. I did was my sister suggested, I told him what he did wrong and put the kitchen timer on two minutes. He sat sadly and whimpered a bit toward the end (funny how looong two minutes can be sometimes - it's the same in indoor soccer at the end of a half when you're desperately holding on to a lead). Afterwards, I had him tell me he was sorry for standing on the chair and the rest of the evening, he was a perfect darling. I like to think it was due to our excellent parenting, but I have a feeling that's a little far fetched.

Tomorrow we're off to Annapolis for the baptism of a friend's daughter. I was honored to be named godparent (we had training today, which sounds ridiculous, but was actually kind of nice). Andy is excited to go see more singing. Seriously.