Do the girls have dog ears or kitty ears?

I always have called the two hair ups on either side of a little girl's hair dog ears, but seeing the two one year old granddaughters with Herbie the cat - I am going to start calling them kitty ears... especially little Bernadette's look like kitty ears.  Gus just left with grandpa and the trailer to take 3 cows to the processing plant about 2 hours away.  Then Rose and David were dropped off on this frigid -20 day, and soon the cat was released from the basement and became a playmate for the girls!  One package of fruit snacks were quickly devoured all around, and now learning, with encouragement from grandma, how to share the few toys that we have around here.  Teaching them that not screaming but saying please is how you ask for your turn with the few toys that are around here.  A lesson that we all need to learn on one level or the other depending on the age we at.  With those closest to us we tend to scream when we don't get our way and not be kind and thoughtful of their needs and say please can we have our turn.  If they say no do we humbly and gracefully have the patience we need to wait our turn, and even accept when we don't get a turn.  LIFE is not fair!

In the chair next to me as I sit here and try to write this morning - this is the view that is greeting me!  I had the two girls here and was taking some pictures of them - David felt left out and joined them with one of his "blue eyed smiles."  So what do you think?  Do you sense that wonderfully my life is not my own today... I might write a sentence, and then I am off to follow two girls with juice walking through the house and then giving the little one a towel to wipe up her mess... now they are giggling in the front room as they play with the Christmas lights that were in a bag waiting to go up to the attic.

There is momentary calm here as Ruth is gone with her 3 and Bernadette is down for her nap... I should be picking up and cleaning so this will be brief.  Doing girls' hair is my joy as I have shared in the past.  So to have the two girls here in their kitty ears and their activities was great fun for me!  Yet, the peace is not cherished and longed for.  So, knowing more closely how my girls' lives are filled with so much craziness - it is funny how this has all faded from my memory and all I recall is the idea that I had 5 perfect kids, who never fought or argued or made constant messes in my house.  I am sure this is not true, and I am having so much respect for mothers and the three daughters of mine that are mothers in every sense of the word.  Open to family their families are growing on all levels of LIFE filled with caring for, feeding, cleaning, shopping, picking up after the trail of toys and things from cupboards.  It is good for me to not sit here in my world of an empty nest, for the most part, and forget just how much self-sacrifice it takes to raise a family that is expanding and growing past the usual 2 kids!  I respect that those with 2 feel very busy when they are small and active, and then they get involved in many activities and that is busy with work and keeping up the home, but too quickly they grow up and are gone and that is kind of lonesome too quickly and if they follow suit with the 2 kids - family is very small and less full of LIFE/LOVE/LIGHT than it can be! 

The photo story behind this group picture grandma really wanted to get today.  Dave had gone out to play for a few minutes before leaving for preschool.  He came in with a bleeding tongue and said that he had put his tongue on a shovel in -20 cold!  We all know what happens... tongue sticks and taste buds are lost when we pull our tongue off!  So Dave took a big drink of water and held it in his mouth to sooth his tongue.  Mom his telling him to swallow the water, and Rose is showing Dave her empty mouth to model for him how to swallow!  The result is this humorous shot - Luke and Berna are ready for their naps obviously!  At least Dave is attempting to smile with a mouth full of water and a sore tongue.  Mom said to him - "Dave you just did this a week ago... when will you learn not to put your tongue on cold metal?"  A mother's work is never done!

Well, not picture perfect but kind of sweet just the same... and isn't that a good description of our lives with little ones too?  They give us a lot of JOY in the midst of all the ways we are called to care for them with LOVE!
Jesus, we are yours and you remind us that we are to look at the little children and learn from them.  They are active and curious and need to be protected from harm's way.  Children love to be held and loved and read to and given healthy snacks and kept clean and their faces and hands wiped clean and dry.  Children like to always know where mom or dad or grandma or grandpa are and what they are doing.  When I brush my teeth - there are little hands reaching to find a toothbrush and to climb up and get into the water... when grandma is making food they want to get up on a chair and watch.  So what is there to learn from this?  That we are yours, O Lord, and you are always watching out for us - we are especially beloved children of yours when we admit that we are foolish and bumbling, like those just starting to walk, and that we need you to LOVE and Forgive us in all the ways we fail and sin against YOU.  We need you to carry us in your arms and bring us away from the dangers that lie in the path we are going down.  May we give up our selfishness when you try to teach us to say "please" when we want you to do something for us and not scream and complain at the top of our lungs!  It was very nice to have the two little one year olds getting along today and laughing and playing together - even if it was in grandma's put away box of Christmas ornaments and they are now all over the floor!  Learning to play together is an important lesson after all, and they did help clean up some too!  Bernadette very sweetly took the towel I gave her and tried to wipe up the juice she spilled on the carpet she spilled when she fell with her cup and juice went everywhere...  Yes, the Lord does clean up our messes in mysterious ways called the Paschal Mystery - who would have ever thought that Jesus - God/man - would have had to die on the Cross to find the Resurrection LIFE?  Same for us!  We accept the Truth even though we, like children, don't understand it at all some times!  Jesus, we trust in YOU.  Amen and Hallelujah

Luke is such a peaceful and happy/sweet little boy - he loves his fingers!  Would that be helpful for grandma too?
Bless-bless, Barbara Luke
"I am bound, O God, by vows to you;
your thank offerings I will fulfill.
For you have rescued me from death,
my feet, too, from stumbling;
that I may walk with God in the light of the living.
In God I trust; I shall not fear."
Psalm 56 from mass today

all sharing a soft blanket...

"What should we get into now?"
 "I don't know there isn't much left in drawers or cupboards... maybe some more boxes that grandma of Christmas ornaments that grandma just put away?"
"OK - you first!"

"Alright you take that end and run that way and I will go this way!"

"Your right this is the best fun ever!!!!  Thanks Rosie you are so wise being 5 months older and wiser!  And it really is fun to see the look on grandma's face - that's the best part!"  Bernadette

"And it all started with hanging out with the kitty with our kitty ears!"

Casting Crowns - Who am I?