In case anyone hadn't guessed....

You May Be a Bit Histrionic...

Dramatic and over the top, you crave attention. And you'll do anything it takes to get noticed. You love to be seductive, even when it's inappropriate. If you're ignored, you're easily hurt ... and act out even more!

What Personality Disorder Are You?

Hiyaaaaa CHOP!

My Meez

I've seen these popping up around the place and thought they were cute.

This is me & Wombat - though Wombat is really only half that tall... my post-baby-body is not that thin... I normally wear my hair in one ponytail, not two... my eyebrows are so pale they are almost non-existant... and I don't wear make-up except on very special occasions ;P



Wombat has been worrying me lately, as his normally fantastic eating habits seem to have disappeared. He only nibbles at his food, rejects most of it, and makes a big fuss about pointing to things on other people's plates, even when what is on his plate is exactly the same.

I couldn't work it out as for the past few months his appetite has been immense and he would eat almost anything put before him - especially vegetables at dinner time.

At the same time, his normally erratic sleeping habits have suddenly done an about-face. He is sleeping in until almost 9 or 9:30 every morning, and having a 2 - 3 hour nap almost every afternoon - never less than an hour and a half. Previously he was skipping naps altogether and waking up at 7am!

I considered all sorts of causes - was this a side effect of weaning? or cutting him back to one nap a day? (I decided to cut out the morning nap as it made things easier for me - having been up since 3am myself, by afternoon I really need a little break from him or I get grumpy. Also, all the activities in the neighbourhood - such as Mass or storytime at the local library - coincided with his morning naptime.)

Then, as I was thinking about my sister and newborn niece, it struck me! I suddenly remembered how Wombat, as a baby, would go through regular cycles - one week he would be driving me mad with his insatiable appetite for food and learning - he would always be awake and always hungry. Then just when I got used to that, I would have to start worrying because he was sleeping the day away and hardly feeding at all. During this period, I would often be aware of him changing - almost visibly growing and developing, putting the things he had learnt during the previous few weeks into practice.

I realised that the cycle goes on, and that is probably what I am looking at here - he has been going through a growth spurt - first tanking up on the fuel he needs to grow - both physically and mentally - and now resting while he makes it all part of himself.

A meme and a minor miracle

First, a bit of silly fun - create your own South Park Portrait.



Wombat and I went to Mass yesterday, for the first time in two months - with Wombat teething and the horrible weather, combined with Yeti's dislike of me driving in heavy rain, I just haven't had the chance for ages.

I have a choice of three churches I can attend:

- the closest at 8am is a beautiful old building, but very small and claustrophobic. There is no room for Wombat to sit at my feet, so he has to stay quiet and held on my lap for the whole hour. This means we hardly ever get to stay for the whole Mass, as he gets increasingly wriggly until finally I have to take him outside. It is also very cold at that time of the morning, and I have just gotten Wombat used to sleeping in until 8, so getting him up and ready at 7 so he can sit still amongst a group of strangers is a bit much to ask.

- the second option at 10am is a big church, with a congregation of over 500. There is wonderful singing, but the crowd is really too much for Wombat. He gets scared and refuses to go in the door. If I get him inside he cries. Even if I get him settled, I am not happy, as there are a lot of children there who don't behave in a respectful manner - running up and down the aisles, talking loudly, throwing things, eating constantly. I find it really gives Wombat the wrong message.

- the third option, also at 10am but in the opposite direction, is a very plain, no-frills kind of place - appropriately called St Joseph the Worker. There is no beautiful stained glass. The few statues are simple, with chipped paint. But the congregation is only around 80 people - which while still scary, is survivable for Wombat, and there is a crying room - a small room at the side, separated from the main church by a glass wall, where parents can take children if they get restless so they can still participate in the Mass without disturbing everyone else.

This last church is obviously the best option for Wombat, so that is what I chose - but with a heavy heart, because there would be no singing. For me, music is an integral part of worship. I love singing the parts of the Mass, and the hymns, and Wombat loves it too. As I drove along, I kept praying, "Please, Lord, let there be singing. I know it is a lot to ask, and I really don't expect it, but it would be so nice."

We got to the church, and Wombat - still traumatised from his experience at the big church at Easter when there was over 1000 people trying to cram in for Mass - started pulling back before we even got in the door. I carried him in, but as the seats filled, he started to get upset, so we moved to the crying room, which we had all to ourselves. I noticed with curiosity that there seemed to be more people there than normal, and many of them were of Asian appearance - very unusual in that little rural town, where most of the congregation are retired coal miners & their families.

What do you know! God had arranged for a special visit from a Phillipino choir - just for me! I know it was just for me, because the sound system in the crying room hadn't been turned on. I really had to strain to hear the priest, but I could hear the music and singing clearly. When we went out to communion, I discovered why. The volume in the church was painfully loud. No-one else could have been enjoying the music as much as I was because in the crying room it was muffled to exactly the right level!

It took Wombat about half the Mass to settle down and it was VERY cold in there - he was rugged up, but next week I will make sure he wears his scarf and llama jacket as well. Eventually he relaxed and had a lovely time reading his books and looking at all the people through 'his' window. It helped that we had the room to ourselves. I will be trying to go back there each Sunday so Wombat gets some consistency and gets used to the smaller crowd. I won't expect music next time, but it was very nice to have my prayers answered.

No... I don't think God transported 20 people from the Phillipines that morning just for me - but He is omniscient and omnipotent, so He would have known in advance what I was going to ask and arranged it months ago... I start getting all tangled up in thinking about answered prayers and free will - but perhaps it's like a tree structure - I am standing at point A with, in this case, 4 possibilities stretching out in front of me - three different churches or stay at home - whichever one I choose will have certain consequences and questions associated with it - I guess God just plans for them all!

As Sister Mary Martha would say:

we don't know how it works. We Catholics have a saying for these kind of questions: "It's a Sacred Mystery." "Sacred Mystery" is "Catholic" for "let it go."

So I'll just say - THANKS, LORD!

Meet my daemon

My sister sent me this link, and since I have seen them popping up in a few other places, I thought I'd post mine... I was hoping for Lion... but I started with a Gibbon and ended up as a Mouse! Have a play and see what you can change me into!!!

The 'I have read' meme

Here are the instructions:

Look at the list of books below. Bold the ones you’ve read, italicize the ones you want to read, cross out the ones you won’t touch with a 10 foot pole, put a cross in front of the ones on your book shelf, and asterisk the ones you’ve never heard of.

1. The Da Vinci Code(Dan Brown)
2. +Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. *Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. *A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. *Angels and Demons(Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. *A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. *Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. *The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban(Rowling)
20. +Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. +The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. +++Little Women (Louisa May Alcott) (and ALL the sequels ;P)
24. *The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. *Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) and the other four volumes in the trilogy.
27. +Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. +The lion, the witch and the Wardrobe (CS Lewis)
29. *East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. *Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. *The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. *Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. +1984 (Orwell)
35. +The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. *The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. *The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. *I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. *The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. *The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. *The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. *Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella) (rejected based on the title alone ;P)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom) (think I saw something about this on the Hallmark channel)
45. +Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. *Angelas Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. *She’s Come (Wally Lamb)
51. *The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. +Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. +The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. *The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. *Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. *The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy) (well, I've started it several times...)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice) (seen the movie... couldn't be bothered with the book...)
65. *Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. *One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. *The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. *Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. +Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje) (I wouldn't say want to read it... but if it was lying there I would read it... what's the symbol for ambivalent? ;P I've needed it a few times so far)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. *The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. *A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. *The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White) (want to read again)
81. *Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck) (I've tagged all the Steinbecks it seems... need to do more reading of American classics sometime...)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. *Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. +Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. *The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. *Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. *Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. *In The Skin Of A Lion (Michael Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding) (uggh hate that book)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. *The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum) (there's that ambivalence thing again)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. *White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford) (or anything else she's ever written...)
99. *The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

Found here.