caerula's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- snow in Bethlehem Please send positive thoughts and/or prayers, whatever your bag is, fluff's way. No one should have to deal with what she's going through, and now this, on top of impending motherhood. Also soliciting positive thoughts for QueenV, whose boyfriend decided to finally tell her (after six months of dating and major emotional involvement) that he has lupus. I know what it's like to have a chronic, incurable, and difficult-to-treat condition, so I understand that this would be a hard thing to share with someone that you want to build a relationship and possibly a life with, but he did kind of spring it on her after months of vague hints of some kind of problem. And now QueenV has to readjust her vision of life with Mr. 3rd Date, which is hard too. Not as hard as actually living with the disease, maybe, but it's no piece of cake to live with someone with chronic health problems. Had an interesting talk with YMB last night. For a child whose mother and grandparents were so gung-ho about the necessity of his going to catechism classes and taking first communion in their church, he has a very shaky grasp of Christianity in general and the Bible in particular. We were watching one of those old Claymation Christmas specials; "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" was on next (yay, Burgermeister Meisterburger! I just like to say that!) and we didn't want to forget. So, anyway, this was something horridly sappy about the first Christmas snow, with Angela Lansbury narrating and voicing a nun, and a poor blind orphan boy to boot. The poor boy only wished for snow to make Sister Theresa happy because she missed the white Christmases of her youth, or something, There was miraculous Christmas snow (which also healed blindness, somehow), during the requisite Christmas pageant. Blue and I were making snarky comments, of course, during the angel choir's song about Christmas snow, regarding the likeliness of actual snow in Bethlehem, and YMB made a comment which made it clear that not only did he not know where Bethlehem was, he didn't know what it was � a town, state, country, what. He's been with us so rarely at Christmas time that we've never had much opportunity to talk about the Christmas story, so I dug out my old children's story Bible and showed him the maps in the back, and read the bit from Luke where the Angel of the Lord comes to the shepherds and explains about Jesus. Then he wanted to know why Jesus is named Jesus, and not, say, Bill (we've been reading The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson at bedtimes, which is also where some of this was coming from, I'm guessing). So I tried to explain what little I know about Hebrew names and what they mean, and how God was always coming down and renaming people or telling people what to name their sons, so that it was hardly surprising that Mary didn't get to choose a name for her baby. I realized in the process of trying to explain all this how much I've either forgotten or never learned of the Christmas story � YMB wanted to know where the three kings came from and how they knew which star to follow, and all about Herod, and why people didn't know the baby was Jesus, and what the heck are swaddling clothes, anyway? Really, one just gets so accustomed to the words that it's all too easy to stop thinking about what they mean. It was an entertaining and informative discussion, but I was a bit surprised, as I said, at how clueless YMB really was about all this. Back when we were going to court every other month, the Dementors made a huge deal about how Catholic they are and how important it was that YMB be raised Catholic, and how we didn't even go to church at all. Uh-huh. I can see how important religion is in their lives by YMB's knowledge of Christmas. When Santa comes and brings you stuff. Oh, yeah, and it's Jesus's birthday, I guess. ("And how do you think those two things are related, YMB?" "Um, I don't know. Jesus is really nice and gives us his birthday presents?") Sigh. I know my religious education was neglected, but geez. This child supposedly went to catechism classes for six months. I can see how much they must have stressed the importance of these to him � not at all, apparently. The Robinson book has turned out to be a really good choice, because honestly, YMB doesn't have much on the kids in that book, who had never heard the Christmas story and have to have the whole concept explained to them. Their take on it is "they tied the baby up and put him in a trough? What's wrong with these people?" Which, when you think about it, is about right. Hmmm. Kitty and CF went last Friday for the ultrasound, and they know what the baby is, but won't tell anyone (gender-wise, I mean; we're pretty sure it's human). They want to wait until they're here for Christmas. Which I understand; I'm just impressed that Kitty is really keeping her mouth shut about this. I talked to her Sunday night, and she was very annoyingly vague. But everything looks good and despite the fact that she's gained hardly any weight and has since lost most of it due to morning sickness that lasts all day, the baby is developing just as it should. Good news there, not that we were terribly worried. Still, it's good to have that assurance. They've decided on names; at least as of now, Anneke for a girl and Benjamin for a boy. Kitty was supposed to be Benjamin if she had been a boy, which my parents were sure she was, so Mom is pleased with that choice. Anneke is from CF's side of the family, which is pretty thoroughly German. Unusual, but at least it's not annoyingly trendy or made-up. I did get some cookies made over the weekend, and still have dough in the fridge to roll out and bake, but I didn't make it to the party. So tired all weekend. Sunday, after church, was a fiesta of wrapping, and realizing that there were still a couple of things we had to get. So, like Swwoop, I too braved the wilds of Best Buy yesterday. It's a long story, but Blue was on a mission for cousin Ess which was to also result in booty for us, and he called me at lunchtime, plaintively. "The people at Best Buy think I'm nuts." It turned out that the person he talked too had simply neglected to turn to the proper page in the sale ad (the back page, which you wouldn't think would be all that hard too find), but Blue didn't know this. So I went back to the store with him, and we now have the sale-priced copy of Marine Mania for Zoo Tycoon, plus a gift card for one of the Blue cousins whose name YMB got in the gift exchange draw, and (drumroll) we are in possession of an Xbox. This is not something I am as thrilled about as Blue is, since I have not really minded the lack of a video game system since the Playstation broke (and really don't miss YMB squabbling about playing privileges and whatnot), but we got a unbeatable (and therefore affordable) deal courtesy of Ess, so we went with it. Sigh. It will make the boys happy, I suppose. And I can get the one game I excel at (SSX, the snowboarding one, which I ROCK at for some bizarre reason) for Xbox, so I can live with it. As long as both of the boys follow the rules about limiting playing time and having to stop if they get frustrated. These are my rules, and they shall follow them. So speaketh Caerula. 1:19 p.m. - December 17, 2002 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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