Not bad, not bad at all.
Keainid had off yesterday, and it was a day fairly well spent. There was leftover lamb and bread for brunch...yum yum. I played/read/"danced" around/etc. with Jamie, at home, as usual, while Keainid went to a late morning service at our new (and remarkably improved) church. When he got back home, we both played around with Jamie, together, for a bit, and then he went and picked up a free, four-drawer filing cabinet. I'd been trying to snag one from freecycle/free-craigslist for a long while, but never lucked out, so yay. This one is tan and non-locking, and a little dinged up, but hey. It's twice as big as the one we had, and is servicable enough for how, and where, we're using it. (And I've got a nice, big surface on which to put my magnetic poetry back up..heehee.) Then there was daddy time while I took a shower, and then more family time, as I dried. I got dressed a bit nicer, they got dressed a bit warmer, and Keainid took Jamie for a little fresh air time in the playground, while ouchy me checked out another "GLBT & Friends" service at the church. (It's an issue of tough love, indeed, my friends, working Jamie through still trying to get used to and dealing with even the rare, opportunistic occasion of mommy being somewhere else. This is one of those opportunities.) Jamie is often a bit calmer (at least, physically) in the mornings, so it's easier, between morning and early evening, for me to be alone with him then...thus Keainid ends up at an earlier mass, and I end up at the later mass, if Jamie doesn't seem to be up for us all going together, and I'm up for going, myself. Eniways, the sub-congregational extra mass only happens on the first and third Sundays of each month -- and it just worked out that the last time I went, it was their first one, and this time, a month later, it was another one. I'd forgotten that on first-Sundays, they tend to go out to dinner together, afterwards, and on third-Sundays, they have a potluck in the affiliated community center. Since I was informed that contributing myself to the potluck was quite good enough, and I'd best let myself be walked over there with the rest of them, I called Keainid after the service, to let him know I needed to be picked up in a slightly different spot, and that if he was having a rough time getting Jamie through the transition of doing all that was needed to come and get me, not to rush it, because I was apparently at a pot luck, and so would not exactly be waiting alone for him to arrive. And so it was that we were not all back at home together until 2+ hours after I'd been dropped off, by which time Jamie only made it through about another half an hour of family time, before he needed bedtime. Bedtime was very nicely untraumatic again, and after Jamie was zonked and Keainid and I had done our story-telling from the brief time apart, he took advantage of the new filing cabinet, sorting a lot of paperwork, finding some he needed info. from, for other paperwork, and re-cleaned/organized a space, at the same time. I got some BRC work done, and then watched "Prince Caspian" (while he did the aforementioned in a different room) since my fingers stiffened up...a movie we were given for Christmas, but which he didn't want to see yet because he hasn't read the books yet. Then we ate dinner with talk and music, and fell asleep very snuggly. Yep....well spent.
What does it say about our society that, in all my years of exploring and testing and feeling out assorted places of worship, in assorted traditions, the first one that I have run into, in which the congregation actually behaves like a community, is here and now at All Saints, in particular with their "GLBT Catholics & Friends" sub-congregation? I'm not a breath away from formal affiliation with just one tradition, just because this little bubble of one has challenged itself to uphold only the best of itself, in a fairly surprising way. I'm sure there is still be someone affiliated there who would be disappointed that while I'm finding myself comfortable there, I'm also still comfortable if finding myself in the right Buddhist monastery, the right pagan circle, the right.... Heh. But it is a remarkable, and interesting, and somewhat bittersweet change...to finally find a congregation that's a true community, and THIS is what it had to be, to manage it. Or, at least, that's how it seems to have worked out. I'm really hoping that, at the end of the three-month (one down) trial period they gave themselves before deciding whether or not to look for somewhere else to worship, this sub-congregation decides to stick around. I like them. I like how they do things, both in-service and outside of it. I like how they want to do things, the way they think, towards that end. I mean, I'm liking the church at large, but this sub-congregation in particular.
I should probably go into more details and stories, if only for my own thoughtful reference, but Jamie's going to want me to do something else in particular, in a few minutes, and I don't feel like leaving this post sitting around to be eaten if the browser crashes.
One of the things I was sent home with, from the pot luck, was a tiny little cupcake with a florette of vanilla frosting and a few rainbow confetti sprinkles. They had cupcakes with a candle apiece in them (good excuse to only use one candle) for the two people who have birthdays this month -- though someone else ended up making them a surprise cake, too -- and one of the birthday people had filled up before getting to dessert, so asked if I wanted to take their cupcake home for my kid. I did so gladly, though I expected Jamie to reject it, and for us to end up eating it after he'd finished with tolerance-testing. Well, Jamie took interest today, so I stuck him in his high chair with his tray, and let him experiment. He actually ate the blob of frosting, which had dried out somewhat overnight, and fell off the cupcake when he poked at it. Let me type that one more time -- HE ACTUALLY ATE THE BLOB OF SEMI-HARDENED FROSTING. This might make other parents cringe, but it's cause for celebration, here. I'm honestly not sure if he ate any of the actual cupcake....he pulverized it so much (which is, itself, not entirely a bad thing), I couldn't tell. But all in all (which includes a huge mess of crumbs and frosting all over both his hands and his face), a very successful cupcake experiment, this time. Woo hoo!
Jamie pooped and peed in his diaper. Then pulled it, and his pants down, and asked me for the potty. Well, we're getting there.
What does it say about our society that, in all my years of exploring and testing and feeling out assorted places of worship, in assorted traditions, the first one that I have run into, in which the congregation actually behaves like a community, is here and now at All Saints, in particular with their "GLBT Catholics & Friends" sub-congregation? I'm not a breath away from formal affiliation with just one tradition, just because this little bubble of one has challenged itself to uphold only the best of itself, in a fairly surprising way. I'm sure there is still be someone affiliated there who would be disappointed that while I'm finding myself comfortable there, I'm also still comfortable if finding myself in the right Buddhist monastery, the right pagan circle, the right.... Heh. But it is a remarkable, and interesting, and somewhat bittersweet change...to finally find a congregation that's a true community, and THIS is what it had to be, to manage it. Or, at least, that's how it seems to have worked out. I'm really hoping that, at the end of the three-month (one down) trial period they gave themselves before deciding whether or not to look for somewhere else to worship, this sub-congregation decides to stick around. I like them. I like how they do things, both in-service and outside of it. I like how they want to do things, the way they think, towards that end. I mean, I'm liking the church at large, but this sub-congregation in particular.
I should probably go into more details and stories, if only for my own thoughtful reference, but Jamie's going to want me to do something else in particular, in a few minutes, and I don't feel like leaving this post sitting around to be eaten if the browser crashes.
One of the things I was sent home with, from the pot luck, was a tiny little cupcake with a florette of vanilla frosting and a few rainbow confetti sprinkles. They had cupcakes with a candle apiece in them (good excuse to only use one candle) for the two people who have birthdays this month -- though someone else ended up making them a surprise cake, too -- and one of the birthday people had filled up before getting to dessert, so asked if I wanted to take their cupcake home for my kid. I did so gladly, though I expected Jamie to reject it, and for us to end up eating it after he'd finished with tolerance-testing. Well, Jamie took interest today, so I stuck him in his high chair with his tray, and let him experiment. He actually ate the blob of frosting, which had dried out somewhat overnight, and fell off the cupcake when he poked at it. Let me type that one more time -- HE ACTUALLY ATE THE BLOB OF SEMI-HARDENED FROSTING. This might make other parents cringe, but it's cause for celebration, here. I'm honestly not sure if he ate any of the actual cupcake....he pulverized it so much (which is, itself, not entirely a bad thing), I couldn't tell. But all in all (which includes a huge mess of crumbs and frosting all over both his hands and his face), a very successful cupcake experiment, this time. Woo hoo!
Jamie pooped and peed in his diaper. Then pulled it, and his pants down, and asked me for the potty. Well, we're getting there.