On Touch...

I was recently talking with a massage therapist.  She had three degrees, including an MBA.  I asked her how she ended up doing what she does.  She told me that she had given massages at a fancy spa to work her way through grad school.  Then, she went out into the corporate world.  She quickly grew tired of the lifestyle and sat down to make a list of all the jobs she'd done.  She found that massage was the one way she had literally "touched" people.  In her experience, most people are starved for touch and that contact is essential to the well-being of all of us.  So, she decided to go to work every day in a room with candles and classical music, literally touching and healing.

Ann at Holy Experience has written a series of posts on touch that give us much to ponder, particularly as our children grow older.  The need for touch doesn't go away. I remember a child of mine who needed to be held constantly.  Until he was six or seven or maybe eight, he could not go to sleep without rubbing and holding my upper arm.  Now, I'm not even sure he gets a hug a day, every day.  What happened there?  He's 5'9", for one thing.  He goes to sleep much later than I do, for another.  Still, there is so much in Ann's posts that is convicting.  Children need our touch well beyond their early years.  For that matter, their daddies need it too.

Need some inspiration?  Rebecca recommends a heavenly talc-free powder.  Trust me, the coordinating apricot baby oil is too heavenly to be limited to babies.

Independence Day Art

Here's a very simple way to make some beautiful fireworks of your own, safely inside.

Water down a little tempera paint in several different colors and put each in a shallow bowl. Cover one end of a straw with your finger and dip the other end in the bowl.  Put the straw over your paper and release the paint.  Blow the paint in several directions.  Before it dries, sprinkle with glitter.  Don't pick it up until it's completely dry.

Oooh! Aaaaah!

Our town held its fireworks celebration last night, which is really nice because I have wonderful pictures for today's blog entry.  Nicholas fell asleep before the festivities:

But Michael put him in the car anyway.  He revived enough to watch from the car; the noise was more than he could bear:

Katie was inside asleep through it all, but those who saw were entranced:

Here are just a few of the 85 pictures Michael took:

Nicole

My friend Nicole died yesterday.  A little less than a year ago, she delivered her third baby a bit early.  It was then that doctors discovered a particularly agressive and incurable cancer.  Quickly, it became apparent that instead of a babymoon, Nicole would spend her baby's first year planning to die--and planning her children's childhood in a way few of us ever do.

She set about to leave her three children--a four-year-old girl, a two-year-old boy, and her new little girl--little pieces of heart for every occasion she could imagine.  She asked for my help collecting a huge assortment of books.  She wanted books for each birthday, books for each sacrament, books for the first day of kindergarten, of high school.  She tried so hard to think of every possible time in a child's life that he might miss his mother and to have a book for it. Stop for a moment and think of those books.  Which ones would you include--living books that would live on in your place? Each one, she inscribed.  Her bedroom began to look like an Amazon.com warehouse. And with every day, every box delivered, she weakened.

She fought so hard for the simple things.  A couple of weeks ago, she told me story of her little boy, who had gone for a walk with his dad to get ice cream and stopped to pick her flowers on the way home.  She cried as she said, "I just wanted to see him lick that cone. I'm not asking for big things; it's all the little things I want to have and hold."

Today, do the little things.  Pick your very favorite story off the shelf and read it with your child safely in your lap.  And then have an ice cream cone together.

Please pray for the soul of Nicole and for her young family.

To Do This Year Before Michael leaves for college

A "short" to do list for the next year.

1.  Get Michael to teach me to program the TiVo.

2.  Get Michael to teach me to load and change CDs in the disc player in the new car.

3.  Get Michael to teach me to do more than "point and shoot" with my camera.

4.  Get Michael to teach me to reconnect the computer after the cable blinks out.

5.  Get Michael to teach me where the vacuum repair shop is and who the guy is who knows him by name there. (I've never been.)

6.  Get Michael to teach me to change the ringtone on my cell phone.  Though I may never want anything different...

7.  Get Michael to teach me to to program my cell phone.

8.  Choose a design for the kitchen table, so Michael can work his magic again.

9.  Get Michael to adjust the weight set for me before he goes.  I don't want it to grow lonley in his absence.  Though I'm not sure I can bear to be down there without him...

10.  Bookmark the Reading site so that I can read daily updates, since Michael won't be home to keep me abreast of Bobby's news.

11. Take lots and lots of pictures and video of Michael with the new baby.  This is the only year they will all be together under my roof.