Rosh hashanah

Whenever possible I try to listen to NPR while driving errands.  I feel like this is my way to hear real adults speak in normal adult language and keep up with some news.  Though I must say that the news bit is a bit…. well when you’re in the car for ten minutes at a time and every other minute you’re breaking up a fight or responding in some other way to the mayhem in the back seat it isn’t entirely possible to catch what the news is…

Cairn, clever little thing that she is, listens to it too… what choice does she have?  Well, that’s brought up some interesting, news interrupting conversations.  For example, I had to explain about the revolution in Libya when she asked what a Qaddafi is.  She understood the simplified version well enough to tell Grant all about it at the end of the day.  It went something like this: And the people are mad because Qaddafi wasn’t good and didn’t take care of them and so they’re yelling and fighting and telling him to go away.  And Qaddafi was angry and was like a baaad king who didn’t take care of them good..

The most recent question I got was “What is Jewish?  Are they our church too?”  So on the fly… err.. drive I gave her this overly simplified answer: The Jewish people go to a different church.  They are waiting for Jesus to come the first time.  At our church we are waiting for Jesus to come the second time.  Because remember, he came the first time already and we read about it in the scriptures.

She liked the answer well enough and moved on with.  Yeah, and Jesus is going to come to me.  I’ll be so happy when he comes to see me again.  Jesus loves me.  Jesus loves me because I play rough nice and because I’m soft to Reecey. And Jesus loves me because I dress pretty…  She continued this list (repeating only a few) for the rest of our drive.

Yes Cairn.  Jesus loves you.  If only the rest of us could be as certain of it… or rather confident enough of it to be able to list why Jesus loves each of us personally.

Und remember - the penalty for breaking the Siegfried oaf is deasss.

A few months ago our lion at Reid Park Zoo died.  We happened to go to there the day after and see a very agitated lioness.  One of the docents explained to me and then I had to explain to Cairn why "Daddy Lion" wasn't there.  Since then every time we get to the lion exhibit (including yesterday) she declares "Daddy Lion died.  He's dead so Mommy Lion is sad."

But yesterday we had the news that we've received a new male.  He's still in quarantine before being introduced to the female and his awaiting public.  So I told Cairn that we got a new Daddy Lion. She replied with "Oh.  So Daddy Lion died but is alive again." Regardless of my repeating that this is a new lion she continued with the concept that the old lion had been resurrected.

I didn't think much of it until today in Relief Society we closed with the children's hymn "He Sent His Son"
(See it and hear it at: He Sent His Son )
About half way through it is a line:

How could the Father tell the world of sacrifice, of death?
He sent His son to die for us and rise with living breath.

As soon as I sang it I immediately thought about Cairn's understanding of the lion's death.  And I realized that in her childlike way she understands death the way Heavenly Father wants us to think of it: Oh. So Daddy Lion died but is alive again... just like Jesus died but is alive again.  And just like all of us will die but live again.

It's totally worth it

Motherhood: An Eternal Partnership with God

This video was part of a Relief Society lesson a few weeks ago... one that I only heard parts of since Cerise was particularly fussy.  I accidentally clicked on it today while looking for something else on lds.org and I know it was more of a blessing than an accident because I needed some encouragement.

Monday we started babysitting Rebekah while her mom started work.  Cairn, bless her little two-year-old heart is having a rough time adjusting.  She loves Bekah and is excited for her every morning, but by the afternoon she feels robbed of her mommy and gets... well.. I'm sure you can imagine.  I've been able to get them happy together by the time Liz or Daryn come so they always part as friends again.  But the hardest part of her adjustment comes at night.  She's having nightmares again.  Every night this week she's needed comfort at least twice and multiple other times has been able to settle herself.

So I spend part of every night in bed with her... or with Cerise after Cairn wakes her up enough to go into milk frenzy.

I know this isn't going to last long, but for the time it's hard... mostly after Bekah leaves because the sleepless night catches up to me in the evening and I want to collapse as soon as dinner's on the table.  And that's when I really wonder how mothers survive to be grandmothers.

Here's to next week and more sleep!