Yours and Only Yours

I've always found it a bit amusing that with each baby that is born one of the first remarks from people is who the child's physical features resemble the most. We analyze some small details like the length of the fingers and toes, point or bulge in the nose, etc and connect it to the mom or the dad. As the children become older those common features become more acute along with the personality traits and lots of other things. Recently I've become very aware of the personality and other habits our children have acquired being parented by myself and Kyle. The most troubling is that it seems children pick up on some of your worst habits/ flaws and use them when interacting with you. All those things you do that have annoyed others throughout the years but you haven't bothered to change will come back to haunt you...BEWARE. However in the situation with Prema struggling to attach to us as her parents we have sometimes silently celebrated some of our flaws and habits that she has acquired for it is a sign of attachment. So now for your enjoyment I'll list some of the things our kids have picked up on.

Eli- throwing temper tantrums with gusto. Kyle and I are were not the most calm people when we are angry as children and still struggle as adults.

Isaac- talking to Kyle in the same tone I do when I'm not being the most respectful, biting his fingernails, picking his nose, touching his nose with his tongue (I can do this and we learned Isaac could do this too when he had a cold. He would refuse to use a kleenex and instead would lick his boogers out of his nose). smelling things over and over again...the kid has the nose of a hound and he's really funny dramatically sniffing in the air whenever he smells something and then tries to name the smell.

Prema- ordering other kids around (due to her lack of any language especially for the first year we tended to only give her directions most of the time so that the language was clear and she would become obedient and respectful and she ignores any conversations we have with all adults-deaf included- so she doesn't pay attention to healthy conversations) picking her nose and eating her boogers, standing and sitting with her arms crossed, signing with the same facial expressions I use, snapping her fingers to get people's attention (her teachers were wondering where she acquired this habit and just as they were about to ask me I snapped at Prema to get her attention--a bit embarrassing)

So now that some of their bad habits which are mine also are starting to bother me, I'm trying to change but it sure is hard work. Pray for me. We can't all be perfect.

Happy 30th Birthday Kyle

Today Kyle celebrated his 30th birthday. check out this great post from his mom's blog. Happy Birthday Kyle. We love you.

Saint Alphonsa and Isaac

In celebration of All Souls/ All Saints Day at church today Prema and Isaac dressed up as saints. Prema was the first woman saint of India, Sister Alphonsa who was canonized last month. Isaac was dressed as Fr. Isaac Joques, a French missionary to the Indians in Canada. The kids wore their costumes all during mass and then after communion they processed in and walked around the church as the people sang "Oh When the Saints Go Marching In".

These costumes were my second sewing project as an adult. Last year I made a school bag for Prema. The costume patterns said it would take 2 hours each, but it took much longer as I needed to re-acquaint myself with the sewing machine and have not followed a sewing pattern since middle school. Isaac's took me at least 6 hours and Prema's took about 3 hours. I had some very informative and helpful instruction from my mother in law Sandy before I began. I've always wanted to learn to sew, so I decided this was the time to start. I didn't even know the basics like how to measure the material. I'm happy with how they turned out and I did have many enjoyable moments doing it among the other stressful and frustrating moments.

Halloween

We had a great time celebrating Fall on Halloween. We don't do go trick or treating for a few reason. In our opinion Halloween has become too much a celebration about blood, scary and evil things. It seems to be getting worse every year. We don't want our kids dressing in those things nor do we really want them seeing them as something to celebrate. The decorations in stores and on houses are scary enough. All of our kids struggle to know what is fiction and what is real so we just try to stay away from it all. However, in order that they don't feel "left out" when all the kids are talking about the excitement around Halloween we have our own Fall celebration at home. This year we bobbed for apples, had a pumpkin rolling contest and broke open the pinatas that we made. It was a blast. The kids struggled to get the apples themselves with their mouths, but enjoyed trying. Eli just kept getting in the pool and eating large portions of each apple as everyone tried. The pinatas were a bit difficult to break since they were very thick and being hit with plastic bats, but eventually they cracked and then we tore into them.