18 months

Amid all of the excitement we've had in the past week with a ton of visitng, traveling, and birthdays, I nearly forgot that my baby turned 18 months! A letter from mommy to daughter...

My dear Catherine,

My, how time flies. I am sure you will hear me say that a lot during your life. Some day you may get tired of me saying it. I can hear it now: "maw-awm!" (That's "mom" with 2 syllables.)

But I will never tire from saying it. It's true. You're growing up so fast. It wasn't long ago that you were being carried in mommy's tummy, or being held as a tiny baby with those tiny toes, or being helped with those first steps.

Not like you've needed help for anything. You're such an independent little girl, and you always have been. You make it clear when you are doing perfectly fine on your own. I personally love that you are now good at making it clear when you would like help. I ask if you need help when you are struggling with something before just jumping in; sometimes you'll say a firm but cute "no!", but other times you give me a grateful look and say "help".

To be needed and loved are wonderful feelings as parents. You grant us with the feeling of pride, watching you do things on your own, but we also get the feeling of love when you come running for us. You now know that mommy's kiss makes anything better, and that running for daddy when he gets home gives him a big smile. He sure loves his baby girl, just like you love him.

And I love how affectionate you are now! You give the best hugs and kisses, and there's no shortage of them being returned!

Out of all of the words in your ever-expanding vocabulary, "mommy", "daddy", and "puppy" are your favorite words now. Every day you are saying new things, and you're even starting to learn some letters! But you understand so much more than you can say, that I know for sure. You are so keen on listening to me and to others - unless you're busy with other important things of course.

There are many things that daddy and I still need to learn, but we do our best to give you everything you need: love, support, understanding, teaching, and discipline when needed.

As we continue to learn together, I promise:

- to love you unconditionally, no matter how frustrating those tough moments can be,
- to be better at taking you to church and teaching you of God's love,
- to continue working at that discipline thing - you don't like it and neither do I, but I know you need it,
- to keep an open mind and let you blossom into the wonderful person that you make yourself to be, and that God has already made you to be.

More than anything, my dear little girl, I hope you know how much I love you, and I won't ever stop making sure that you don't forget it.

Love and hugs, Mommy

A couple favorite moments with my 18 month old:

Her quiet, thoughtful look.

When she puts on sunglasses I say "cool baby!" I must have done that enough, because she started putting them on and saying "cool baby!" herself!

Arrogant Bastard

No, really - I'm not calling you names. That's the name of a beer. Well, not any beer. It's called Arrogant Bastard for a reason, and it happens to be one of our favorites.

And the other night was a perfect occassion requiring an Arrogant Bastard. We felt that when dealing with arrogant bastards, one must have an Arrogant Bastard. And yes, I did say a single beer - at 7.2 % alcohol, one 22 oz bottle was enough to split between us.

How do I describe this strong, kick-in-the-nuts beer? I think it's own label describes it perfectly well. Yes, this is a quote from it's actual label.

Arrogant Bastard Ale: This is an aggressive beer. You probably won't like it. It is quite doubtful that you have the taste or sophistication to be able to appreciate an ale of this quality and depth. We would suggest that you stick to safer and more familiar territory -- maybe something with a multi-million dollar ad campaign aimed at convincing you it's made in a little brewery, or one that implies that their tasteless fizzy yellow beer will give you more sex appeal. Perhaps you think multi-million dollar ad campaigns make a beer taste better. Perhaps you're mouthing your words as you read this.

And my favorite, the "questions or comments?" section on the label:

Questions or comments? If you don't like this beer, keep it to yourself --- we don't want to hear from any sniveling yellow-beer-drinkin' wimps, 'cause this beer wasn't made for you.

Baby calendar

I've decided that I'm going to get one of those gigantic yearly wall calendars to keep up with all of the birthdays and due dates.

Babies? Yeah - a lot of them!

It's wonderful really - why complain? Damn my bad luck - I can't keep up with all the good news!

But I'm starting to lose track of when everyone is expecting. And now just within the last 2 weeks I've had 3 new additions to the baby calendar (that for now is in my head).

Our friend Jim became a new dad on the 19th (welcome to the world, Harrison Wayne!), my best friend Sarah is expecting her 2nd baby sometime in March, and now I find out that Curt and his wife are expecting. Wow!

So congratulations everyone! And before I get one of these giant calendars, forgive me if I forget a birthday along the way!

Happy Birthday... to everyone!

I'm being swamped by birthdays right now - it's all just snuck up on me!

So, to make sure that I don't miss anyone...

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday dear...

Papa Steve (July 25th)

Sylvia (July 30th)

Mom (August 2nd)

Grandma (August 2nd)

Jena's son Jake (August 4th)

Camille (August 10th)

HIPPO BIRDIE TWO EWES!!!!!

Places we sang

Since the main purpose for our trip was singing with our choir, I need to devote one entry solely in honor of the utterly fabulous places that we were able to sing as a group.

Prague: St. Vitus Cathedral. With it's towering spires that you can see from almost everywhere in town, it has an tremendous presence whether you're standing outside or inside. I was so struck by emotion walking into the cathedral that I nearly dropped down to my knees to pray just inside the door. Singing there and being able to partake of the eucharist during mass is one of the most holy moments of my life. And I'm really not exaggerating - it was that amazing of an experience.

This picture shows the side of the cathedral with the choir loft and the organ. If you look carefully just under the organ, you can see our group in the choir loft singing.

Vienna: Karlskirche (St Charles Church). In the historic city center, directly on the Ringstrasse. It was an interesting experience all around. I didn't see the front outside of the church that evening - it wasn't until the next day that I saw the splendid architechture of the building itself. We were late for our arrival at the concert because of the awful traffic in the city that evening. We were taken to the back of the church, directly to the back entrance and rushed in to begin our quick rehearsal. We found ourselves ushered onto the main altar area of the church and suddenly surrounded by a lavish, ornate and beautiful church. Very much Baroque in style - white marble, gold accents, rounded archways and domes. The pictures of the inside is actually a picture of us singing.

Stift Melk: A Benedictine abbey in Austria. The monastery was founded in the 11th century, and the Abbey church that we had the priviledge of singing in was built in the 18th century. I thought Karlskirche was impressive? The Melk Abbey church was more incredible. Not in size, but in design and decoration. And out of all the places we sang, it had the best sound.

Traunkirchen: The beautiful little village in the Salzkammergut region of Austria of the Lake Traunsee. I still need to tell the full story of this visit, but the church in the town dates back to 1022 and it is a quaint little church. We sang a quick song there for the experience, as our visit was unfortunately under a time constraint.

Salzburg: Kollegienkirche (University Church) and Salzburger Dom (Salzburg Cathedral). Quite honestly, the University Chuch wasn't entirely impressive. It was difficult to judge it because of what we had to compare it to. We had already sung in much more amazing sites. But it was the central point of the festival that we were taking part in. The Dom Cathedral, however, was incredible. Historically interesting because of it's many rebuilds and renovations. It originated back to the 8th century, and was even bombed during WWII. Also, Mozart was baptized there, which was relevant especially to our performance because we sang Mozart's Credo Mass with the resident choir and orchestra. Very cool.

100% mom moment

At the end of the day, I was washing dishes while making dinner, and Catherine was running around at knee level. Usually she's excellent at playing on her own, but apparently she decided she had enough of not getting attention from me. She tugged hard on my pant leg, and when that wasn't enough she pushed and pushed at my leg until I was compelled to turn and face her. And then she threw her arms around my legs and grinned up at me.

There I was, washing dishes and making mac and cheese with hot dogs and veggies (a staple of motherhood), and my young daughter was tugging at my leg to beg for attention. I swear, if I had an apron on she would have been tugging at my apron strings. I realized that mothers for generations back have likely had the same exact moment. Details may have changed, but I can imagine that for centuries moms have had a moment when tending to the home and meals, and their small child has tugged on their dress or apron (or loincloth?) to get attention.

And it warms my heart. A moment when I feel 100% mommy.

Things I learned in Europe

- Americans don't know any concept of true history until they've traveled abroad. You just can't comprehend all that history entails until you are standing in a building that has been around for over 1000 years.

- When a kind waiter realizes that you are struggling with your German and asks another kind waiter who actually speaks English to come over and that kind, English-speaking waiter asks you *in English* if he can help with anything, don't reply with "no thank you" in German. It's just rude. (In my defense, I was so caught up in trying desperately to keep up with the German that it didn't occur to me that he was actually speaking English. I felt like such a dumb American!)


- Teenagers are the same in Europe as they are in America.


- Smoking really doesn't make you look cool, regardless of which country you are in.


- Americans are not the only dumb tourists out there.

- People put gum under the pews in Europe, too.

- Don't assume that you are putting money into a change machine if you can't understand what the sign says, you could lose your money very easily.

- If you open your mind, your eyes, and your ears, you can write your own history book by discovering history that they don't teach in school.