1st Birthday Celebration for my Lil Man!

Well, tomorrow is the little guys 1st birthday!  I can't believe an entire year has passed!  We had a wonderful family celebration today for him.  My inlaws are in town visiting and they brought with them some delicious and nostalgic mini-hot dogs for the family to grill....all the way from Woerhles in Massachusetts!    We had a picnic-style party at the park and the weather was perfect for it!  He was surrounded by the love of his crazy family!   We decided to take a few snapshots as soon as we got there - and I am so glad we did.  Demetri was a typical boy and was filthy, full of dirt, scraped knees, etc. within minutes of arriving at the park!

Yiayia helping with some big steps! (he is not yet walking)

Birthday Boy with is Nouna

My father-in-law took control of the grill (thanks Granddad! ) and everything came out delicious!

Thanks to the Russells (who brought the horseshoes), the men had some fun playing horseshoes!

And of course, no journal entry would be complete without a little picture of the Birthday Boy eating some cake!

A great day overall.  Tomorrow is his actual birthday and we will be attending Divine Liturgy in the morning. After that, we are going away for a few days and will continue to celebrate and enjoy my inlaws visit.

My Slinging Little Girl

Our little girl has started showing more of an interest in playing with her dolls lately.  She feeds them, reads them stories, blesses them with the Sign of the Cross, dresses them...and she even wears them.  She spent much of her little life in a sling, mei tai or wrap - so it seems normal that she would want to wear her own babies too.  Pictured below she is using a sling and a mei tai that her Yiayia made for  her!    Nonetheless, I still find it endearing to see that she is mimicking what she sees me now do with her little brother.  She is really at that fun age of playing make-believe, role-playing, "cooking" for me, playing dollhouse, etc.  I love to watch her play this way.

Dorofy and Dorofy

The box arrived and my little girl was SO excited, the way she normally is when her Noni sends her "presents"!  So, we sat down after lunch and started opening all of her new treasures.  She got excited with each thing she pulled out....cute skorts, new skirt, shirts to match, sweets...and THERE IT WAS!  I thought to myself "well, my mother-in-law has FINALLY managed to send a bad gift"!  I've never had to deal with this before. All of her gifts are always wonderful, fun, thoughtful...perfect, most of the time.  Except for now.  I see a fishbowl.....gravel.....and I'm pulling out the tissue paper.  I see a Petsmart receipt.  Yup, this must be the voucher that I go and pick up her first goldfish. Wonderful.  Toddler + Infant + Goldfish.  You are seeing where this could end, right?
Well, we'd like you to meet "Dorofy and Dorfy" (Dorothy and Dorothy...my little girl couldn't think of 2 names right away, so I think they both got named after Elmo's fish, Dorothy).

My mother-in-law had quite a laugh when I told her what I was thinking while opening her package.  However, I will also add this:  A few days later, our little angel took Dorofy out of the bowl to wash her with papertowels...put her back (still covered in wet papertowels) and proceeded to feed them Cheerios in their bowl!

My view from the kitchen...

Ahhh, the signs of an active day!  Now if you know my little girl, you know that is probably the worst sleeper EVER!   Naps?  ha!  So, to see her rosy little cheeks glowing as she peacefully sleeps is a beautiful site.  We love that the weather has been so nice lately! We've been able to spend so much more time outdoors and she is getting a lot more physical exercise...which we all love.  I have high hopes for many more satisfying days such as this one!

Cousins and Friends

My youngest niece turns 11 today!  WOW!  It is so true what everyone always said when I was pregnant with my first, "the time goes by way too fast"!  It does.  My sister has two beautiful girls, both pictures below with my daughter.  I can remember as if it were yesterday. She called me so many miles away to tell me she was pregnant!  I remember the birth of both of them and can still picture them in their nursery beds.  Here they are now...."big cousins" to my children.  Over the years, between then and now, I always felt a bit of sadness when it came to her children and my "future" children.  While she  is younger than I am, she found her soulmate and had children much before I did.  I was sad in my own way because I had always envisioned our children growing up together, playing together, learning together.  I wanted them to be close since my sister and I are so close.  I had wanted our children to share in that love and joy.   I feared that if there was a big gap in their age they would miss out on that.  I really couldn't have been more wrong.  God is awesome and knows what is best for all of us!    Her oldest is over 10 years older than my daughter - and they are unbelievably close.  Both girls have such a special relationship with my children.   They are awesome.  Unlike most kids I know their age, they are always so willing to get out there and play with Sophia at her level. They are selfless when it comes to her - and in return, they are Sophia's most favorite people in the world. Mine too!  Everything is always more fun if "the girls" are there with us.  I couldn't agree more! So, today's little post is just a "thank you" to them...and a Happy Birthday, of course!

TV...or not TV....THAT is the question.

Even before we were married, my DH and I were never really "tv people".  We do have a television and basic cable.  He watches football, baseball, etc - whatever is in season...and occassionally we watch a "This Old House" episode or something of that nature.  So naturally, when my daughter was born, I made it my strict mantra "NO TV" for my child.  She will read, play, sing, run...but not watch that "junk".  My thought process on this was simple.  I didn't want  her being exposed to all the negative things that were shown on television - shows, commercials, inappropriate behavior, dress, language...you name it.  I certainly did not want to allow anything bad into her little mind.  And so it went...my tv-less child.  We would occassionally get a video from the library and we even have a few of our own which she really loves.   Every so often I allow her to watch a special show in the morning if I am really in a rush to get ready - Sid the Science Kid is her favorite.  She is quite proficient with the computer and we do allow her limited time to play on that.  She enjoys playing Sesame Street and the PBS website .  She can watch slideshows of our family photos.   That was the extent of her electronic entertainment.

Well, last week my little girl was sick (wasn't everyone?).  We put her on the couch so she could rest during the day, of course.  Coloring, puzzles and dollhouse only lasted so long.  So....enter PBS Kids.  Channel 3.  Sesame Street.  Curious George.  Word World.  I had to start watching some of these shows with her to get her through the day.  The shows were cute. The content was good.  There were learning segments, letters, numbers, life lessons...not too bad.  It was even nostalgic for me!   We got through those few days,  thank God. PBS shows in the morning and some videos that she had gotten for her birthday if necessary later on in the day.  It was a television frenzy!  She couldn't wait to watch the "next" show or movie.  Harmless?  Maybe.

It's been a week since she recovered.  The first few days were a shock to me. She would wake up in the morning and take her chocolate milk, head to the couch and say "what can I watch now?"  When I would tell her "nothing" and try to explain that we only watched a lot of shows because she was so sick, she told me her tummy hurt!  GASP!  That little picture box thing was so powerful (dare I say evil?) that my innocent little girl was going to pretend to be sick now ?!?

For the next few days I had to wake up and immediately DO something, get out of the house, have a plan....because if I didn't , she was asking me to watch something.  Amazing - she wanted to watch something more than she wanted to play with all of her birthday presents!   It was really quite a struggle for me the first few days.  I was actually feeling like a horrible mother for even letting her sit and watch it for so long to begin with.

So, why I am I thinking about all of this and why am I writing about it?   I know that some of my friends and family think I'm a little odd for not having her watch tv or not letting her get caught up in all the mainstream, character toys, etc.  I ALWAYS get comments like "What's wrong with Sesame Street"?  "Is it a sin to watch Clifford?"  Well, no...I actually LIKE Sesame Street and I think that there are a LOT of good things for kids to learn there.  I was brought up watching Sesame Street.  It's not ALWAYS the content of the shows that we have to be careful about...but it is the DEPENDENCY of watching them in general.  Isn't the same true for adults?  How many of us used to watch "the Soaps"?  Would you miss a day?  I know many who would video record them so as not to miss out on a single hour of these make-believe lives.  I can even see my little girls temparment change when she watches more than a short segment. She gets whiny, cranky, lazy, doesn't want to play with anything else...I call it "brain-mush".  It can become a habit so fast...and THAT (in my humble opinion) is something that we need to be mindful of for our children, just the same as WHAT they watch.  As an Orthodox Christian mother, I want to be sure that she isn't exposed to anything that is inappropriate and not pleasing to God....for the eyes are the window to the soul.    Even if we were to put aside the fact that we shouldn't allow them to fill their mind with garbage and noise...we  must remember that we could be letting them set up habits that could last a lifetime.   There are so many children today that don't know what to DO if they aren't in front of a television, listening to their iPods, playing a video game.  We, as parents, are responsible for paving the way for them.  If it was this APPARENT after just a week with my little girl, just think of how much of an impact it has on children after a year, two years, etc!

Every year there are more and more gadgets.  Every year it seems like younger and younger children are "needing" these gadgets.  I know 8 year olds who have cell phones, 5 year olds who can't go anywhere without a portable gameboy, 6 year olds who watch a movie every single time they get into mom's minivan!  It's crazy!

"We will put the devil in our houses inside a box and his horns will be on the roof."  St. Kosmas

Divine Justice

"There is no greater joy than the joy you feel when you accept being wronged.   I wish everyone would wrong me!  Honestly, the sweetest spiritual joy that I ever felt was inside the attacks of injustice.  Have you any idea how much joy it gives me, to be called, "deluded"?  "Thank God", I say to myself; "I will receive wages from this insult, whereas if they called me a saint, I would be indebted".  Nothing is sweeter than being wronged!            


-- Elder Paisios 




I have spent the better part of the last two weeks really battling how I am ACTUALLY feeling and  how I WANT to be feeling!   Ahhh, the "spiritual struggle" (my "askesis" in Greek).  

I am a victim. Yikes, I don't even like how that sounds.  My car was burglarized, my diaper bag/purse was stolen. My window was crushed. My wallet is gone.  My personal affects.  My children's things.  My bank accounts frozen, closed, reopened, frauded!   I feel violated....and mad.  I'm sure I don't have to tell anyone what an aggravation this whole thing has been.   As if the above wouldn't be enough, I find out yesterday that these criminals DID actually use my identity to take money from our account...all of it - and THEN some.  Well, I had been handling the whole thing quite well until this new curve in the road.  NOW I was really mad, disgusted, depleted.  I was starting to unravel.


As my husband and I are handling all of the details back and forth via emails, he takes a moment to tell me this:  


"my love!  It is not for us to be troubled within these trials and tribulations in life.  By troubled I mean despondent, angered, fearful, stressed, etc. We move on through patience, calmness, trust, peace, humility; excepting "all that comes to us throughout the day." Our growth in life-our Faith comes
through times like this. These are perfect examples, or as the church shows us "temptations" to ascend or descend."



He reminds me to re-read Elder Paisios' talks on Divine Justice for encouragement and guidance.  I LOVE that we are there for each other in these times of struggle!  What a Blessing he is to me. 


I can't lie - I didn't flip a switch and become thankful that I was robbed.  I wish it were that easy. But I am fighting the temptation to react to this in a way that is not pleasing to God.