Aaahhhh... a real computer.....

You couldn't necessarily tell, because I posted from my phone a few times, but we've been without a real, working computer since before Christmas. Now, thanks to Husband's ingenuity and IT know-how, and our friend Carel's tower, I am sitting at a REAL keyboard, with a lovely 15" monitor, a real mouse, etc, and it's like having full lung capacity back after pneumonia.
I can touch-type again.
Our church's feastday went wonderfully, we had FIVE priests in all, plus His Grace Bishop Demetrios for Vespers Saturday evening, and we found out that kittyboys like bishops. Colorful, bright, shiny, sparkly, jingly and TALL - what more could you want? And with a staff, and a really cool hat, and lots of candles! Any time bishop-y (what's an adjective for bishop-y?) things were going on, Kittyboy was fascinated. And narrating. "Da bishop having da candles! Da bishop singing! Da bishop reading da book! Da bishop censing!" (heeheehee - he's added "censing" to his vocabulary, I love it!). After the Liturgy Sunday - which was an adventure - Husband took Kittyboy to kiss His Grace's hand before we left, and instead Kittyboy dove from Husband's arms for the huge pectoral Theotokos pendant. What a big, shiny, colorful MARY. And so he just had to get a better look.
And we had a wonderful, wonderful time at the St. Anthony's Dinner/Dance Saturday night. Had a babysitter, Kittyboy in bed,and we stayed until close to midnight for the first time since the KB was born. It's my ONE chance a year to go dancing. Now I have to wait... HOW long? For next year? Darn it. I need to get out more often.
Liturgy that Sunday was an adventure because Kittyboy wanted very much to do his altarboy thing with his daddy, and we hadn't really discussed beforehand the fact that he wouldn't be able to. Not with His Grace there, all the extra duties Husband had, all the stuff that was different. That did NOT go over well with Kittyboy. And since we were in the choir - which is up in front - we couldn't leave discretely. I finally started telling him that okay, after Communion -he knows very well what that is and when it happens - we would go downstairs, get a piece of bread to eat, get a drink, go outside (in the snow) and run around. That was the mantra. Over and over. He threw quite a fit during the Gospel reading, but we had our plan, we were waiting for Communion, going downstairs, getting some bread, etc. So then FINALLY, it was the last hymn that is right before Communion, "Enite Ton Kirion" (Praise the Lord), Kittyboy knew this hymn, and spent most of it whining "Conunan? Conunan? Conunan? Conunan? Conunan NOW?" and so I told him YES, Communion was next, THE VERY NEXT thing, and everyone would line up and when it was our turn, we would take Communion and go downstairs and get a piece of bread and get a drink and go outside and run around. VERY NEXT THING. Kittyboy was at the very end of his patience - actually a bit beyond it.
Then His Grace came out with a podium.
I thought this was going to be the end of the world. The world was going to explode in a nuclear fireball of Kittyboy NOT GETTING COMMUNION.
He cried, "CONUNAN??" and burst into tears. I tried muffling him in my shoulder, but he twisted around, so I put my hand over his mouth while I whispered in his ear that The Bishop Was Talking, and we would have Communion after The Bishop Was Done Talking, and Mommy hadn't known that The Bishop Was Going To Talk, but we needed to be quiet and patient and wait and then we would still have Communion and go downstairs and get a piece of bread and get a drink and go outside and run around if he could JUST. WAIT. PATIENTLY. PLEASE.
Kittyboy stopped whining and looked at me. I took my hand off his mouth. He looked at me for another second or so, then HE put my hand BACK over his mouth and went back to whining. "Guess I need that hand back, I've got more displeasure to express here." Shortly after, he said "night night" and laid down under the organist's bench. Poor little guy.
But he lived, we got downstairs, and then he didn't feel the need to go outside and run after all. He sat very quietly and nicely eating soup crackers and drinking Sprite. He just needed a break.
Just yesterday, I packed the whole diaper bag with books instead of the standard soft-and-silent toys, and I think he's old enough that books keep him better occupied. His Guardian Angel Prayerbook, Bible storybook, and Veggietales "God Made You Special" are all good for that, and he's got some fabric Bible story books too. So then, he gets upset that I won't sit and read, but at least he will eventually sit and read his books and I think that'll keep him occupied better than stuffed animals alone.
It also helps that our pews are always covered with wax drips, and those are fun to pick at.
And he is wearing UNDERWEAR. Real underwear, not even pullups, during the day at home. I have even convinced him he can sit on the toilet at church, which he previously refused to do even with his Elmo toilet seat. We've been potty training for maybe a month, I think? I had been figuring that if he wasn't interested, I could just wait until he was old enough to reason with and explain, "Here's the deal. If you are old enough to try to change your own diaper [which he had attempted a couple times, disasterously] then you are plenty old enough to sit on the potty chair when you have to go!!!!" And we worked out a reward system - he started the day in a disposable pullup, moved to cloth training pants if he went on the potty chair, from there to real underwear if again he stayed dry and went on the potty chair, and could wear the underwear as long as he continued staying dry. If he wasn't dry, back to the disposable pullup again. So now he's at that stage when he will gleefully blurt out Too Much Information, loudly and publicly. I whispered "Are you still clean and dry?" during church, and of COURSE (what was I expecting??) he announced enthusiastically, "STILL KEEN AND DWY MOMMY!" Well hey, that was good news, why NOT share it?? I expect it will get more "interesting" from here...
The school district has not yet "found" a classroom for Kittyboy, so he is starting outpatient speech therapy Wednesday. Hopefully we can take him early so he can get acquainted with the therapist before the other three kids who will be in his group arrive. And hopefully they are not pretty little girls whose personal space he will totally ignore. Maybe we can wait in the office this first session, because this lady's never had him before - she'll meet him for THE first time Wednesday, and I don't know that his file can really tell her all that it would be good for her to know... his file, after all, is just his IEP, notes from people who saw him once for an hour when he was having a really good morning. Murphy's Law would suggest that Wednesday might not be a really good morning, you know? So if we can pop in fifteen minutes early to introduce them at length, that would be great. Waiting for a phone call back on that.
I should get off the computer now and make sure Kittyboy's not, oh say, eating the Christmas cactus.