With that ever elusive "baby-due-date" either today or Friday, depending on who you ask, we've been staying closer to home lately and waitin' on baby.

The boys have been spending an hour or so on most afternoons out at one of our local trout ponds. They're hoping to catch enough for a little Friday fish-fry this week. Saturday found them fishing with Father "Walleye" Mariusz, our parish priest and avid fisherman. He taught them some tricks, but his special touch is hard to achieve.

We've been pulling in a good size harvest from our garden the last couple weeks. Hail put us back a month or so ago, but our plants are bouncing back and beginning to produce like crazy. We love this time of year when all we buy at the grocery store is meat and dairy. The kids have been helping out by picking raspberries and peas, finally pulling their weight a little bit.

Our freezer is all stocked up (and full to the top) with meatballs, chili, banana bread, burritos, and toast/sandwich bread. The baby can come anytime now and hopefully before we eat all our freezer food. That's my 39 week belly on display. The baby is just going to "pop" out, according to Emilie.

Emilie is spending lots of time drawing (and asking others to draw for her) and caring for her baby bear. She's very eager to be a big sister, but has all kinds of daily queries and worries: "Do we have a bathing suit for the baby?" "Do babies have teeth? How will the baby eat?" "We need to get more baby blankets!" "When the baby comes out, we need to put it in the car-seat!"

Until this baby "pops" out...

Never a Dull Moment

 

Friday turned out to be a rather more eventful day than we expected.

Dan left at 6 am for a quick shopping trip in Saskatoon. We needed to buy a few big items to prepare for our baby coming and the coming school year, plus stock up on food from Costco.

The rest of us spent the morning cooking and baking until... Emilie ran into the wall or the floor running down the hall and split open her forehead: at least an inch long and decently deep. We could tell by her cry that she was definitely hurting and although I was there within seconds, there was blood splattered on the floor and wall. I immediately realized it was going to need glue or stitches. Ugh! Of course, we were without a vehicle too.

A wonderful neighbour friend came to hang out with the boys and lent me her van. Grandpa drove from Nipawin to act as backup in case I was at the hospital for a while or needed help with Emilie. Two stitches later, we came home with a generally happy, but tired little girl. The boys have since been telling her to slow down so she doesn't fall and have to get stitches. Her response: "I already HAVE stitches!"

Dan got home to the surprise of Grandpa's truck outside and his girl all bandaged up. The boys decided to go fishing with Grandpa and maybe rectify the day. Lucky idea! Both boys caught their very first fish solo: little trout. John Paul's was too small to bring home, but Joseph cooked his up and had it for supper. All in all, a pretty good end to a rather unfortunate day!

After Emilie's eventful morning, I told the boys Daddy was going to come home and say, "I'm never leaving again!" They came back to me shocked to tell me, "Guess what? Daddy said exactly what you said he would say!" We're praying we have no more escapades before this baby arrives and he/she arrives without emergency circumstances.

Buddies & Bucket Lists

  

The last couple weeks saw us knocking fun activities off our summer bucket list: fishing, Nipawin pool, picnics, beach day, backyard camping and campfire. But, more importantly, spending loads of time hanging out with family, especially cousins.

We spent a glorious day at Greenwater Lake with the Humboldt Millettes. We're trying to make this an annual event (we missed last year) because it's just so much fun. Besides sitting and eating chips and candy all day, we build sand castles, surf the incoming waves, pose for crazy pictures... and go far too far out in the water on a tube. At least, that's what our kids did this year, until their dads hauled them in. They won't be doing that again. Besides that little escapade, it was a day to go down in the memory book.

The boys came back delighted from a successful fishing trip with Grandpa. Dan caught a good-sized Jack; Grandpa caught 2 big Walleye; Joseph caught a stick; and John Paul got a cool picture with a train in the background. We ate like kings, finished all the fish at one meal, and agreed we could get used to this life.

The Long Weekend found all the Millettes at the Nipawin acreage for a family reunion. Despite all living within a few hours of one another, we hadn't made this happen in well over a year. The boy and girl cousins ganged up to have wars against one another (as kids will do), defending the tree house and building new forts. We ate far too much good, delicious food (as we always do at Grandma's) and many calories of decadent dessert. If this baby comes out really big, I'm blaming mudslide pie and giant cookies. Our campfire got rained out, so we moved to the garage and sang weird and wacky songs to the tune of guitars while the kids ran in and out of the rain. Most of the kids slept outside at least one night with the dads, although some got rained out the second night. We had a heavy rain storm in the evening, but our new tent was cozy and dry for the boys, Dan, and their cousin. They even heard coyotes during the night (but Dad has his knife ready, just in case). We had a family Mass (pretty sweet having a priest in the fam) and a family baseball game and a family swim. It was pretty much an awesome time!

This week found us in Melfort for a doctor appointment and hospital tour just ahead of D-Day. We took the opportunity to do a bit of shopping to get our kids' bedrooms a bit more organized. Then we headed to the new spray park and playground. It was a cold day - too cold for water play - but the kids loved the playground and couldn't wait finish their picnic lunch before taking on some slides. I'm pretty sure they're hoping to have more out-of-town doctors visits just so they can go again.

The Smoke and Mirrors of St. Chesterton

GK Chesterton's cause for sainthood has met a major stumbling block. According to the Bishop of Northhampton, Most Reverend Peter Doyle:

“That conclusion is that I am unable to promote the cause of GK Chesterton for three reasons. Firstly, and most importantly, there is no local cult. Secondly, I have been unable to tease out a pattern of personal spirituality. And, thirdly, even allowing for the context of G K Chesterton’s time, the issue of anti-Semitism is a real obstacle particularly at this time in the United Kingdom.”

Ouch. 

Now if you have ever been to a Catholic college (as in non-Jesuit, but rather truly Catholic), you will be familiar with the Chesterton crowd. They will smoke cigars, quote pithy from GK, and meet at pubs to discuss intellectual topics (while smoking more cigars). “In Catholicism, the pint, the pipe and the cross can all fit..." they will add, as a smoke ring rises to the rafters. 

I'm not sure if these Chestertonians ever discuss how on earth GK's distributism theory would work. Do you force people to give up their land for the sake of re-distributism? It sounds more Leninist than Levitical. Or what about this issue of "anti-semitism"? And is there, if we're being perfectly honest, an appetite for GK to be named a saint because he loved to indulge in the finer pleasures of life? Food, cigars, ale... he's not exactly a proto-typical desert father, but possibly a dessert father. One we certainly can cling to and, dare we hope, even mirror our lives on. Smoke and mirrors indeed.

Needless to say, the Chesterton crowd had, and has, no appeal for me.

Oh, but I have nothing against GK Chesterton. Though not a fan of his novels, I can appreciate his witty style. The more I get to know him, possibly the more I will like him. A saint though? God only knows. But it seems his cause is going up in smoke.

Now, can we move on to more important issues? Like Tolkein, for instance...

Image taken from a First Things Article.