Peace

Yesterday was my first solo day with the two kids. No grandparents, no husband, no sweat. Everything went so very smoothly. The boys were perfect, napped well, I managed to do dishes and fold laundry. Dash was taking an interest in the baby and not jealous when I fed him. As you can see, he wanted to make a close inspection of the little guy.

Mr. Incredible and Dash have chest colds, but they sound worse than they are and both are in good spirits. Before bed, I commented to Mr. Incredible what a blessing it was the the baby (Blog alias to be unveiled soon) and I were not sick.

Then, at a 5am feeding, I felt terrible and decided to take my temperature as well as the baby's. It was over 101. Just a pure case of the flu. My mother-in-law couldn't come in today, because she is sick, too. So it was just a very sick Mommy and the babies. Some of the newness of the the baby has worn off for Dash and he was not nearly as tolerant of me feeding him today. While Dash was taking a (much shorter than normal) nap, I fed the baby at the computer and caught up on some of my favorite bloggers' posts over the last 10 days and read that today is the optional memorial for Our Lady Queen of Peace. I didn't know that this Feast Day even existed (acutally, I don't even know what day of the week it is right now and Mr. Incredible put the wrong birthday for our little guy on the first draft of the baby announcements, which I only caught at the very last second after reading it several times), but the fact that it fell today and not yesterday made me think. Yesterday seemed so full of peace to me compared with today, if by peace you mean not stressful or full of trials. But to be at peace does not mean the absence of trials or conflicts, but rather depends on how we respond to the crosses of everyday life. Can a post-partum mommy have interior peace through flu, fatigue, fussy babies and an oven that died? How did Our Lady find peace as she fled with her newborn to Egypt? Let's just say that there were many aspirations offered to Our Lady Queen of Peace this afternoon...and having a wonderful husband helps a lot, too.