This is my Great-Grandfather C.C. Peters and his wife Anne
But initially, the thing I liked most was that I could kind of get lost in the church. It was a big church (huge compared to the Full Gospel one) and I only new a few young people there by sight, so when I went to church I could sit and focus on what was being said, instead of being distracted by people talking to me, passing notes, etc (which often happened at my other church). Eventually my previous choir teacher became the interim Worship Pastor, so I decided to join the worship team. I had been part of the worship team at the full gospel church, so it was nice to get back into that, and to get more involved, since I had been going to South Abbotsford for a few months at that point.
I loved that aspect of going there – but more than anything, I really really liked the Senior Pastor there. It’s been awhile now, I can’t even remember what the first sermon was about that he gave, but it was important to me at the time. He was also my first introduction to the Saints – again I can’t remember any specific things he talked about, but he would sometimes quote Saints, like Saint Augustine, and I found that intriguing.
Then May 19, 2002 happened – a great day for many many reasons. First, there was never any reconciliation between my mother's parents and South Abbotsford Church (regarding the fact that they were asked to leave because they were baptized in the Holy Spirit). It didn’t stress my grandparents out too much, but they really felt in their hearts that they wanted things to be resolved before they passed away, and they trusted it would happen. They were called one day by the pastor of South Abbotsford and invited to attend on Church service on May 19; I don’t know if they really knew why. At the same time, my father, who was living in Alberta, was visiting because my brother and sister-in-law were due to have their first child, my parents first grandchild. I think my Dad always felt keenly the fact that his father had asked my mothers parents to leave South Abbotsford, and he wanted to see it all reconciled as much as my grandparents did. He too was at South Abbotsford church on May 19th. During the Pastor’s sermon, he asked Bill and Katie Stobbe (my Grandparents) if they would come to the front. He spoke about the Holy Spirit and the Mennonite Church around the time that people began being baptized in the Holy Spirit; he said that there were some unfortunate things to come from that, like Bill and Katie Stobbe being asked to leave the church. He apologized on behalf of the church and my grandparents gratefully accepted it. I think there were a lot of tears shed over that! That day, my nephew Benjamin was born! Like I said, it was a very special day.
Finn opening a present from Grannie and Papa
Clare flies back to Australia tonight – we saw her off at the train station this afternoon. It’s sad to see her go! She was a great guest – she cooked a few dinners for us (including pizza the other night – yum!) and also made us sticky date pudding (also yum!). Anyways, I will miss having her around – and I think Finn will notice the absence of another person to entertain (or to be entertained by).
Clare and Finnian
After we left the train station, Conor and I decided to go to a local “dollar store” and buy some Christmas decorations. Because we are cheap, and also because we’ll only use what we buy twice, we didn’t get very much! We spend 10 euros – got a small Christmas tree, a couple of strands of tinsel, some balls for the tree, and some lights. Oh, and a little stocking for Finn. The mantle is the perfect place for the little Christmas tree, and high enough that Finn can’t get into the decorations. Finn is so funny with the decorations, because the lights blink and change patterns, and every so often he will notice and point up at the tree and make some excited noise!
All of the sudden I’m in the Christmas spirit. I wasn’t at all before. It’s not as cold here as Canada (and I heard Abbotsford just got snow – no snow here), plus not being able to understand the priest at mass makes it weird, we totally missed the first Sunday of Advent because it just didn’t seem like it was that close to Christmas already. Anyways, I’m in the spirit now! I know that last year was Finn’s FIRST Christmas, but this one feels much more significant. He understands what is going on more now and he can get excited by the lights and music (which he still enjoys conducting to).
Finnian putting up a Christmas tree decoration
Unrelated to Christmas, one of the moms here is expecting her second child in January, so another mom is throwing her a baby shower. The only way for us all to get together was to have it on an evening instead of during the day – so I get to leave bedtime to Daddy for one night! It should be fun to hang out without having ALL the kids around (I’m sure some of the kids there).
Conor has submitted his first final draft of his licentiate thesis, which got the thumbs up from his advisor. He now has to do some revisions (bring it down to 100 pages – he’s 4 pages over at the moment), then to all the work to submit and then he will find out when he can defend it. Since we need to be out of our place at the end of May, we wanted to head back to Canada as soon as we could – so hopefully he can defend it at the end of May, or the beginning of June at the latest. After he gets that out of the way, he can start on his doctoral dissertation.
Anyways, that’s all that’s new with us – although if you can continue to keep my Dad and the rest of our family in your prayers, that would be greatly appreciated. He is no longer able to eat as the cancer has spread to his stomach. He is loosing a lot more weight (if that’s even possible) and is now being fed intravenously – my brothers report that he is rarely leaving his bed. Decisions and planning are being made by my brothers, and it can’t be a fun job – as much as I wish I was there to be apart of them, I’m glad that they are able to do it, and that they have been able to visit my Dad some more recently.
Finn's in bed - time to relax!
I had the same feeling about communion. I know that as a Christian I was called to receive the “body” and “blood” of Jesus Christ in Communion. It seemed to be such an important thing in the Bible – it was the last thing that Jesus did with his disciples before he was crucified. But I didn’t understand why, at our church, we only received communion on the first Sunday of the month; I felt we should receive it more (and even some churches only have communion 4 times a year). I also didn’t really think that it was EVERYTHING it was meant to be. I continued receiving communion, but it was an empty experience; if this was “just bread”, why bother?
Now for the “history” part – it involves many things to me (I even incorporate authority into this feeling of history). As I said, I was going to a small church that my Uncle was the Pastor of, and he was the first Pastor of that church in Abbotsford. There are other Full Gospel Churches around, but he started this one under the direction of the ACOP (Apostolic Church of Pentecost). I didn’t like that there wasn’t any history behind our particular church. It had only began a few years before we moved back to Abbotsford. I also didn’t like that when I had questions, I didn’t have one source to go to. Of course I had the bible – but I couldn’t make heads or tail of that, especially on important issues. Once I got my driver’s license and more importantly, my own car, I decided to change Churches and see if I could figure things out.
I decided to go back to where it started for my family in Abbotsford – South Abbotsford Mennonite Church.
The party yesterday was a big success!!
We were a little frazzled as people were coming though, getting preparation done. But it was just a casual thing anyways, so it all turned out all right.
Clare made sandwiches: cream cheese & cucumber, egg, and tuna ones.
Conor made the cupcakes, scones, and toffee (the toffee was sooo yummy, I can’t believe we hadn’t had any since we were in Australia!
I made my 5 minute/no bake cookies and pita bread with tzatziki sauce.
We had more than enough food, which is good…so we sent some home with people.
It was more of an open house thing, so some people had left before others arrived, but altogether there were 14 adults and 7 kids (all under age 3 or 4!!) Finn and two other boys are all about the same size, the other two boys are about 15 months though – they were so cute playing together!
Finn did so well – he got a little fussy a few times, but otherwise he was smiling and clapping at everyone. I even got him to conduct while we sang him happy birthday – he was happy that I let him actually eat some of the cupcake!
We are so lucky to have all these great families around us, and well as a few single people as well. I can’t imagine what life would be like it we hadn’t have moved to Santa Marinella and had found a place in Rome instead. I'll put pics on here later, but you can see them all by clicking on the links on the right, and I put up some new videos on youtube as well!
My favorite and most memorable things:
- Opening his eyes and really SEEING you
- Getting eyebrows and eyelashes! (well he always had them, but when they started getting darker)
- Rolling over
- Sitting up by himself (and how he used to put his hands on his hips when he was sitting!)
- Crawling
- Standing up unassisted
- Talking, laughing, reading to himself
- Clapping (especially when you say “Yay” or “Patty-cake”)
- Splashing in the tub
- Blowing bubbles in the tub
- “Conducting” when music is playing – very cute, this is a new one
- Pushing down block towers
- Putting blocks in and out of a cup
- NEW ONE – stacking blocks! He can stack 4 or 5 now, very cute!
- NEW – Praying! He started off just watching us pray, well actually he started off crying when we would pray because he was impatient to eat, then he would watch, then he would clap, and then how just holds his hands together!
Things have been fairly slow here. I’ve been adjusting Finnians naptime and bedtime, and so far so good. I think it’s also given Conor more time to work.
Our routine these days is this:
Wake up around 730am
Finn and I play downstairs for awhile and have breakfast after Conor comes down, maybe 830 or 9
After breakfast, playing a bit and getting ready, Finn and I go grocery shopping and wander around, sometimes bumping into another Mom. Yesterday I bumped into one mom as she was on her way to the hospital where all ultrasounds, bloodwork, etc get done (no emergency ward, I’ve learned…for that you have to go to the next town, Civitavecchia) so I walked with her, it’s a bit of a walk, and then she showed me how it works. Taking a number, going up and paying (unless you have medical coverage here), then you have to take your number and a sheet they give you and place it in this slot, and then you eventually get called. Good to know in case I ever have to go there, I don’t look forward to those types of things, not knowing the language!
We get back home between 1130 and noon and proceed with lunch
Whenever that is done Finn and I nap, while Conor gets more work done.
Then it’s anything goes. Usually we go for a walk.
Dinner around 6, bathtime after that, and then Finn’s usually in bed by 8.
Today was a bit of a treat though…one of the moms saw on facebook that it was my birthday, so offered to babysit Finn while Conor and I went out. It didn’t work out on my actual birthday, so we arranged to drop Finnian off after his nap today. I was nervous! It was the first time someone other than Finn’s grandparents or aunts and uncles would watch him…I wasn’t so much nervous for him, but I didn’t want him to give a babysitter a hard time!
The mom is just younger than me, from the US and has a 16ish month old son, and a baby girl due in 6 weeks…anyways, we dropped Finn off around 330, went and had some gelati (one thing the Italians do VERY well!) and then walked down to the beach and just relaxed. It was nice not having to worry about pushing a stroller around! We went back just before 5 to get Finn, he did very well apparently! She said he hardly made a peep, and a lot of the time just wanted to cuddle with her!
How funny is that, he never cuddles with us! Her son was very cute when we were there, and she said that him and Finn had little crawling races around the kitchen, which was funny because her son can walk and she says he never crawls! Anyways, I think in the next two years Finn and him could be good little buddies!
All in all, first babysitting experience went very well – for us and for Finn.
On Saturday our good friend, and Finnians godmother, Clare is coming to visit us before heading back to Australia…I’m looking forward to seeing her!
Finnian seems to be settling into Roman life quite well.
He’s crawling like a pro – he had a few days there where he was consistently crawling, then forgetting to move one arm and doing a header into the hard ground…but he hasn’t done that for about 3 days now.
He’s been progressing in the “cruising” department. It’s all a bit of an issue right now though, because our flooring is tile and we don’t have any rugs. We NEED to buy rugs, I think Conor is going to look around a bit in Rome when he’s there tomorrow. Rugs are expensive, but very necessary right now. Not only to make the ground a bit softer, but also warmer. If Finn is barefoot, or has grip socks or sleepers on, he’s been having no problems pulling up to standing. He often does it on the couch because he wants the computer chords, or he’ll stand up in the bathtub…he’ll also grab our legs or pants when we’re at the table or doing dishes and stand with us. Lots of tumbles though! It’s a dangerous job, learning how to stand up!
Yesterday was an off day.
After he woke up he had a fat lip, but it's better now.
Then we had a bad night with him waking up WAY too often, and being in our bed for far to long at night. I was finally have a good good sleep, when I got FOUR text messages on my phone downstairs, I can't read them, they're in Italian, but I had to go down to shut off my phone. Then at 530 I woke up coughing and couldn't stop, I hate that. I want this cold to go away.
Anyways, Finn's 8th tooth has finally come through, so maybe we're in for some good nights?!
This post is about Finnian during meals and bathtime - because that's when I most see his personality coming out...and not always in a good way!!
He likes to shake his head when he’s upset, or doesn’t want to eat when you are trying to feed him (although he also shakes his head just for fun sometimes, he was doing it yesterday when he was in his stroller). We were having some more dinner-time issues. As far as eating goes, he’s almost always been a really good eater. We’ve never had problems at breakfast time, ever. Rarely had problems at lunch time. But we have often gone through spurts during dinner time – and even as a baby, that was always his crankiest time.
I knew I needed to change things up, because he was just stressing us out while we were trying to eat. I think the problem was that by dinner time he was a little crankier, and just didn’t want to be fed with a spoon anymore. He would start shaking his head when I brought the spoon towards him, and he would try to grab the spoon and push it out of the way. If he actually made contact with the spoon, and then food fell near him, he wouldn’t be grumpy anymore but would try to grab the food and eat it. So I don’t think it was the kind of food I was feeding him, but just the way I was feeding him. I tried cubing potatoes for him to eat, but they were too slippery for him to grab, but he would let ME hand feed him the cubed potatoes. We have also started giving him toast (with nothing on it yet). That’s always nice because it isn’t slippery so he doesn’t have a problem grabbing it.
Bathtime had been going alright, until Sunday night. I wasn't feeling well, so Conor gave Finn his bath....Finn likes to stand up in the tub alot, but I don't let him, and he's usually fine with it...but Conor let him stand up as much as he wanted that night. Consequently, when I bathed him last night, and kept thwarting his attempts to stand, he got VERY upset! Full on tantrum, kicking his legs, crying very loudly, not letting me touch him...it wasn't fun! It didn't help that I bathed him alot later than usual (I was watching old videos of him and got distracted!), so he was extra fragile at the time.
At the end of the bath, when I usually DO let him stand up before I take him out, I was trying to let him stand while holding onto him (in case he slipped) but he must have thought that I was going to make him sit down and he would start freaking out again!
That was the end of bath time last night, hopefully tonight is better!