Still stumbling on

... through our makeshift Advent. We are just about up to date with the Jesse tree readings, but behind with making the symbols. Yes, I know they should go together, but as G.K.Chesterton said "anything worth doing is worth doing badly".

Our St.Nicholas icons are almost finished. At least, Star's and mine are. Angel got "bored" part way through painting hers and abandoned it. I think "bored" was really shorthand for "fed up of trying to paint with a scrubby, nasty brush from a toy paintbox, but not prepared to admit it". Moral: do not just assume that a nearly 12 year old has the sense to find an appropriate paint brush. Check!

We now have two chocolate Advent calendars. We were given a Barbie one which is sitting rather anomalously alongside my nice nativity calendar, my Advent candles and tree. Both Star and Angel now get a chocolate each day, though we still have to remember whose turn it is to have one from each calendar as the Divine nativity chocolate is considered superior. Fortunately Little Cherub has not realised that they contain anything edible. She has just discovered that food also comes in non-liquid form and is very enthusiastic, making determined grabs for anything she thinks may be edible. Eating with the Cherub on my lap is now a challenge. If I don't distract her with baby rice cakes or a crust to chew on she does a splendid imitation of an irate octopus. I'm sure there are more hands than two trying to get into my dinner!

I now have a nasty cold - the sort where you end up sleeping in a chair because it is hard to breathe lying down. This morning I just about had enough voice to say the Angelus responses. What was left of my voice has now disappeared and I am reduced to communicating in short, inaudible whispers or signs. (Little Cherub definitely understands one baby sign. Milk. I wonder what the sign is for rice cake?) This does not bode well for reading anything aloud next week. At least I have bought purple paint ready for making O Antiphon ornaments, so there is something we can do even if I haven't regained the power of speech.