Today is Our Lady of Knock's feast day and the 130th anniversary of her apparition at the gable wall of the small church in Co Mayo. We usually go once a year (and often Mum goes a few times a year). This year, we were there for St Thérèse in May.

Sweet flowers

The sweet peas have finally come into flower and they look sweet indeed climbing my crookeldy obelisk with the Baby Blue Eyes peeping out underneath.

We've had a lovely busy few days, visiting people (and animals) and meeting up with new and old friends. Yesterday was no exception as we went to meet some other Mums and bubs at Delta Adventure City just outside Limerick. Claire from Ecobrats organised it for cloth nappy users/customers of hers. Apart from the obvious enjoyment Roo derived from it, it was great to meet up with other mad hippy people like me* who breast feed and use cloth nappies!

(*At least that's how I feel sometimes!)

Pearls of Wisdom

Today I must share a lovely reflection about Our Lady on Anne's blog that highlights her role as Jesus' Mum.

In an effort to pray better, I recently bought a little book to help me say the Rosary. I don't say it well or often because usually my mind wanders during the mysteries or I lose count of the Hail Marys, but this handy book helps me on both counts. It's called Two Hundred Pearls of Great Price and it has a little thought for each Hail Mary to guide you through each mystery. I bought it in the bookshop attached to the Augustinian church on O'Connell Street in Limerick while we were looking for a Christening present for a contemporary of Poonch.

We all went to the zoo today!

Lee took a couple of days off so we decided to take the lads to Fota wildlife park. We had a super day, travelled on the little train, saw lots of happy animals, many of whom roam freely, ate our picnic and stayed pretty dry throughout.

Capybara

Cheetah cubs

Waiting to go in for the night.

Can you spot the red pandas?

Choo choo!

Roo's favourite bit!

Thank you!

It's off to the toy shop today. Doctor's orders! Thank God, yesterday's assessment went very well. Aside from a couple of small concerns, the two ladies who met us were happy with his progress. Roo was happy because he got to play with a vast wardrobe full of toys while I answered the questions.

When I managed to pry him away from the toys, we went home with a prescription for a toy! One which will develop turn-taking skills in Babba Roo so he doesn't get flattened when he starts playschool in the coming months, please God.

I am so relieved. Heartfelt thanks to everyone for all your prayers.

Please pray for Roo today

Today, Roo and I are going to see a Speech and Language Therapist. His language was found to be a bit delayed when he was assessed in May, so we went on a course of Parent Information Sessions and now he's being re-assessed. Up until recently, I hadn't been worried about him, as he was clearly happy, sociable and not frustrated. But after the assessment and some of the questions the therapist asked, I looked up our old friend the internet and began to worry that he was showing signs of some disorder.

If you get a chance, please remember us in your prayers today.

What would you do?

Our visitors kindly left us a present of two lottery tickets, one of which was for the Euromillions draw which is very big: last week's was Euro €25million. So before I checked the ticket, we were amusing ourselves pretending we'd won that vast sum. Roo often answers for Lou by putting on a high-pitched voice. But we were still pleasantly surprised when, in answer to my question, "Lou what will you get with the €25million?" a little voice piped up, "a rocket!"...
By the way, neither ticket was successful, so we won't be buying any rockets anytime soon.

Noah's Ark gets a makeover

Babba Roo decided that Noah's Ark needed some colour, so he took some chalk to it. Initially he was just drawing in the sea around the base of the vessel, but he got swept away on a wave of creativity and continued with the little house that sits on the deck, even the inside of it. I'm just not sure how I can persuade him that drawing on the walls of our house is not such a good idea, after seeming to sanction this bit of DIY?
In Mass today, there was a scary bloke next to us who decided to give out to a group of teenagers chatting at the back. They did actually stop when he spoke to him, but it made me think. They weren't paying attention to Mass, but they weren't distracting other people as they were speaking very quietly. I couldn't help thinking, 'at least they were there'. After all, young children like ours can be noisy and disturb Mass, but they are rightly welcomed as part of the Church. (Although I was a bit worried yer man might give out whenever Lou made a little squeak.) I wondered if they'd come back next week after his outburst. Is it better to have them there in some capacity rather than not at all? I agree that they shouldn't have been talking, but it is quite rare to see people of their age in Mass and they could hardly have felt welcome after that. What do parents of teenagers do if their children refuse to go to Mass?