Parenting – Mama Needs Coffee

About Me, Family Life, large family, motherhood, Parenting

What my 5 kids taught me in 2018 (I should have taken better notes)

January 2, 2019

Another retrospective New Year’s post, just what the internet needs! For your enjoyment I think I’ll break it into two installments since said internet has destroyed our collective attention span. You’re welcome.

I sighed this morning, as I leaned over the kitchen counter this morning waiting for my espresso to drizzle out another shot of “sorry you’re not sleeping these days,” and scrolled through my blogfeed reader – remember those? I still use one! (And sometimes I read paper books. Subversive, I know!)

I was reading through another “goals I nailed in 2018” post, mentally congratulating the author but also wondering if maybe I’m doing something wrong.

Gone – for now, at least – are my days of setting lofty S.M.A.R.T. goals in January and having a list of successes to look back over at the year’s end. I can point to a few small things that I’m doing better, to patterns of healing and growth in the emotional and spiritual realm that are no small matter, but not really to things that I’ve accomplished, per se.

Any growth this year has happened to me rather than through me. It has consisted more of accepting and embracing circumstances as they come to pass, and less of setting out to conquer x and actually, well, conquering x.

And it’s not linear. It’s a hot, embarrassing mess. Cut to scene one of me angrily scrubbing kitchen counters with a diaper wipe on one of the interminable days between Christmas and New Year’s Day this year, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand and feeling such irrational anger at the hand we’d been dealt for what felt like the umpteenth year in a row: barfing, fevers, night wakings and not a single family event attended.

Crumpled in the wake of sickness was the calendar of holiday festivities I’d eagerly consulted in my mind’s eye as November melted into December, the anticipation buoying me along through one more school lunch packed, one more pickup, one more last minute costume assembled, one more late night of work.

Soon, the cursor was all but hovering over January 1 and we’d accomplished seemingly nothing over our Christmas “break,” instead trading night shifts and shampooing vomit out of carpets and picking up yes another prescription. (We’re not re-selling these online, we promise.)

I was feeling sorry for myself as I scrubbed that counter, despite having just read a stirring essay by a father of 9 with cancer, whose piece contained a hyperlink to the blog of a mother of 7 with cancer who had died of said cancer. “We can all take a lesson in contentment from the pages of her book; what she would have given for one more day, week, month of ‘ordinary time,’” he wrote.

I paraphrase. All that to say, I’m a sh*t and I know it.

Thank God He is training me via a thousand paper cuts and not a severe and mortal blow. At least not yet.

1. Flexibility

I cheerily responded to an email from my spiritual director in late December (but pre-Christmas, notably) that Advent had been “surprisingly joyful, actually! We’d had some illnesses and some difficulties but it was going to be smooth sailing from here on out and we were so looking forward to Christmas.”

You can probably see where this is going.

The lesson here for me was one I’m always exasperatedly trying to impart to my children. Guys, be flexible! That’s just life in a big family.

“Flexibility!” I apologized to my crew, dipping a washcloth in cool water and laying it on the 3-year-old’s inferno of a forehead and texting our regrets to a long-awaited Christmas party with my other hand.

“Flexibility,” I shrugged, sending Dave solo to 4 pm Mass on Christmas Eve while I sat couch duty with 3 fevers burning and what sounded like an entire infirmary of coughing. The newly Tamiflu’d preschooler lay across my legs like an electric blanket, eyes dull and pitiful.

“Flexibility,” I reminded myself with jaw clenching, running another load of laundry on Christmas Day. And another. And then another.

By the time December 31st rolled around, I was stiff and aching from the effort. Both parents were. My own flexibility exhausted, I emotionally assumed the fetal position, snapping at simple requests and drinking more coffee than was wise or helpful.

I had learned the lesson, or so I thought. I could be flexible. Fun, even! Okay, plan B, we’ll stay home and light all the candles and order pizza!

But flexibility on my terms, that’s what I wanted.

God wanted to equip me, I think, with the superpower of inconvenient flexibility.

That was not on my Amazon wishlist.

And as readily as I can admit that, gosh, that kind of adaptability would sure come in handy leading this big ‘ol family as the mom, my human nature shies away in horror from the work required to acquire it. And so He keeps assigning the reading, sending home the assignments, so to speak. Not because He is an awful taskmaster who wants me to suffer, but because learning this thing will be a profound help to my long term happiness and holiness, not to mention my family’s.

2. Be open to unexpected gifts

Having as many babies as I’ve had has demonstrated to me that every baby is ground zero, every person a new starting line. I’ve gleaned some some time-tested lessons from baby to baby, but each new person who joins the family has necessitated a sort of amnesia of expectations. I have loosely affixed goal posts in my mind, but the new addition is welcome to blow past them in his or her own way. Number one needed a paci attached almost surgically to his person at all times and slept on a tight schedule I could set a watch by; number two was almost physically attached to my person at all times and slept almost never, as far as I can remember.

By the time number five started babbling mama and baba and taking mincing steps all over the house and dropping her second nap all before the age of one, I trimmed my sails of expectation and resigned myself to a child who was determinedly mobile months before any of her siblings were. It wasn’t remarkable in any sense other than this: it was her.

This was simply who she was, and she was revealing herself to me in a way that none of the books or blogs I’d read or even her own siblings could have. I’d mentally steeled myself for the horrifying spectacle that is newborn sleep with four other children in the house. She showed up and slept through the night by week 6. Right now she is contentedly eating mini marshmallows at her high chair beside me and I’m congratulating myself because I did the responsible thing and pre-shredded them for her.

I’m a much better mom for her than I was for her older siblings, simply because I’ve studied more. Learned what hills to die on (sleep, always) and what hills to forfeit to the battering winds of what actually works (this time, bottles). I begged God to make breastfeeding easy for me this time around, and in the reality of Zelie’s circumstances He answered me big time by simply removing it from the picture altogether.

Never rule out the possibility that God wants to answer a prayer, perhaps did answer a prayer in a way you never expected.

(to be continued in part 2)

Just imagine I lysol wiped the entire cart first and there’s an invisible brightly patterned stretchy cart cover lovingly positioned beneath her. And that she’s not barefoot. Voila, firstborn status achieved!

Culture of Death, Family Life, guest post, Parenting, Pornography, reality check, social media, technology

Screens, tweens, and teens {guest post}

November 28, 2018

Last summer I reached out to my internet buddy and running-mom extraordinaire Colleen Martin and beseeched her to impart some of her wisdom as a seasoned boy mom in the tech era. She’s not super seasoned as in old, mind you, but she is super seasoned as in holy 6 boys, batman! And one sweet girl sandwiched in the middle.

I’m bookmarking my own blog here to reference in a few short years when my kids reach phone hankering age (let’s be honest though, despite attending a low tech classical Catholic school with zero screens permitted among the student body, our 8 year old is already badgering us for a phone. Oy.)

Colleen, thanks so much for sharing how your family handles screens:

Jenny asked me to write this post awhile ago, before summer had even started, but I think having waited this long and made it through another summer (aka screen season) has given me more food for thought to write this now. So I guess procrastination does pay off sometimes!

But not when it comes to family rules about screen times.

It’s never too early to discuss expectations, set rules, and enforce them even if it means being the mean parent. I recently came across this quote:

Scary, isn’t it? These times we live in are full of screens. (Screen time, just to clarify, for us, is tv, movies, video games, tablets, computers and phones…anything with a screen.) It’s called social media because it’s literally how kids (and adults) have social lives. Gone are the days of bike riding through the neighborhood and ending up sleeping over at some friend’s house. We may feel like we can’t let our kids be kids like we were because of all the terrible and disgusting stories of abuse we hear from the people we trust most, that we have to keep them safe and a lot of time that means indoors … and if your kids are anything like mine, indoors = boredom = asking for screens. That’s the hardest part about summer, I think, the perpetual boredom unless we take them somewhere to do something. So we are a little more lax on the amount of time our children can be on screens, as long as they have been active for most of the day. Phil and I like to relax at the end of a long, busy day by watching a little TV, and I’m fine with my kids doing the same. We all need some downtime, ya know?

We have some great (pretty strict) screen rules during the school year for our kids:

Any school-aged kid gets ZERO screen time during the school week.
On weekends, they can have individual screen time during the baby’s nap time and then at night, we will let them watch a movie/tv show together.
The little preschool guys get a half hour show each evening, after dinner and bath time, and it’s something completely preschool appropriate.

The bigger kids can usually be found watching this with the little kids, but I’m cool with letting them all sit together if they want to see the same episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse for the 17th time. We always say it’s time for a “little kid show” and make sure it’s nothing any of the school-aged kids would ever choose for themselves, though I often hear them trying to convince the 2 year old to pick Spongebob or Power Rangers. Umm, no, but nice try! We are not monsters and do allow exceptions to every rule when it comes to things like important sports games on tv, etc. The kids know what the standard rule is and enjoy the occasional treat.

Little kids are easy to deal with when it comes to screens. Just don’t give them free access to it. Be in control and get them into a good routine. Decide what you want to do for your family and that becomes the norm. There are going to be seasons in family life when the kids have more screen time due to whatever else is going on at home (illness, sports schedules, travelling, new baby, etc.) and as much as I have wanted the ideal screen time rules, flexibility is key to not feeling discouraged. There’s not one right way for every family, and little kids = little problems so they are a good “trial run” for what comes ahead.

Tweens and Teens, that’s what comes ahead. (And they are awesome!)

The hard part of policing screens in our house comes when they are tweens and teens. Our kids all go to school and are involved in tons of sports and lessons (which is also helpful in keeping them active and off screens). Because of this busy family life we lead, once a child reaches the age of 13, they become a babysitter. Since we have no home phone, this also means the 13 year old gets their own cell phone. With this phone comes a whole new set of rules (I swear we are fun parents, we just are really trying to get these kids to heaven!) We buy them an inexpensive smartphone but then make it dumb. Ha! We want our kids to be able to call, text, and have some apps on their phone, but we don’t give them any data so that they can only have internet access while at home on Wifi and we don’t give them our Wifi password. We also make all phones “live” on the kitchen counter, and they are never allowed to bring their phones upstairs.

My kids are far from perfect (like their mother) and get their phones taken away for any violations. The removal of individual screen time is actually a go-to punishment in our house, that way the kids lose the choice of what to watch/play but the parents aren’t punished because we can still put on a family movie when everybody just needs some chill time and forced family bonding.

Once our kids go to the Catholic high school, they are required to have a laptop because most of their books are electronic now. So not only are they reading textbooks online, but they are also writing their papers online, using Google Classroom, taking notes in class on their laptops, and communicating with teachers via the internet. It’s a whole new world and a whole new set of worries for parents. I can’t say “You’ve been on your laptop for three hours, get off!” because he is just doing his homework and studying. (But also fooling around and watching a dumb youtube video here, googling a sports score there, you get it.) As it is with adults, it’s hard for teens to stay focused on the task at hand (homework) when you have the whole wide world at your fingertips. So how do we try to watch everything they’re doing online?

I’ve written about why we started using Covenant Eyes before, but it has been a real lifesaver for us. It’s a tool that allows parents oversee what their children (and each other if desired) are doing online without actually having to stand over their shoulders. t’s a tool that opens the door for communication and also blocks dangerous sites. Kids just log in to Covenant Eyes before they can get online, and it tracks their usage, and sends a weekly report to the account user (the parents). Sometimes I dread opening the report on Tuesday morning to find out my teen has been watching dumb YouTube videos at 9 pm when he said he was studying, but honestly I’d rather know about his mistakes then have no clue what he’s doing online. At least this way, he knows he’s being checked in on, and that alone is an easy way for him to avoid temptation.

I definitely dragged my feet on this for too long, not wanting yet another issue to have to think about, but when one of our tweenage kids googled an inappropriate word on the iPad, we knew it was time to take the plunge. The monthly subscription for a family is $15.99, and even less for an individual or couple. It’s so much easier to never get hooked on pornography than to try and break the habit, and we want to give them their best chance at fighting that battle. Covenant Eyes gives them the freedom to be online while also helping them make good choices, and that’s priceless once you have kids on screens so often. Perhaps I should work in their Sales Department because I love them so much!

I feel that just like every parent, we are constantly trying to evaluate the new social media tools and keep up with current internet trends while also helping our kids get to Heaven. We don’t allow a few things that we feel can easily cause trouble, like sleepovers, hanging out at people’s homes we don’t know, and being online without supervision. We’re just doing our best to keep them safe and happy and holy, and our screen rules are part of the process. Like I said before, starting with screen rules when they’re young is easy, but it’s important, because it sets ground rules for the rest of their lives. Will they binge on video games while at a cousin’s house? Yup. Will they find disturbing images online when they’re at college. Of course. I can’t worry about all the possible scenarios that might occur, I’d go crazy.

I know they are human and all I can do is try to make them the best humans I can while they are under my roof. Lots of love and fun and freedom comes alongside rules and chores and boundaries. Communication is key and the ability to have fun together is huge as well. We try to be Yes parents whenever we can, so that our Nos are serious enough to be understood.

You need to decide what is important in your home, and start setting the ground rules now.

Don’t be afraid to go against the culture if it means raising quality adults, that’s literally our job.

Screens aren’t evil, so find a system that works for you and hopefully I’ve been able to share some good tips and tricks. I don’t have all the answers (I haven’t even had a college kid yet!) and I don’t pretend to. I’m just over here trying to raise good kids to survive this present world and to one day make it to heaven in the next, same as you.

Culture of Death, current events, Evangelization, Homosexuality, Parenting

A transitioning culture

November 26, 2018

It started out as a little nugget of an idea, born from a series of quiet alarms going off in my head. Little things at first: a questionable book about penguins here, a little boy in a tutu, lipstick, and sparkly high heels at the library there, innocent encounters with my own kids where I’d gently redirect their wishes to marry their father, their same sex sibling, the family cat, batman, etc. to the reality of love and the gift of marriage and the truth which God has written into our hearts in creating us to – and for – love.

I remember vividly one such incident, explaining to my then two-year-old son that he can’t marry daddy or his big brother when he grows up because boys marry girls – if marriage is indeed the vocation they are called to – and glancing furtively over my shoulder to see if anyone at the neighborhood pool had overheard my bigoted explanation. Also, incest is not culturally appropriate. Yet.

Insanity, thy name is trying to parent in 2018.

That I, a seasoned mother of 5 and no stranger to the weirdness that is the little kid stage, would give pause to wonder – and worry – whether another parent might overhear me in a conversation with my toddler about what marriage is, is ludicrous. Should I pause with the same social trepidation when explaining to him that Batman isn’t real? That he can’t become a dog when he grows up? That he can’t marry his own sister, either?

We have become positively unhinged in our efforts to embrace anything – and everything – in the name of diversity. “Diversity month!” our local library cheerily announced on rainbow colored display boards, featuring pictures of, among other personalities, Mother Teresa, a kid in a wheelchair, a black female scientist, and a drag queen. Because the unifying factor in each of these unrepeatable images of God is…what, exactly? Since when is having a differently abled body or a call to serve Christ in the distressing disguise of the poor or being a woman of color advancing in the sciences on par with a man dressing in women’s clothing?

We are being slowly and steadily numbed to the oddness and the illness that is gender confusion. In the name of tolerance and marching under the banner of progress, we are being fed a diet of media and public policy proclaiming the end of the gender binary.

Progress! Select male, female, or other. Write in your own answer, depending upon what suits you. Encourage your children to think outside the biological box if they’d rather play with dolls and wear dresses, or prefer kicking a soccer ball to ballet lessons. Your penis is incidental, son. Your breasts are an aftermarket upgrade that we can easily have removed or modified to suit your taste, darling.

A human being is, after all, a blank slate, a tableau rosa upon which we may in this brave new world inscribe an identity of our own design. In this ultimate expression of materialism, the body itself becomes mere matter to be manipulated at will, a physical apparatus to express the inner self.

And it’s so close to true. It’s almost reality. Satan is never far from the truth. Indeed, his trademark is to manipulate and twist and tweak until it looks pretty darn close to the real thing.

A body is, after all, the incarnate expression of the person. Jesus Christ took upon Himself a human body in order to mediate the salvific love of the Father to fallen humankind. Christ’s body is an outward sign, a physical image of a spiritual reality. God became man and dwelt among us as a Son, a brother, a man. But His body was not insignificant to His incarnation; indeed was essential to the Incarnation.

Materialism would have us be masters of our own reality, manipulating the flesh at will like one more technology to be mastered. Bodies are reduced, in this vision, to incidental flesh-prisons that propel us through our earthly existence.

If my body has no meaning, no intelligent design, contains no intrinsic value endowed by its Designer, then why should I not manipulate it as I see fit?

There are real people who really do suffer from gender dysphoria. And some people are born with genetic deformities that render their secondary sex features unintelligible. Disease and dysfunction plague us on our earthly journey, reminding us that this side of eternity will always fall short. That this world is not, ultimately, our home.

But because a thing such as blindness exists does not justify us in gouging out our own eyes.

We are a culture infatuated with progress. We celebrate the destruction and reconfiguration of every cultural edifice, every possible human institution, figuring that if it has always been done one way, a new way is surely better. But the human person is not an iPhone. We shouldn’t approach our bodies as material to be upgraded and adapted to suit the latest trends. We have a Creator, and His design is intelligent, not incidental. When we forget that we were created by a loving God, that we were made for love and by love, then we begin to lose our bearings in reality.

And that is where our culture sits, in the West, in the year of Our Lord 2018.

We have forgotten who we are, and Whose.

If we are random creations of a chaotic universe, what does it matter if we want to mold and sculpt and reject and revise any part of our material selves? If life is meaningless and random, and humanity a stroke of dumb biologic luck, what harm in a little tinkering?

But we know better than this, as Christians. We know that we are not the random offspring of an impersonal universe, balls of genetic material that happened to lurch out of a primordial sludge at the right moment.

We are the willed, known, and loved children of a loving Father. Created to be sons and daughters who, in our sexual diversity as male and female, uniquely communicate some aspect of God’s nature to the world.

God is glorified in my femininity as woman who seeks justice and does not flinch from confrontation. These historically “masculine” characteristics do not suggest that I am a man trapped in a woman’s body, but that history has been incomplete in portraying the full human diversity exemplified by members of both sexes, as anyone with a fleeting understanding of how history came to be will concede.

Was Joan of Arc actually a trans man who donned armor and led armies into battle? I’m sure there are revisionist “gender theory” experts out there who would say so. In an ironic attempt to foster diversity, our culture ends up reinforcing the most stereotypical aspects of both sexes. Sensitive boys who prefer quiet activities and shun athletics might be gay, or might actually be in the wrong body altogether!

Or they might just be…sensitive boys. Men who have a broader spectrum of emotional awareness than the average male. Still fully male, and still uniquely and intelligently designed.

Rather than slavishly conforming to the narrow 2018 view of what constitutes our maleness and femaleness, we ought to push back and boldly proclaim the truth. That we are wonderfully made, and utterly unique. That each of us are personally willed, known, and loved by God. And that we live in a fallen, broken world that has been redeemed by Him and continues to be redeemed as we conform more and more to His nature, not to this present world.

If my 3-year-old unearths a stack of five (5!) copies of “I am Jazz” at the local library, you can bet those puppies are going straight to the bottom of the circular file. Because yes, I am intolerant of children being indoctrinated by a culture that would have them at odds with their very selves, questioning the goodness and the intention of their own bodies. I am bigoted against sin, which eats away at the human heart and separates us from the One who made our hearts. And I am positively rigid that children not be abused by their own parents, even at the expense of their very pressing wants and needs. My child believes that he can fly, use matches, and ride in the front seat of the car. I resist him on all fronts and continue to mentor him in reality; I don’t surrender to his capricious demands because he persists in them.

It’s not a matter of tolerance to allow poison in our children’s diets, no matter if the clamoring mob decides that arsenic is the new kale. We are called to fight for our children and to fight against the rulers and principalities of this world, those who seek to enslave and to destroy, to disfigure in any possible way the living image of God.

All that is necessary for this evil to continue to flourish is for good men and women to do nothing, to continue to turn away in discomfort, to keep the cable subscription or the streaming service with all the questionable content, to push the book back on the shelf and say nothing, to shrug our metaphorical shoulders, rationalizing “you can’t fight progress.”

Walking the wrong way into oncoming traffic isn’t progress. And sitting back and allowing the culture to continue plunging, unchecked, into debauchery and delusion is no progress either.

The time for going along to get along is long passed. If your kids are in public school, you can guarantee they’re getting schooled in the finer points of transgenderism on a regular basis.

The books that so disturb me when I encounter them in the library? They’re being actively circulated into school libraries and curriculums by forces with a vested interest in communicating with your children early and often, encouraging them to question reality and undermining their philosophical foundations. It is worth asking the question, why are some adults so invested in encouraging children to question their identities?

And why are adults who know better not rising up, en masse, to resist the insanity?

Because we have been steadily numbed to the onslaught of culture “progress” made in the past decade. Because what was unthinkable and illogical for all of human history has suddenly become possible and is therefore passably normal in 2018.

Human nature has not changed. God’s design for the human person has not altered. What was good in the beginning – male and female, He created them – is still good, even now.

And if reality appears to be moving away from that fixed point of reference, it bears asking, are we moving in the right direction? Not all movement is progress, after all.

(Thoughtful discussion and civil comments welcome on social media, though I won’t be there to read them)

Evangelization, Family Life, Parenting, toddlers

Thanksgiving acts of service with kids

November 21, 2018

This is the first year where we’re feeling like we can creep past bare minimum mode – just a single toe over the line, honestly – and attempt to do a little something extra for Thanksgiving.

I’m not hosting or even cooking all that much this year, so no doubt that inflates my sense of wellbeing. If you have a nursing baby who is under 6 months old, are pregnant, are postpartum to any sort of baby at all, have a child with special needs, a husband who works 120 hours a week, etc etc etc, then just stop reading and look away, you’re already maxed out on awesome acts of service.

If you are a mom to older kids and have this thing down already, then won’t you tip your hand and let us freshman have a peek at what you do to help your kids connect with the deeper meaning of this special holiday?

In years past, our friends who live closer to downtown Denver have bundled up early in the morning and brought Starbucks to the homeless people who congregate near the cathedral. I love that idea, but we’re a little far out in the suburbs to execute it. We do have some homeless people around, but no specific concentration where we could seek them out. It’s more like you’ll see someone at an intersection here or there. Our parish food pantry hosted a frozen turkey drive…yesterday. So that’s a miss for us, too.

I conducted a casual poll of mom friends asking for ideas and came away with some good suggestions: bringing treats to homeless people, passing out coffee, delivering donuts or sandwiches, handing out breakfast burritos, going to a park with hand warmers, hats and mittens, assembling blessing bags, etc. to distribute to panhandlers at intersections and freeway on ramps.

Some businesses will donate their products if you ask. A few businesses my friends said they’d had success partnering with:

Jimmy Johns: will sell day their day old loaves for $.50 a piece
Starbucks: will sometimes donate coffee with advance notice; will provide creamer, sugar, cups and lids at no charge when you order a coffee traveler
Dunkin Donuts: will sometimes donate with advance notice
Krispy Kreme: will donate day old donuts with advance notice

I’m guessing many fast casual chains and coffee places would be willing to donate, especially bread places like Panera, etc, where if they don’t sell that day’s offering, they aren’t able to sell it the next morning.

I love the idea of giving food at Thanksgiving, especially since it tends to be a time when we as Americans overdo it in the consumption department. I also think it’s a super relatable way of doing charity with kids. Kids understand being hungry. Kids understand having an empty tummy, and the immediate gratification of someone handing you something good to eat because they love you.

If the idea of serving on Thanksgiving itself is overwhelming, I think taking back Black Friday as a day to serve instead of shop is pretty awesome.

I’d really like to take our kids to a nursing home or retirement community to visit with the residents and provide a little comic relief. I worked at a nursing home while I was in grad school, and it made a lasting impression on me. Most of my residents just wanted someone to talk to, and would light up whenever a child – especially a baby – came onsite. Many lived far from their families and had visitors only once a year, or even less frequently than that. It was so life giving for them to just sit and visit with someone, even if it was only me or one of the other staff members. I will never forget the kind of relational poverty I witnessed there. Now here I sit with a bumper crop of my own children and I’ve yet to make good on my vow to return and visit nursing homes one day when I became a mom. Maybe this year’s the year.

Finally, I don’t want to rule out serving within the home itself. Especially where little kids are involved, I’m forever underestimating what they’re capable of, and they’re forever surprising me with their competence. (Well, and other things. There are other surprises, too.)

Inviting them to set the table, peel potatoes, peel and cut apples for pie, fill a pot with water, use a pitcher to fill water glasses at the dining table, etc are all valuable and super #Montessoriandyouknowwhat ways to let kids participate in and contribute to the family economy, and not just for the holidays.

So I’m all ears guys, what does your family do that has become a tradition? What are you hoping to try out this year? Have you had any memorable flops, like taking toddlers to the soup kitchen and violating food safety standards (ahem Luke cough cough)? Anything you’d do again? Anything you’d advise against, at all costs?

abuse, Catholics Do What?, Contraception, Culture of Death, current events, Parenting, prayer, scandal, sin, spiritual warfare, Suffering

What’s a faithful Catholic to do?

August 16, 2018

There is a tremendous – and warranted – outcry of rage and betrayal in the Church right now.

I’m not talking about the usual suspects in the media and the voices coming from the cafeteria line, either. I’m talking about the men and women who have sacrificed and stood steadfast, serving the Church with their professional lives, settling for smaller salaries and raised eyebrows at cocktail parties when they disclose their line of work. The little old ladies who are daily communicants. The blue collar workers who pray a Rosary on their lunch breaks and fast on bread and water on Wednesdays. The underpaid Catholic school teachers and the harassed Catholic healthcare professionals.

In other words, the faithful.

The ones raising larger than average families on smaller than average budgets. Refusing to cave to the extraordinary societal pressure to relieve the emptiness of their wombs at any cost, and opting for adoption or even childlessness over IVF. Bearing patiently the slings and arrows of public opinion when it comes time to defend the Church when her ways are not the world’s ways. Tossing aside the contraceptives and using NFP instead. Forgoing the “pleasures” of pornography and honoring their marriage vows. Remaining celibate and suffering in loneliness as an abandoned spouse or a same-sex attracted person. Sacrificing to educate their children in the Faith in the face of extraordinary difficulty. Refusing to reduce the immutable dignity of every single human person to an object to be used or discarded.

And defending Holy Mother Church with the ultimate gift – one’s fidelity to the Faith – even as the world around us spins farther into secular materialism.

Fathers, these children of your flocks are suffering. Suffering over the grievous injuries done to those other children, the ones named in the Pennsylvania report, the ones whose innocence was shattered, whose dignity was spat upon, who suffered in their very bodies the wounds of Christ tortured and crucified.

We cannot sleep for weeping over these images, crying out to heaven that men ordained to act in the person of Christ at the altar could also rape, pillage, and destroy the most innocent.

We need to hear from you.

We need to hear lamentation and rage, resolution and public penances. We must know that you stand on the side of Christ, crucified and risen. That even if your diocese is beyond a shadow of suspicion in August of 2018, your father’s heart breaks and your stomach roils in anger over what happened in our Church – no matter which diocese and no matter what year.

Many of us carried heavy hearts into Mass for the Feast of the Assumption of Mary yesterday, lifting red and swollen eyes to heaven during the readings and beseeching God for any answers, any explanation.

Too many of us – not all, but many – were met with deafening silence from the pulpits when the time for the homily arrived. The silence tore deeper into the wounds rent by the horrifying grand jury report; there was scarcely time for a scab to form over last month’s McCarrick revelations.

We need to hear from our fathers. We need to hear your anger, your shame, your outrage, your sorrow, and your profound and sincere resolution that this evil will be purged from the ranks of the Church hierarchy, no matter what the cost.

When someone intentionally injures or violates my child, even if – and perhaps especially if – I am not the cause of the injury, he or she can count on my swift and unapologetic rage.

We need to see your hearts, fathers. We need to see and hear our bishops doing public acts of reparation and penance, or resigning the privilege of office if the circumstances warrant it.

We need to hear our priests – especially our pastors – speaking uncompromisingly and unceasingly about what is happening, about the war zone we American Catholics find ourselves in, about the corruption and satanic violence within our own ranks, and about what is being done to bring about justice.

If your bishop hasn’t issued talking points yet or the diocesan-level HR department is cautioning restraint, damn the restraint. Your people are suffering, and they need to know their spiritual fathers are mad as hell and they aren’t going to take it anymore.

What can we, as lay people, do at a moment such as this?

Pray. Pray as you never have before. Pray a daily Rosary with your family, if you have one. With your spouse or significant other or roommate. Alone or with a recording, if you have nobody else to pray with. Ask especially for the intercession of Our Lady of Fatima, St. Charles Lwanga (Google his martyrdom story) and St. Catherine of Siena.

Fast. Give up social media one day a week, or limit it to a few minutes a day. Get rid of one of the three or four platforms you’re using entirely, maybe. Offer up those pinpricks of dopamine denial for the cleansing of the Church, and for the souls of the victims living and deceased.

Purge your home of anything that is complicit with this culture of death. Vaguely pornographic media. Explicitly pornographic media. Showtime or HBO DirectTV or maybe even your high speed internet, if it’s an occasion of sin for you. Go through your library and destroy anything that is influenced by the occult. If your right arm causes you to sin, cut it off. We must be beyond reproach as Catholics going forward if we are to have any credibility with this world and, more importantly, with Christ.

Throw away your contraception. Your mind altering drugs. Your habit of gossip, of masturbation, of criticism, of getting drunk, of cheating “just a little” on your income taxes, of cheating on your spouse, of ignoring your children.

In other words, be a saint.

Our times call for great sanctity to counter this grave evil. And sinners like us, myself first and foremost, are the only material Our Lord has to work with.

Other practical suggestions:

Email, call, and write to your bishop’s office (and while you’re at it, to the Holy Father himself.) Be respectful and unrelenting in asking for a public meeting or an explanation of what your diocese is doing to address these evils. Ask your bishop what his plans are to clean up your local church if housekeeping needs to be done. Find out what measures are in place to protect youth and children and seminarians and old people and not so old people. Ask what standard of sexual integrity is set and maintained by the diocese of X. Do the same with your pastor. Be persistent. But love your Church enough to not stop until you get a satisfactory answer.

Tell your priest, once you’ve finished asking when his next related and excruciatingly clear homily will be preached, that you are praying for him. And then do so. Offer a specific act of penance every day for your priest. For any priest you know. Give up your daily coffee, your nightcap, your nighttime pleasure reading, a workout, salt on your food, etc. Do not leave our courageous priests and bishops unarmed in this time of agony for the Church. They are suffering as Christ did in the Garden of Gethsemane, and they need our prayers.

We have decided for our family, that to avoid even the appearance of scandal and to protect all parties involved, it is best to avoid ever putting our priest friends – or any priest – in a situation where they are alone with a child of ours. I’m not talking about casual one-on-one talks with Father on the playground during recess, but being alone in a car, in a closed room, in a private home, etc. We are also exceedingly cautious about whom we leave our children with, and take into consideration the circumstances of any home or place they’ll be visiting. Most abuse takes place within the context of the extended family or trusted circle of friends, and we have chosen to err on the side of potentially giving offense by being “too careful.”

May Christ Jesus in whom we place our trust and confidence convict in our hearts a profound sorrow for all who suffer, and a firm resolution to spend ourselves utterly in striving to prevent future evil.

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.

Catholic Spirituality, Catholics Do What?, Contraception, Culture of Death, IVF, Living Humanae Vitae, Marriage, NFP, Parenting, planned parenthood, politics, Pro Life, Sex, sin, Theology of the Body, vasectomies, Women's Health

Humanae Vitae at 50: how does a Catholic respond to sex in the modern world?

July 25, 2018

Today marks exactly half a century since the publication of Humanae vitae, Bl. Paul VI’s prescient missive to the Church in response to the modern world’s views on sexuality and the human person. Reading it now through the warped lens of the 21st century’s concept of sex, it seems extraordinary that there was once a time the world was not arguing over the existence of multiple choice genders and contraception as a fundamental human right.

Progress, eh?

I look around at our culture and I see a lot of suffering. Children unsure of their parents’ commitment to the family and uncertain of their own place in the world, women who feel compelled to compete with their bodies in the sexual marketplace, babies snuffed out of existence because they had the misfortune to be conceived as the result of a violent act or a contraceptive failure.

There are a lot of people in a lot of pain. But the situation is not without hope. I personally had to hit a sort of rock bottom in my own life before I was able to recognize my own misery and cry out for something more.

The Church was there, and she was able to offer me something better. Discovering Humanae vitae made a big impression on me when I was finding my way back to belief, and it has not ceased to fascinate me in all the years since. It is brief, concise, and only seems to become more applicable as time passes.

There are four predictions which Pope Paul makes in HV, things which perhaps seemed far fetched in 1968, but which have themselves wretchedly accurate in 2018.

First, he envisioned a rise in infidelity and a general moral decline. The Pope noted that the widespread use of contraception would “lead to conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of morality.” Everyone knows that the rate of divorce is up and the rate of marriage is down and we’re watching things on network television that would have been censored as pornographic only a generation ago. I’d like to take things a step further and propose some remedies to what ails us.

First and foremost, if you are married or are preparing for a vocation to marriage, be all in. A holy marriage is a beacon of light in a darkening cultural landscape, and a vital witness to your children, friends, coworkers, and neighbors. Commit yourself to chastity – both before and within marriage. That means setting clear boundaries while dating and knowing your own and your partner’s limits when it comes to sexual temptation.

Renew your marriage vows with a sense of reverence for the sacred nature of sex and a delight in the goodness and dignity of your spouse. Don’t buy in to the culture’s cheapening views on sex as primarily recreational or selfish. Commit to studying and growing in your practice of authentic Christian sexuality with your husband or wife. “50 Shades of Gray” has nothing on “Theology of the Body.”

Secondly, Pope Paul foresaw a devastating loss of respect for women. He argued that “the man” will lose respect for “the woman” and “no longer (care) for her physical and psychological equilibrium” and will come to “the point of considering her as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment and no longer as his respected and beloved companion.”

Make a pledge to reject pornography in all its forms. Find a trusted spiritual director and/or mental health practitioner to help you navigate the road to freedom from addiction. Be honest and open about your struggles, and recognize your own limitations when it comes to the kind of media you can consume. Talk with your children, teens, and tweens about the dangers of sharing nudes and explicit content on the internet, SnapChat, and Instagram, helping them understand the far-reaching effects their youthful choices can have in adulthood and in eternity. Even better, keep smartphones out of the hands of your young people! Your kids will not die without an iPhone. Set an example of purity and transparency by keeping your computers and connected devices in open communal spaces and having a charging station where all devices are checked in at night.

Consider financially supporting an anti-trafficking campaign like the USCCB’s Coalition of Catholic Organizations Against Human Trafficking (CCOAHT), or by calling your congressperson to voice concerns about human trafficking in your state. There is a direct and demonstrable link between the pornography industry and human trafficking. Pornography is not an “innocent, private, personal choice.” There are real victims and there are real addictions which bleed over from the virtual world to the real world. Read Matt Fradd’s excellent book “The Porn Effect” with your men’s or women’s group or with your older kids. Sign up to become a fighter at the website Fight the New Drug.

Paul VI also voiced concern about the potential for the abuse of power, particularly at the hands of powerful governments and non government organizations who could wield “family planning” as weapon against poorer nations and oppressed populations. China’s infamous “One Child” policy is a sobering and extreme example of this, and there are stories of horrific forced abortions, state-mandated abductions, and government intervention in the lives of citizens who dared to flout the law. In the developing world today there are many instances of people undergoing involuntary or uninformed sterilizations at the hands of “compassionate” and eugenic non profit organizations whose understanding of humanitarian work seems limited to the reduction of undesirable populations.

Teach your children about the fundamental dignity of every human person, no matter their skin color or place of origin. Discuss the exploitation of poorer countries and populations by the wealthy and powerful, and explain the Church’s responsibility to defend the least of these. Raise money or awareness for an authentically Catholic charity doing work on the ground, like the Missionaries of Charity or International Missionary Foundation. Lobby your political representative for humane and responsible humanitarian aid that does not impose draconian population control measures on disaster-stricken or impoverished nations. Our “charity” is no charity at all when it comes with strangling strings attached.

Finally, the Holy Father recognized that a widespread acceptance and use of contraception would lull men and women into a false sense of control over their own bodies and, ultimately, the bodies of their children. If you stand around a playground with a group of moms for long enough, eventually you will overhear or take part in the vasectomy conversation: “I scheduled Matt’s for next week – it’s his turn to suffer!” or “Jim got snipped last year, because we are d-o-n-e done.”

Sterilization, according to a 2012 study by the Guttmacher Institute, is now the leading form of contraception in the United States. The rates of IVF and other assisted reproductive technologies have also skyrocketed in recent decades. Couples are waiting longer to become parents and women are often spending decades ingesting hormonal contraceptives without a clear understanding of the risks to fertility and the decline of the reproductive system with age.

When it comes time to have a child, couples will often stop at nothing to achieve their dream of becoming parents. This has led to a glut of “unwanted” frozen embryos who linger indefinitely in cold storage in laboratories around the world and the troubling emergence of a thriving surrogacy industry where it is frequently the poorer minority women who are hired to carry a pregnancy for a wealthy heterosexual or homosexual couple. Little thought is given to the physical and emotional effects that surrogacy has on the surrogate or the resulting child who is necessarily reduced to a product available for purchase.

Teach your children about the grave respect due to every human person, no matter the circumstances of their conception or birth. But also teach them that a massive and corrupt industry has sprung up around the conceiving of children at any cost and by any means necessary. Take responsibility for the sexual education of your own children from a young age. Opt them out of any public school instruction in human sexuality – some of which is developed by Planned Parenthood and other corrupt for-profit corporations with a vested interest in your children becoming sexually active – and educate yourself in the biology and theology of the human body. Gone are the days of having “the talk” with a pubescent teenager and hoping to have any impact on your child’s formation. If you want to get to your child before the culture does, you must have many such talks throughout the years. Early, and often.

Finally, pray. Pray for the wisdom to navigate this toxic culture and for the courage to live as a sign of contradiction. Look around and observe the pain and the confusion caused by living in a manner contrary to the Church’s teachings – even to those within the Church itself – and be bold enough to choose something radical. As 1 Peter 3:15 states, “be prepared to give an account for the reason for the hope you have in you.”

And in the words of my favorite Saint echoing the words of my Lord and Savior, “be not afraid.”

large family, motherhood, Parenting, toddlers

Leaving baby land

July 11, 2018

I just had a 5 –minute conversation with my seven –year –old where I used words like “extroversion, introversion, resources, and primary vocation.” He blinked his understanding to me and I really felt like we were having a moment, a real meeting of the minds.

I asked him if he understood what we’d just covered, and he nodded. Then I asked if he had any questions.

“Yeah. Uh, Mommy” he began, hesitantly. “Can I go put some pants on now?”

I’m in a weird in between place right now with family life. Everyone is still heavily dependent upon Dave and I for almost all their basic needs, but there are also glimpses of a shifting landscape. Just now, the child I was conversing with wandered off to find pants and, finding none, ran a load of damp laundry through the dryer of his own volition.

Folks, that’s what we call a paradigm shift. Also in this category: baby sleeping through the night, school –aged kids who are able to empty the dishwasher, a preschooler who no longer needs intensive bathtime supervision, and sufficient energy (or desperation) to rise early from sleep and steal an hour for prayer and exercise before the kids are up.

I’m having these moments I can only describe as “existential lurch”- where I have the distinct feeling I should be doing something and I’m not really sure what that something is. I look around and yes, the floor needs to be mopped and I really should finish those school forms and that project isn’t going to write itself, and also, why is it so hard to remember to fill up the gas tank before the empty light goes on? It’s weird to come out of survival mode and to look around and wonder “do I still know how to be a functional adult?” after so many concurrent years of night wakings and mopping up barf.

We are by no means out of the baby years, as the current stakeholder baby in thaet positionfamily is only 6 months on the job, but it’s a totally different landscape to have an almost 8-year-old and a 6 -year-old along for the ride. The 2-year-old is mentally unbalanced, and I say that with the utmost charity, truly, but last month I opened the bathroom door and started screaming, finding him perched (naked) on the countertop, drinking water directly from an older brother’s dirty soccer cleat as water from the still-running facet flowed over the basin, spilling onto the floor.

But, you’re probably thinking, this kid is feral and unsupervised and it serves you right, you neglectful social media peruser.

Nay, I say to you, I was standing just outside the doorway at the kitchen counter, chopping vegetables for a healthy dinner, audibly supervising what I had reason to believe was a valiant toileting effort in progress.

You should see some of the stuff he does when he’s actually unsupervised.

But even with crazy Luke, even with little teeny baby Zay, life is still a little… easier? Less physically grueling? than it was a baby or two ago, thanks to the maturity of my older kids.

At the same time, I now lie awake at night pondering the day’s events and agonizing over my mistakes and shortcomings. I feel very much out of my depth to parent a kid with a conscience, and, just like breastfeeding was agonizingly difficult the first time around, so is trying to explain the existence of evil, or what is really happening at Mass and why it’s necessary for us to go every week, and how come the neighbor kid can’t actually move in with us, and where money comes from, and why cemeteries exist, and why you can’t use Siri without mommy and daddy’s supervision, and, and, and…

I’m going to be honest, I’m terrified to leave babyland.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m exhausted. I’m more than ready to drop the 40 lbs I can’t seem to shake after this 5th pregnancy. And boy oh boy, am I ready to sleep (consistently) through the night again, but, control freak that I am, parenting older kids scares the hell out of me.

What if I mess up and they (insert trauma here)? Spoiler alert: I will. I have. I am. And they might, and they could, and they are.

I know this on an intellectual level and I always have, but it’s easy to look down at a trusting little baby or even a mischievous little 4-year-old and think “You’re never going anywhere. I’ll always be able to hold you in my lap and keep you safe.”

I think this may be what all those older moms in the checkout line are getting at when they wistfully or ironically assure me that it all goes by so fast.

It does, and it doesn’t.

I’m crawling along to mile marker 5 of the marathon of parenting and I’m recognizing I have years ahead of me, some of them grueling, but I’m also looking back and seeing the ground we’ve already covered and sort of pining for it, retrospectively. This current season, too, will surely be one I long for in the years to come. Zelie could be our last baby, for all I know.

The frontier we’re crossing into is uncharted territory for us. These are years my kids will remember. These are experiences and lessons that will shape their personalities and mold their characters.

I am not up for the task.

I am inadequate.

And no amount of reading or research or application of guaranteed magical techniques can ensure a good outcome.

Then again, neither did any of the one million baby books I consumed like manna from heaven. If only “oh crap 3 day potty training” had delivered as promised. If only having the happiest baby on our block had more to do with my mothering prowess and less to do with dumb luck and genetics.

I want an instruction manual. I want the promise of perfection and a guarantee of success. I don’t want to parent kids to adulthood in this scary, crazy world full of suffering and violence and chaos. I want heaven now. I want the resurrection without the cross. I want victory without death. I want God to speak directly to me and to be able to hear Him, crystal clear, and to be able to follow His suggestions effortlessly and without hesitation.

I don’t know that I’m up for this next level of motherhood. And I have five kids who won’t stop eating and outgrowing their shoes and so level up I must,— somehow.

This is the part where I tie it all together with an uplifting or inspirational realization. Except, I don’t have anything to offer. That is what it feels like at the end of another long, hot day of summer parenting. They all wore sunscreen and they ate a couple vegetables, but in the grand scheme of things, I tend to feel like I’m failing them a little bit every day, one day at a time.

I guess that’s the lesson? I guess parenting, like life, is the sort of gig that humbles you as you go along, and instead of progressing in acumen and technique you become ever more convinced of your inadequacy and suspect that it might one day become apparent to everyone around you that you are, in fact, making it up as you go along.

Younger moms, you are in the most grueling and physically intense thick of it right now. I always tell people who express wonder at being able to handle more than two that however many kids you have, you are maxed out. Full stop. There is nothing harder than having as many kids as you have right now. And when you’re knee deep in the baby trenches and literally can’t remember taking a shower by yourself, you think this is your life now, forever. And that it will never get any easier.

It will not be easier. But it will be different. That’s the scary part, for me. Stepping out into the unknown and wondering if the gps is offline, and can I really do this part? The baby part you just have to do. They are crying and fussing and depending utterly and you have no choice.

It feels like this part of parenting has more agency, more heft to it, besides the glaring and obvious burden of, you know, keeping a helpless human being alive and fed.

My kids can forage for granola bars and fill their own water bottles now, but they cannot shape their own hearts. And I look around and realize, with a start, that they’re all looking to me. And it feels crazy! Isn’t there a grown up somewhere who is running this show?

Permanently 17 on the inside, I’m telling you! But I fake a smile and put some more hot dogs in the microwave and pray that grace will cover my multitude of sins.

Family Life, Parenting, siblings

Mommy time, daddy time, and “dating” your kids

July 6, 2018

One morning when our oldest, Joey, was around 4 years old, I was walking out the door for a meeting or a couple hours’ work at a coffee shop, leaving him and his then two younger siblings with a mother’s helper. I heard a bang as the screen swung open behind me and heard a loud sniffling. I turned back to see my normally stoic firstborn crying in the doorway: “Mommy, I just want to beeeee with you.”

He loved his babysitter, and it was only a couple hours a week that I was away from them at all, but he was sensitive to the fact that I was not giving him much quality time at that point.

And I couldn’t, to be honest. I was newly pregnant with baby number four, still working full time-ish, and we had just begun hustling in earnest to save for a down payment for our first house. If we did spend much one on one time with each kid during that season, it was probably a quick bedtime story, a diaper change, or a snuggle before lights out. And that was fine, because it was appropriate for the season we were in!

That being said, even with – perhaps especially with – a larger than average family, it is important to me that each of our kids feel individually known and loved by us. To that end, we’ve started to block out intentional, specific chunks of time each week to spend a few minutes one on one with our older kids, and we’re already starting to see returns on the investment in alone time. Our kids call it “mommy time” and “daddy time,” and I call it taking them on dates, at least in my head.

This morning, for example, I took Joey with me to run an errand and on the way back we stopped at Starbucks to go inside rather than hitting the drive through (big thrill for him) and I got him a $3 breakfast sandwich. He felt like the king of the world retrieving his very own order from the bar, and for about $6 we made a sweet little memory together.

I joke with Dave that we’ve been parenting on defense only for about the past five years, but now that our oldest is approaching eight, we’re starting to feel like we have a little bit – like maybe a couple inches – of breathing room, and so we’ve been trying to do things a little more proactively. (N.B: our youngest is only 6 months, but she’s bottle fed and that has made a world of difference for me in terms of returning to stability postpartum. Usually by 6 months out I’m still feeling pretty touched and tapped out, but with Zelie being a fabulous sleeper and anybody with two thumbs being able to serve her a meal, the return to “the new normal” has been a little more swift).

Growing up in a family of nine, it sometimes felt like there was always another person around. Because, um, there was always another person around.

But! My parents were really great about usually grabbing a kid or two to run an errand, make a grocery trip, or (and this was the holy grail) hit up McDonald’s early on a Saturday morning for hashbrowns with Dad. I remember sneaking downstairs at 7 am and seeing him slipping out the door and running to catch up. I think the unofficial rule was if you were up, you could come. Sometimes it would be just you and dad, and that was always a huge (cheap) thrill.

Several of my kids have, unfortunately, inherited the early riser gene and have begun to beg to accompany me on a morning walk before Dave leaves for the office. Some days I know that I desperately need the alone time to prepare for the day ahead, but other days I’m able to green light them for a little mommy time. It is always so bittersweet to see how happy it makes them, because I know they’re longing for more time with me and also that sometime in the not-so-distant future they’re going to stop asking. So I try to say yes.

My hope is that with every stop at Target and run through the car wash, we’re laying down another layer in the foundation of our relationship. I don’t want to be my kids’ best friend; but I do want to be the biggest influence in their lives. I want them to come to me with big things someday, having become accustomed to running to me with small things.

And so I’ll feign – or is it cultivate? – interest in Pokemon cards and Lego Star Wars and imaginary cat tea parties with the hope that many little yeses during the adoring little years will add up to greater harmony in the adolescent years. I figure if I’m letting them hang out with me now when I’m the coolest person in the universe to them, perhaps they’ll return the favor when the tables are turned in the next five years or so.

Some other easy (and cheap!) date ideas:

Grocery story buddy: helps grab each item off the shelf, holds open produce bags, selects bananas, pays cashier, etc. Hard and fast rule with this one is you get to ask for one “special” item, like a box of granola bars or a Gatorade or a piece of weird fruit, and that’s it. Habitual begging will get you sidelined from grocery-buddy duty.
Starbucks date. We have one walking distance from our house, and the bigger kids love to walk the ½ mile there and back with me.
Hardware shop run with daddy. He’s so fun that he even lets them build the craft if they’re there at the right time on a Saturday morning.
Adoration. I like to stop by our parish’s perpetual adoration chapel for even a five minute visit, depending on how many kids I have with me. If I only have one and it’s an older (read: quieter) child, we’ll stay a little longer, maybe as long as 15 minutes. The more often I do this, the better the kids respond to it.
Ice cream run. Self-explanatory. My kids had their first Dairy Queen dipped cones last week when we hit a record high of 105 degrees, and they were on cloud nine.
PetSmart. My kids loooove to look at animals I will never buy them, and it’s cheaper than the zoo. Sometimes we might pick up a small cat treat for the single pet we do own.
A neighborhood walk where we distribute “kindness rocks”. We found one on a stroll one day and the kids were instantly enamored. It’s just a smooth, flat rock that is either painted or colored with crayons with a kind word or message. My kids like to draw emojis or write Scripture verses on their rocks and then leave them at the base of mailboxes throughout the neighborhood, which is very 2018 of them.
Letting one kid stay up late for a special date night with mommy. I usually do this if Dave has a late night at work or an event that keeps him out. I’ll pull a kid after bedtime (never before. #lessonlearned) and we’ll creep downstairs for hot chocolate or a nail-painting session while everyone else is (allegedly) sleeping.

Some other suggestions I’ve come across and haven’t tried yet include running/swimming/playing tennis with an older kid (I think this will become especially valuable with my boys as they age and are no longer interested in dating their mother at a coffee shop); writing a “conversation journal” back and forth – some friends with daughters have started to do this and are seeing great fruit in their relationships with their tween and preteen daughters; going to Daily Mass alone with just one kid; grabbing someone at lunchtime for a fast food run for a surprise break from the school day, or even a whole weekend or night away with one kid for a special family tradition once they turn a certain age.

What are some things you do with your kids to foster one on one time? Did your parents do this with you? Do you have logistical suggestions for how to make it work with a bigger family? I’d love to hear.

Budget hack: a kid’s hot chocolate split into 2 cups comes out to about .$75/kid, and is plenty of sugar.

Bioethics, Catholics Do What?, Contraception, guest post, Living Humanae Vitae, Marriage, NFP, Parenting, pregnancy, Sex

Med school pregnancies and IUDs {living humanae vitae part 6}

June 25, 2018

This installment of the Living Humanae Vitae series is near and dear to my own desperate-to-be-in-control heart, and it represents a beautiful surrender to an awareness of God’s faithfulness and the sometimes nonsensical economy of grace. I can relate to the “this makes no sense-ness” of a seemingly unwise or imprudent action in the eyes of the world, only to have it end up being one of the preeminent blessings in your life.

K is a medical student, a future doctor, a mother, and a faithful Catholic. This is her story:

I am third-year medical school student and many of my classmates think I’m a bit nutty for being open to life in this season of life.

My husband works full-time and I’m a full-time student. I had our second child between my first and second year. Our third child is coming early next year.

Medical school is full of many driven and intelligent people. It’s only by the Lord’s grace (and my husband’s gentle reminders) that my drive to achieve and compete is tempered by keeping priorities in line.

For me, this means having open hands and an open heart and trust in the Lord’s faithfulness when I choose not to contracept. As human beings, we are both body and soul. As such, I know that the decision to insert an IUD has spiritual ramifications. Decision to obliterate a man’s vas deferens or to sever a woman’s normal and healthy fallopian tubes echo deeply into our souls.

We shut ourselves off from the Lord when we say “I am the master of my own fertility.”

Many of my classmates cling to their IUDs as if those little devices held the key to salvation itself.

The Lord gave me the tremendous gift of good catechesis, and as such I choose to live according to the wisdom of the Church and trust in the Lord’s providence in regard to my fertility. And even then, the effectiveness statistics between artificial birth control and NFP aren’t much different.

Now, one can absolutely live in death-gripping fear while using NFP. I was there during the postpartum period after our first baby was born and we were heading off to Virginia for medical school in a few months. I knew that if I got pregnant by accident and then was due in the middle of school year, that was it, and I just wasn’t going to be able to finish. I’ve never been so tempted by contraception. It was knowledge and trust in Magisterium of the church and my husband’s strength that held me back.

But I’ve learned time and again that the Lord is faithful. I know He doesn’t want me to live in fear or distrust. But I have to choose not to live there, which took effort at first. I became pregnant with our second baby in September of my first year, just when we were hoping to. We were trying and praying for a perfectly-timed baby. The only summer you get off during medical school is the first one. The break was only 6 weeks. We had one single cycle to make that narrow window. We tried for it.

In any given cycle, if everything is perfect- the egg is good, the sperm is good, the mucus is good and the passageway is clear, there’s only a 20-25 percent chance that you’ll conceive. With a precise due date in mind there’s always the two-week window on either side of the goal that is variable just due to cycle variation.

Emma was conceived during that cycle, and was due the day of my last final. She was born a few days after that – with enough time for me to catch up on some errands and house cleaning before she arrived. My OB-GYN didn’t think I would make it. All of my other babies were born before their due dates. But Emma patiently waited for the semester’s end to make her debut into the world. That’s really the story of her personality: she was one of the most serene and patient people in our house when she was an infant. She even slept through the night starting at two months.

I know some people’s stories with NFP are different, that babies come unexpectedly and are untimed, even despite diligent effort. Our story is not that story. Baby number three was timed for February so that my husband could have a birthday month buddy, so that baby didn’t arrive during study time for step two, so I wouldn’t have to haul a newborn around for audition rotations 4th year, and so that I wouldn’t be so pregnant over Christmas that we couldn’t travel to Minnesota.

The Lord blessed me with beautifully obvious fertility signs, as if my body just screams at me each month “I’M FERTILE!”

I believe it’s because the Lord always gives us what we need. He called me to medical school, He’s getting me through it, and He knows we needed precise timing for children. Time and again I come back to the passage from Romans 8:28 “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, according to his purpose.”

I try to live every day as if “this is exactly what the Lord has given to me, and I have everything I need.” There have been many nights before exams where children were awake or sick and I had to stay up with them. Those ended up being some of my highest exam scores. There were weekends before Monday morning tests that everyone else seemed to be madly studying and I felt like the Lord wanted to me take a day off to be with my family. It didn’t make sense at the time, but my studying was enough and I did well.

When I’m faithful to the Lord, rather than making a little god out good grades and studying, I do better in school. He has been so faithful and merciful, and I thank Him and praise him daily for beautiful little souls He has given me the privilege of bringing into the world.

Family Life, motherhood, Parenting

The secret whatever of motherhood

May 9, 2018

First, the good. This has little to do with her birth order and more to do with her temperament, I suspect, but Zelie is an angelic baby. I know this because I have had 4 other babies of varying levels of good behavior (number 2 in particular being a real doozie) and this newest human is an exceptionally calm and delightful varietal.

I love all my kids, but boy do I like this one a lot. She sleeps great, smiles often, and functions as a baby ambassador of goodwill wherever she goes.

If I had given birth to my number 2 child in the number 5 position, I think I’d be sending out a different sort of report right now. But as it stands, delightful Zelie has actually made life more pleasant and in many ways, easier.

Isn’t that strange? That having 5 kids could be easier than having 4? Economy of grace, y’all. His ways are not our ways. All I know is that when Luke (also a very good baby by all accounts) was the age that Z is now, I was one perpetually breastfeeding stressed out and sleep deprived mama. Zelie drinks bottles, sleeps through the night (lowers voice) for going on 6 days now, and lights up with a 1000 kilowatt smile if anyone so much as glances in her direction.

Because I don’t have post-partum depression this time around (thank you Jesus) and because I’m not nursing her at this point (worrisome weight gain on her part and a thyroid issue on mine which inhibits milk production…BUT WHY AM I JUSTIFYING MYSELF TO THE INTERNET? Oh yes, because breastfeeding is often mistaken for a moral issue by the court of public opinion) I’m feeling emotionally stellar. Waking up happy and glad to see the baby. Getting some quality time in at the gym – the pool, specifically – and having almost none of that “I’ve lost myself in motherhood” ennui that so often marks this fragile period after welcoming new life. I don’t feel like I’ve lost myself at all, in fact. I feel like I’ve found myself, if anything. That I’ve finally nailed down some best practices for how I mother and not how the internet/my mom/a book/etc tells me I should mother (note: my actual mom is very supportive and non-judgemental about my mothering. #blessed).

What works is having baby in a separate room at night – until recently, in a bassinet thing on the floor of our walk in closet – and not sleeping thisclose to my head. What works for me is lots of physical affection and following baby’s sleep cues and offering food every 2 hours or whenever she is acting hungry, and not following any kind of a feeding schedule whatsoever (27 year old first time mom Jenny is open-mouthed in horror at the thought) and letting baby nap wherever/whenever she wants to. In a plane, on a train, in the car, at a…bar? Sure. Whatever gets the job done and gets those zzzz’s logged.

Case in point: she is currently napping placidly in the rock n’ play whilst Luke and Evie engage in a knock down drag out screaming match one room over. True to fifth-born form, she seems to prefer ambient noise (lol that’s what we’ll call it) during her daytime naps.

What works is accepting help when I need it, declining invitations when we can’t make it, and not feeling guilty about things like sometimes missing fun parties or about keeping everyone out way too late because we had a fun night with friends and everybody ran around like a fool eating gluten-full hot dog buns and drinking gatorade until 10 pm.

Whatever.

If I had to sum up my secret for being a mom to many it would probably be just that: whatever.

Whatever works for the actual family, skill set, and personality God gave you. And not only whatever works, but in whatever you do. Laundry, carpool, nursing a sick little one, serving dinner to a cranky elementary schooler, having a hard conversation with a young adult. Every level of motherhood is saturated with opportunities to glorify God in the “whatever” while also doing whatever works for your family.

For me, more food comes out of packages and boxes than it might at your house. I frequently leave the house for an hour or more in the evenings to work out or pray or sit in the car in the grocery store parking lot and stare out the window contemplating the darkness of night. I read too late into the evening and drink a little too much coffee most mornings, but I also have been training myself to stop-drop-and-roll into a horizontal position should all 3 homebound kids chance to sync up their nap times in the afternoon.

I try to keep my eyes on my own page and remind myself that comparison is the thief of joy. That while Satan probably can’t tempt me to abandon my family and run away to Mexico to a margarita farm he can easily nudge me into thinking that mom over there is doing a much better job with her kids/house/spiritual life/body/career and I should probably just give up because I’m failing at all of it.

I’m learning to lean into the harder moments and not escape into a glass of wine or a perma scroll when the going gets tough. I don’t want to numb out the hard stuff, but let that hard stuff build up my muscles for the harder stuff to come. I know big kids will equal bigger problems, and if I can’t referee toddler death matches over the backyard hose I will find myself ill prepared to have all the sex talks and car safety lectures and that await me just around the riverbend.

I’m trying to do more sitting down on the floor and tickling. Kissing my already resistant 7-year-old’s cheeks while he still permits me to. Saying “why not” when they want fudgesicles and rolled up lunch meat as a meal and pushing through praying a family decade of the rosary even when someone is screaming and someone else is curled up in a ball of self pity because the 6 minutes we’re asking of them is too much to handle.

I used to think that this was just survival mode and that things were going to calm down at some unidentified point down the road but then one morning this year I looked in the mirror (figuratively but also literally) and saw a 35-year-old mom with 5 kids who is really, really tired but also fairly happy most of the time, and figured I’d better get about the business of enjoying life in the here and now.

So we go to Mass as a family on Sundays even when it’s rough, we have margaritas on the patio on a Tuesday night because we can’t find a babysitter, and we stay up just a little too late reading most nights because introverts recharge alone together, and we’re going to be pretty tired come 6 am either way.

This embrace of reality has yielded some surprising results. First, that I am actually happy even at my presently overweight size. I know I’ll lose the baby weight and I’m working hard in the pool and at the grocery store to do so, but I also know I’m going to look at pictures of myself from this season someday when I’m older and my nest is empty and think to myself “daaaaaaang, you looked good, girl. No wrinkles. Cute babies everywhere. Shiny thick hair.”

I’ve also discovered that I need about 30% less sleep to survive than I’d ever believed possible. This one is a shocker, and some days I’m convinced God is bending the laws of physics to give me more rest in fewer hours as long as I remember to ask Him for it. So 5 hours can feel like 9? Yeah, sometimes. And that’s wild. Especially for a girl who used to start to cry herself when she was awakened by a crying baby. (Yes, I would actually start crying if I was awakened too many times by a newborn baby. And I have had 5 of them. If that’s not proof that God equips the called rather than calling the equipped, I don’t know what is.)

I have a feeling I’m really going to enjoy the next phase of motherhood because it’s already so much more fun than the early years. I didn’t love my first babies any less, but I definitely didn’t enjoy them the way I’m doing now. I worried and measured and researched and counted ounces and minutes and diapers and just generally felt like I was perpetually way out of my depth.

And now? I know I’m way out of my depth, so I can stop worrying so much. Worrying does nothing besides ramp up my baseline anxiety, and honest Abe I don’t need any help in that department. I know I’m messing up my kids. I’m sure I’ve made some choices that may haunt them one day. And (this is the worst part) it’s probably not even the things I’m consciously worrying about. So I beg the Lord’s mercy over my mothering choices and I pray His words over them as I send them out into the world (or the backyard) each day, and I ask for forgiveness over and over again when I fail.

“Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.” Col. 3:17

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