toddlers – Page 2 – Mama Needs Coffee

motherhood, Parenting, sleep issues, toddlers

The long miles

February 15, 2016

I’m letting my infrequently napping almost 4-year-old stay up today, because his big brother is home and “too bored to live” when he’s the only bird chirping in the middle of the day. Luke, our resident 6 month old, has also decided prime time be his, and so I sit here answering emails, researching current events, reading articles, “working” while a pile of legos comes crashing down at one elbow and a fat bumbo-dweller eyes me over the top of his messy rice rusk.

This is not the “work at home” dream I lived for the first couples years of motherhood. Long, quiet stretches of nap time solitude were mine, day after day, and so dearly did I come to depend on them that if one little mister skipped even part of his nap, it threw me into a veritable tailspin. I’m not too proud to admit that I used to cry when one – or both – of my older boys refused to nap.

I need so much more rest than I’m getting, but I’m also learning so much.

It reminds me a little bit about my brief stint as a half marathoner. 6 races in about 2 years, one every 4 or 5 months. What began as a dare between grad school buddies became a surprising new hobby, and nobody was ever more shocked than I when I crossed another 13.1 mile race of my list.

And then, almost as suddenly as it began, it was finished. I’m not saying my running shoes are hung up forever, but I got married and subsequently semi permanently pregnant about 5 months after my last race, and suddenly I found myself in a whole new season, watching with incredulity as my body accomplished things I’d previously imagined to be impossible. Growing 4 children, nursing for a combined 37 months and counting, and buying pair after pair of disposable Old Navy skinny jeans as my shape-shifting self reemerged again and again as something – and someone – different.

I have been trying to reframe a lot of the harder pieces of parenting in terms of freedom and choice. (And oh, how I hate the connotation those two words have come to evoke when placed adjacent to one another. What a lie.)

Freedom because I freely chose – and I freely choose, even when circumstances present a false narrative to the contrary – to be here. To be here now, to be doing this with these children and this man, and to be in it for the long haul.

Choice because I could get up and leave. I could wake up tomorrow morning at the cock a doodle doo from the back bedroom summoning his secondsies breakfast at 5 am and I could just … not go. I could roll back over, ignore the cry, and drift back into dream land. Or I could jump in the car and head for coffee.

I think back to the frigid mornings in the dead of an Ohio winter when I first became a runner and to the sound of my alarm going off, summoning me to a 9 mile run in the local cemetery, and I can still taste the metallic dread at the back of my throat, the nausea of exhaustion and the resigned pre-dawn lacing of the sneakers. And then I contrast that with the other memories surfacing, the 5-miles-in runner’s high, the exhilaration of race day, the quiet pride of pulling a race t over my head months later, on my way out the door, remembering that I’d actually done it, that I’d logged those miles.

Motherhood for me, right now, is kind of like that. I look back with fondness and gratitude at my very first year as a mom, nervous and over-read and profoundly sure of myself on the outside and very, very lost on the inside, and I’m so glad to be here, 25 pounds heavier and hundreds of hours of lost sleep later, but calmer and more joyful just the same.

Most of the time.

The harder days are still frequent, and I have to remind myself constantly that bedtime is not the finish line, to lean into the hard middle miles while we’re cleaning and building and growing and I’m stepping on legos, and know that something – if not necessarily my abdominal muscles – is being toned and chiseled in these harder and more physically demanding little years.

We’ve had a foretaste of harder stuff the past week, a glimpse of the complications that await us in the years to come, when kids are older and problems are more complex. And while I face the future of parenting older children with expectant joy, I’m also experiencing just the faintest, the faintest wisps of nostalgia for the quiet, exhausting, overwhelming and joyous little years where nobody was ever not at my side, and where the hardest decisions I made in a day revolved around sweet potatoes versus butternut squash, and whether or not to throw in the cloth diaper and call it a disposable day.

I know that when I’m bursting with a houseful of hungry teenage boys in another decade, I’ll look back at this season the same way. So I’m trying to savor it, I really am.

I’m trying not to hate being here, on the proverbial mile number 7, out of breath and out of shape and longing to be “done,” wanting to put nursing and night feeding and and the endless rotation of pants sizes in the review mirror. But even when I get back to myself, so to speak, I’ll never again be with these same little people.

I might be a prettier, perkier 34-year-old mom next year at the park, but I might not have a 6 year old, by then, who still wants to be picked up sometimes, and who unabashedly loves my fluffy midsection. I might have longer stretches of sleep at night in another 6 or 12 months, but surely some other suffering will have cropped up by then, and I’ll be thinking back fondly of hours logged in the glider, nursing silently in the dark while the whole house slept besides us, the baby and I.

I do want to lean into this season. Even when, occasionally, I feel the need to pull back and scream. Literally.

But there are still miles to go. And one day I’ll marvel that those miles were logged under my own power, by God’s grace. And I’ll fit back into my skinny jeans and watch my lanky teenagers raid the fridge and make plans that don’t involve me, and I’ll feel a pang of wistful not-quite-jealousy for the me of today. Which is enough to make me want to put my shoulder into this Monday and giddy up.

284_510947082240_5164_n — Post race snap from 2007, leading me to believe that parenting is slightly more taxing than long distance running, based on appearances alone…

Catholic Spirituality, Evangelization, motherhood, Parenting, Suffering, toddlers

Mercy for me, mercy for you

February 2, 2016

Let’s eat mercy in a big brown shoe…

(sorry, there’s a whole section of my brain programmed with song lyrics from the 90’s)

Today’s a snow day here in Denver. (Which means something quiiiiiite different once you’re on the other side of the school bus, turns out. But I digress.) My boys have been pawing at the backdoor since breakfast, and we finally released them into the 14 inches of fluff coating the back deck. At almost 4 and 5.5 years old, they’re finally at the point where they stay outside longer than it takes me to suit them up in their cold weather gear. Which is awesome.

The 2 year old wants to join them. Of course she does. She’s been up whining and throwing dramatic tantrums and falling gracefully face first onto the carpet since about 7 am. She doesn’t feel great, we can tell, but she’s determined that she’ll have the same fun her brothers are having.

After 20 minutes of plaintive whimpering at the back door and many more dramatic faux fainting spells, we concede the point, stuffing pajama clad legs sausage-style into hand me down black snowveralls, size 3T. They’re too big, but she’s delirious with joy. I wrestle tiny boots onto footie pajama feet, telling her we’re almost ready. She fights me like an adult catfish, writhing in anticipation of the wintery freedom that awaits her out the back door.

Finally, she’s suited up and released into the wild. She toddles into a drift that is above her waist and promptly face plants. Crying, she raises her arms for a daddy rescue. And off again, toddling to the edge of the deck and crouching down to roll into a waiting drift (only a 12 inch drop, fear not). I watch from behind the picture window in the warm, waiting house, counting down the minutes until she surrenders. She’s been out the door for 90 seconds so far and one mitten is gone.

At the 6 minute mark I look up and see her appear at the backdoor in Daddy’s arms, kicking and screaming. She has clumps of snow in her hair and stuffed up the legs of her pants, encrusted along the tops of her boots. He grins and shrugs, handing her off for a warm bath before disappearing back into the tundra.

I ask my now sobbing 2 year old if she’s ready to warm up and she shoots me a look of unadulterated rage. I peel her out of 17 layers of snow gear, shedding clumps of ice all over the family room floor, and carry her to the waiting tub. Once the water starts running she has a whole new list of demands including “fishy,” “dirty dogs,” “Princess Leia,” and “cockadoodle.” We have a weird bath culture in our home.

As the tub fills she relaxes, finally happy after a morning of high drama delivered the way only a 2 year old can – continuously. She’s laughing and singing about Star Wars, and I’m laughing to myself because she’s.so.stubborn.

And she’s just like me.

There are so many times I’ve been like “God, this is what I want and THIS IS HOW I WANT IT.” And I’ve pushed and pleaded and begged and insisted until, finally, I get what I want, and the consequences be damned.

And it’s the craziest thing, but they usually are.

And I’m not always keen to admit it, but there have been moments of grace-filled hindsight where, after He’s picked me up and brushed me off and shown me to the warm bath, I can see that while He uses all things for good for those who love Him…there are definite areas where I demanded not thy will but mine be done. And it shows.

Because usually? It’s so much more painful. So much less fulfilling. So much more likely to end in regret and remorse and potential injury.

And of course He is always there to pick me up, to brush off the snow, to welcome me back into the warm house and draw a bubble bath, allowing the steam and the soap to coax feeling back into my numbed and reddened skin. But it still hurts. Sometimes healing does. Maybe even often.

I think that’s what the Year of Mercy is about, at it’s heart: God the Father standing at the door, waiting for us to come back inside so we can be wrapped in His welcoming bath towel of healing and reconciliation.

(I mean, it’s an imperfect analogy.)

So He waits. Standing patiently in front of us, watching us flounder in deep snow, shedding mittens and exposing delicate parts of ourselves to the sting of frostbite and the punishing elements. And He won’t force us to come back inside, because free will. But He’s gonna rip that door open and catch us the second we come running back, pulling off those wet layers of sin and regret and washing us clean. And while there might be a little pain involved, the pain is not the point. It’s just the natural consequence of the rehab He’s doing on our little frozen extremities.

And because He’s God, He probably won’t even roll His eyes while picking up our pile of frozen laundry, muttering something about how He warned us we would get too cold out there and that we should have just stayed inside.

(Note to self: work on that part. ^)

And that, my friends, is how the Jubilee Year of Mercy is a little like waiting for toddlers to come in from the snow.

About Me, Parenting, pregnancy, toddlers

How to rock a summer pregnancy

July 10, 2015

This is not a fashion post.

This is a survival post.

(I’m sorry if the title misled you. If you’re looking for pretty and preg-spirational I can direct you to a carefully curated Instagram account or two. Heavy on the Valencia filter.)

I’ve been hugely pregnant in the summer one other time, but it was with our eldest and I was working in a deliciously frigid air-conditioned office and was fresh off my wedding day weight and I could go to bed every night at 8 pm and Dave rubbed my back unceasingly and soothingly every evening and it just.wasn’t.the.same.

This, on the other hand, I now understand to be a summer pregnancy. And it’s not even terribly hot here this summer, and we have AC, so I know for certain that Ma Ingalls does, in fact, think poorly of me. Very poorly indeed (language, snowflakes.)

But I’m big. I’m so big, in fact, that yesterday I passed by my reflection in a store window and for a split second I did not recognize myself. And the woman whose body I caught a glimpse of? I felt sorry for her. Which is so pathetic and yet hilarious that I can’t fully process it.

Does it make me a terrible person for seeing a fat lady, pitying her, and then immediately realizing that it was my own self I was seeing?

Probably. I mean, the lack of makeup and the haggard, hollowed out eyes didn’t help her case. But I was still left questioning my basic goodness.

Let’s press on, because I’ve curated a handy list of survivalist techniques that have kept me hydrated, mostly mobile, and somewhat sane.

1. Unlimited screen time.

Just kidding, I’m actually really stingy with the screen because most days if they want it, it means I surrender my computer for 30 or 120 minutes of whatever inane toddler show is trending on Netflix that week. But I’ve been much more free with the in-car DVD player because we’ve been doing the one-car shuffle for all of June and now July and I just let it go, let it goooooooo. And Frozen is almost literally the only DVD we own. I do usually instigate a decade of the rosary before we zone out, but pretty much I’ve been putting a movie on whenever, because we’ve been in the car a lot, and because it’s so nice and air-conditioned and why don’t we just drive around for a while, guys?

Also, I’ve been throwing my completely archaic iPhone 4 (no games, no fun, no nothing) to whoever, whenever. Because I’ve just stopped caring.

summer school — You can literally see knowledge emanating from the screen.

2. Unlimited La Croix.

I’m actually serious about this one, because it’s $7 a case at Costco, and, therefore about as cost-effective as tap water. It keeps me going. Especially with a twist of lime and a packet of Arbonne energy fizz. Evie is obsessed with it so I can’t open them in front of her, and I’ve actually had to start drinking it out of glasses and/or hiding in the bedroom when I open one. You know how you can call cats using an electric can opener? It’s like that.

3. Letting the children dress themselves.

And they look amazing. Everyone smells like humus and faintly of urine but unless we’re going somewhere fancy, like church or IKEA, I really haven’t found a downside.

4. The popsicles are in the bottom drawer of the freezer and the hose is to the left of the wading pool. Do with that information what you will.

I was such an uptight first time mom I was aaaaaaaall about that sunscreen (I still apply it, don’t worry, because holy high altitude. But I’ve also surrendered to the fact that 20 unscreened minutes in a rash guard are not going to result in 2nd degree burns.)

I was also like, oh gosh, let me fill the pool up for you and should I add hot water to make it comfortable and here’s a cloth swim diaper.

Now I’m like, take off your clothes (or not) and jump in. I’ll be sitting under the umbrella taking furtive sips of my La Croix-tail.

Evie is much, much tougher than her big brothers were. Let’s just leave it at that.

5. Nighttime exercise.

I’ve been known to walk a mile or two at the gym in the early evenings, watching a steady rotation of House Hunters and strolling in painful but peaceful silence. It’s a nice way to bridge the gap between the witching hour and bedtime, and while I actually feel physically worse for it most mornings, I can’t fathom that it’s actually bad for me to be moving a bit, and I’m fantasizing that it’s keeping the swelling down.

Then again, I am wearing my third trimester ring as I tap this out.

6. Final thought. Tapas. Did you know if you scoop humus and peanut butter onto a plate with vegetable crudités and tortilla chips you can call it dinner? No stoves were turned on in the making of the last 5 meals in this house, and no one’s the wiser.

And if anyone complains, may I direct them to the popsicle drawer. I’m letting that department handle all complaints and personnel issues for the next 5 weeks.

Family Life, guest post, motherhood, Suffering, toddlers

Don’t listen to the signs: sometimes it’s hard, and that’s ok

June 10, 2015

Yesterday I came across a piece written by the lovely, talented, and endlessly fascinating Cari Donaldson, the wit and the voice behind the popular “Clan Donaldson” blog, and as I wiped tears from my bleary, sleep-deprived eyes, I knew I wanted to share it with you guys. Cari, who is raising a clan of a half-dozen beautiful New Englanders in an honest-to-goodness farmhouse which she and her husband Ken recently acquired in a story worth a mention all it’s own, is funny, gracious, and just edgy enough to be my future momself’s muse. I hope you find her equally enchanting.

Dear Moms of littles. Let me ask you something. When you see signs like this:

do you feel comforted? Do you feel uplifted? Or do you feel like I do when I see them? Namely:

irritated
panicky
anxious
guilt-ridden
resentful
angry
consumed with the sudden urge to set things on fire

I’m not the only one who has that response to those sort of tone deaf platitudes am I?

Because here’s the thing- as a mom, particularly a mom to little ones, you’re already familiar with the guilt and the panic and the anxiety. You already have the awful realization that the days, no matter how long they seem in the moment, really do slip by at breathtaking speed. And so you run as fast as you can just to stand still, and it never feels like enough. You go to bed at night with the lurking suspicion that there was another story you could have squeezed in, another craft you could have planned, another biting of the tongue to hold back impatient words, and on and on and on.

As the mother of littles, you probably already feel like you’ve messed up a million things- having some sanctimonious sign remind you of it under the guise of “life lessons” is unbearable.

When I had four children, ages 6 and under, I remember running across one of those signs. It crushed me. It was almost like I actually became a camel and that sign was the straw what broke my back. I was at my best friend’s dining room table, slumped over, back broken, convinced of my inadequacy as a mother.

You know what Kim did?

Well, first, let me back up. You know what she didn’t do?

She didn’t tell me to go stare at my kids sleeping. She didn’t tell me to be grateful for the handprints on the window. She didn’t remind me that these days fly by at light speed, and before I know it, my kids will be grown and all the mistakes I make on the daily will be solidified forever in their psyche.

Instead she looked me dead in the eye and said, “It sucks. This season of life sucks. You have no big kids to help you out, and you’re the only person who can meet their needs. Every. Single. Need. It is exhausting. It is ok to feel exhausted and it’s ok not to like it.”

Just hearing that made me feel better. After all, this was a woman who had, at the time, 10 kids. She seemed unflappable. Unstoppable. The kind of woman who had her stuff together and probably remembered to watch every little angel of hers every time they slept and joyfully accepted every mess as a gift from her blessings. So to hear someone like that tell me that what I was going through was hard and that it was ok to not want to savor it was like a lifeline.

Then she said, “It’ll get better. One day, they’ll be bigger and you can go to the store by yourself and take a shower without the house burning down. It will still be hard, but it will be a different kind of hard. One that gives you a little personal space.”

And it’s true. I want to tell you moms drowning in the trenches of baby- and toddlerhood that it’s true. There is so much wonder and joy in those years, absolutely! but it is also overwhelmingly stressful to have to meet every single need of this tiny little person- all the time. Diapers, baths, drinks of water, cleaning, cooking, entertainment, education, heath care, spiritual formation, the list is infinite and it leaves very little breathing room. So please, please don’t ever let some string of words make you feel like you’re failing because you aren’t reveling in this at every moment of your life. If you don’t peek in on them sleeping, you are not a failure as a mother. If you find yourself wishing that they were a little older- at least old enough to find their own shoes- that is ok.

The biggest thing to remember is that our children are our children forever. Like another wise mom friend of mine said, “There will never be a time that they are not our children so we are not racing toward the end. This roughness at the start is just the beginning. It’s jut the tip tip tip tip of the iceburg! So go ahead and wish away the hard parts. Because the hard parts suck. And no, they are not forever. THANK GOD.”

Please, mom of littles, do not look at signs like that one up there and let them make you anxious. If by chance you’re the type who can read those signs and respond with gratitude for the reminder to slow down, then by all means, keep at it, Mama. But if you’re like I was six years ago, and certain that you’re already ruining your kids, then mentally burn that sign down. You’re going through a crazy, stressful time of life. And while I know you wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world, it’s ok to wish the poop and the sippy cups and the non-verbal stage of human development were behind you. It’s ok to put your kids to bed with a sense of relief that it’s finally quiet and I’m 100% certain no child ever suffered because his mother didn’t stare adoringly at him every night he slept.

Sincerely,

A mother of older kids who got to spend three hours outside today, spreading mulch while the kids occupied themselves. One of them even made breakfast! Two of them did the dishes! Zero of them were observed while sleeping last night. You’ll get there, too, Mom of Littles, and it will be glorious.

Catholic Spirituality, motherhood, Suffering, toddlers

Sometimes it looks like this

February 24, 2015

Today was one of the best days we’ve had at home in a while, for me and the kids. The long-awaited pajama day at preschool was trumped by a snow day, and all three little people spiked fevers sometime after breakfast. No fewer than 7 (seven. SE-VEN) hours of cartoons were consumed by a certain someone with a 103 temperature and an abiding love for the Octonauts, and I was only dressed in real clothes for about an hour, during a brief foray to the doctor’s office and the grocery store.

And it was, truly, one of the best days in recent memory.

I didn’t yell, I didn’t cry, and I didn’t stress over what I was or wasn’t getting done. The kids were so needy, and I, for once, was so acutely aware of their littleness and their neediness that I just threw up my hands and settled onto the floor in my yoga pants to soothe, cuddle, and read aloud.

Sure, a few loads of laundry got washed, but nothing notable was checked off my endless to-do list. For once I could clearly see their needs, and somehow, there was the grace to meet them.

I wonder if it’s always there?

I suspect it is.

I read a piece on a better blog than this one a while back, and one bit of wisdom in particular stuck with me: when your kids are sick, stop what you’re doing and take care of them. Don’t ask me why that’s rocket science to me (seriously, please don’t), but it hit me right in the gut.

I do so much in spite of my kids, stepping around them and over them and looking past them – or at least looking past whatever trying developmental stage we might be stagnating in currently – that I’ve lost countless opportunities to train flabby mommy muscles and hone parental prowess by meeting reality head on. I grit my teeth and get through it, whatever “it” happens to be: pink eye, potty training disasters, sleeplessness, etc.

And I drag them with me.

Today felt different, though. Today, maybe because it’s Lent, or because I prayed first thing like I always should but never actually do, or because school was cancelled and my agenda was derailed, I just met them where they needed me, extending my arms and letting them climb all over my slowly shrinking lap and reading Little House on the Prairie until my voice got scratchy. (And yes, hours and hours of Netflix, too.)

I didn’t try to escape it, not in the virtual sense or the literal sense. I didn’t load them up and force the planned Costco run. And, miracle of miracles, I didn’t send a single electronic smoke signal to my homebound husband on the evening commute. I just accepted the day as it unfolded, and for once I played the role of competent, caring adult for a solid 10 hours.

Maybe I’m not giving myself enough credit, but it certainly didn’t feel very familiar. I think I spend more time than is polite to admit attempting to escape from this particular season in life, whether it be through exercise or constant, low-grade panic-cleaning or the endless busyness of saying yes to yet another little project or another small commitment, giving away little pieces of myself bit by bit until there’s nothing but scraps left for the children.

For my children.

This isn’t some kind of self castigating tell all about the terrible state of my motherhood. I’m not a bad mom, and I know that. But I am a highly distracted mom, most of the time. And an overworked mom, exhausted by my own free will more often than not.

My choices and my standards are what keep me there, though. It’s not really the kids, most of the time. It’s me. My expectations, my plans, my agenda…and my failure to put first things first, vocationally speaking.

I’m not saying mom shouldn’t make it to the gym every other night. God knows I need that precious time on the Stairmaster with HGTV blasting through my earbuds. And there’s nothing wrong with keeping a clean, clutter-free house that brings peace and life to your family. But there is something wrong, something out of place, when the kids and the marriage and the vocation you chose, of your own free will, become not the means to your sanctification but the burden that tugs at the edges of your sanity.

I am there too often, and I can see where a long string of days and months and years in such a place could lead.

Thank God, then, for little graces wrapped in feverish bunches of damp pajama bottoms and snot-streaked faces. For the bloodless surrender to a day spent reading stories and filling juice cups and vacuuming around clumps of kleenex. He knew just what I needed today – what we all needed.

For mommy to be around, in the fullest sense.

Catholic Spirituality, motherhood, toddlers

How ‘A Mother’s Rule of Life’ is changing mine

November 13, 2014

I’ve been getting up before the kids do for the last week or so. And it is good. So, so good.

It all started back in late October when, in a blinded rage, I sat straight up in bed in the predawn light, my sheets dripping with the secretions of multiple preschoolers, and ordered our bedroom intruders out, out OUT.

No more could they come busting through our doorway at 6:40 am, 6:24 am, and finally (damn you, daylight savings) 5:45 am, yelling out breakfast orders and flinging themselves bodily upon our defenseless sleeping forms, bulging Pull Ups oozing overnight urine from regrettable 8pm sippy cup refills.

No more.

Marching the offenders back to their room, I pulled the door shut and slid to a sitting position in the hallway as the prisoners rained punches and kicks down upon it. Their shrieking protests soon woke the baby in the adjoining room, and so at 6:04 am, all three progeny were roused and ready to wreak havoc on the day, and I was ready to give up before sun up.

It feels crazy to write this, but this is basically how the last 4 years of life have been, give or take a few children.

And I didn’t know I could change anything about that.

It’s stupid, but it was a stupidity born of inexperience and, I think, a lack of discipline on my part. Both in dealing with the kids and, maybe more importantly, in structuring and scheduling my day.

But I honestly didn’t know how to fix that.

Every single day I fell onto the couch or our bed after the bedtime antics finally wound down, exhausted to the core of my introverted soul and craving alone time, decompression, and distraction. And soon enough 11:35 pm would roll around and I’d still be up. And from that point on it was just an anxiety-riddled countdown until the first kid woke me for the day, only to repeat the cycle again. And again.

I needed more sleep, and I needed more structured, scheduled time in my day to recharge before I found myself drained and dead to the world.

Enter A Mother’s Rule of Life.

I know it’s cliche to say a self help book changed your life, but I’m going to say it, nonetheless. It could be a matter of timing and circumstance, but this book got me, and it got me good. I’m about to flip back to page one and start re-reading it from cover to cover, because I need it all to sink way, way in. But it’s already starting to effect positive, tangible changes into my life and my motherhood. And in case any of you out there are drowning the way I was, I wanted to highlight some of the best takeaways I’ve gleaned from my first reading:

1. Order your day to reflect your priorities in life. So it should really look something like this: prayer, care for self, care for spouse and children, care for home and work, and finally, leisure.

My days formerly looked something like this: screaming/shower maybe? probably not/sweeping/frantic scrubbing/yelling/drive somewhere – probably Target/trip to park/zone out on internet/write/work/make dinner/yelling/snuggling/fighting/bedtime/tears/wine/internet/bed. And maybe a rosary somewhere.

2. Make a schedule. A schedule is not restrictive, it is liberating.

Liberating because you are now free to walk past that full dishwasher and that pile of stuff on the floor because you have scheduled time to address those specific areas of concern, freeing you to hit the gym, the classroom, or your knees for whatever task is presently at hand.

I have resisted a schedule my entire life because I loathe the idea of being trapped in a routine. What I had somehow failed to realize all along was that a routine of my own creation was immensely freeing – it was completely mine to design. I’m having fewer and fewer moments of that panicky feeling when you think you should be doing w, x,y, or z and end up doing NONE OF THE ABOVE because you can’t do them all at once, and you have no sense of the urgency of any of them because EVERYTHING FEELS URGENT. And so the opportunity slips away, unrealized.

3. You, as mother, are the CEO, the COO, and the CFO. So you’d better act like it.

And you’d better be spending good chunks of time with your advisory board (the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) during the workday, because things do not go well otherwise.

I was fitting prayer into my life rather than the other way around, and wouldn’t you know it, it was usually the one thing I could somehow never find time for. Funny how that works…

Now rather than rattling off a 3 minute Divine Mercy Chaplet on the treadmill when I remembered to, I’m spending the first part of my day with Scripture and some spiritual reading (and some coffee) before the kids are even allowed out of their rooms. And it is so life giving. I can say that even now, after only one week. It is giving me new life.

4. You’re the boss. Nobody else is going to boss these kids for you. So you’d better learn how to do it.

I’m a little unclear on the origin of this particular heresy, but I somehow got it into my head that somebody was going to come and whip these small hellions into shape for me at some point along the journey of motherhood. I keep looking around and waiting, but so far nobody has come knocking offering solid advice on character formation, training in virtue, and schooling in laundry-folding. So, ahem, I guess that leaves…well, me.

Me. I’m the one. I have to figure out what it is that will get through to each of these small creatures, and then to approach them with my message of peace, love, and unwavering obedience. Because if I do not have the latter from them, our household cannot dwell in the former.

Now, I’m not claiming to have had any big breakthroughs in behavior here, except that we’ve been trying mightily to do the thing where we say what we mean and mean what we say…and then follow up on it. Every time.

Do you know how exhausting it is to follow up with preschoolers and toddlers? All I can say is, I hope it pays off. I’ve heard it does. I’m taking it on faith at this point, and so far, all I can show for it is the hopeful trend that for 5 straight days, the man cubs have stayed in their room until their alarm clock went off at 7 am, at which point the 7 on the clock matched the giant 7 drawn on the poster on their wall.

I really cannot say enough good things about this book, and about the effect that not living every day with my hair on fire (if wet hair, unstyled hair could catch fire) and feeling singularly persecuted by my delightful children has had on me. And on us.

Anyone else have experiences like this with A Mother’s Rule? Or another life-changing read or piece of advice?

Now I’ve got to run, because laundry and bathroom scrubbing are actually next up on my schedule. But don’t worry, the day ends with some quality wine time on the couch penciled in. Win/wine situation.

motherhood, Parenting, toddlers

New Baby, New Mom

July 2, 2014

(Not a pregnancy announcement. I don’t know why I feel such a need to issue that disclaimer, aside from the small voice in my head screaming “stop traumatizing people who are considering NFP.” Which, by the way, works, and by that I mean it makes you aware of your fertility as a couple, causes you to have serious conversations with your spouse regularly, along the lines of are we ready for another baby? Have you slept in the last 3 weeks and can I gingerly stroke your arm? And my personal favorite Are you sure you should have that third margarita, darling, since we’re seeking to avoid?) all while in no way minimizing the enormous responsibility and gift of being co-creative with the Creator. End disclaimer.)

Whew. Exhaustive PSA aside, as I was sipping a piping hot espresso shoving scrambled eggs into my 6-month-old’s mouth this morning whilst she perched on my lap at breakfast, I got to thinking. I thought to myself, self, you don’t really mother this third born the way you mothered your first.

And thank God for that, amiright?

I have thee most vivid memory of leaping across my parent’s kitchen table and slapping a spoonful of Death by Chocolate trifle out of my mother’s hand as she hovered dangerously near Sir Joseph’s tiny, 9-month-old lips. MOTHER! I screamed, WHAT IF HE HAS A TREE NUT ALLERGY?! THERE ARE WALNUTS IN THAT!!!!!

And not to minimize the real and horrifying dangers of life-threatening allergies in the slightest, neither my family nor Dave’s has any history of food allergies, the likeliness that my baby was going to swell up and immediately stop breathing were relatively slim. Still, I quite literally slapped my mother’s hand away as if she were spooning rat poison into his mouth, leaving her a little stunned but primarily amused (I presume, mother) because she, the mother of 7 healthy children, had no apparent business trying to sneak her grandson a bite of chocolate deliciousness.

Fast forward nearly 4 years and I’m the one exposing my precious to highly-allergic table foods well before the 12 month safety threshold, because I think I read somewhere that the sooner the better in terms of preventing some food allergies, and also because I’m sitting at the breakfast table in my pajamas, coffee in one hand and laptop opened nearby and I’m giving instructions to the 3 year old about proper table etiquette and somebody pooped and the baby would like some food and okay, here you go, open wide sweetheart!

I was chatting with a friend yesterday about how differently we mother our third born children, and how much we wish we could go back and tell our freshly-minted momselves: it’s going to be okay. This is going to get so much easier. and most especially: you’re going to be a totally different mom in just a few short years.

We each of us have in our possession a third baby who sleeps and eats like a dream. Never fussy for no reason, never protesting naps or bedtimes, happy just to be included in the day-to-day of busy family life.

I wondered aloud whether we’d both been blessed with supernaturally calm children for our third go-round, as kind of a cosmic consolation for our, ahem, spirited first-borns and HIIIIIIGH needs second borns, and then I wondered if maybe it was we who had calmed down.

I’ve been doing this professionally for close to 5 years now, counting pregnancy, and while I’m by no means an expert in my field, I have learned a thing or two about what constitutes grounds for freaking the freak out and what is simply another speed bump on the long and winding road of parenthood. So while my kids are regularly presenting me with new and challenging scenarios, especially the highly mobile pair, I’m a little less prone to panicky google sessions and frantic phone calls to my husband about a weird rash, a strangely pitched cry or an afternoon of nap-strking organized by the local (and highly entitled) toddler union.

These days I’m more likely to shrug my metaphorical shoulders, load ‘erybody up in the mini and drive aimlessly to a neutral location to attempt to reset everybody’s moods and salvage the remains of the day. Super Target anyone? Or just a new-to-us park where the novelty might defuse the rivalry running rampant in my ranks that afternoon.

So new moms? Take heart. You’re going to get better at this. And things that struck you as horrifying and overwhelming and devastating? They’ll still be there. And while there will always be x-factors of an unknown varietal, particularly with your oldest guinea pig, you will so get a handle on this baby thing. If anything you’ll become stupidly confident in your ability to make more babies, and thereby find yourself perpetually behind the procreative eight ball and honestly, the stuff of life and living will wear you down and wear you out and make you more yourself, purified by the experiences and the hardships and the heartaches and yes, the good stuff too.

And one day you’ll find yourself absentmindedly rubbing anti-aging moisturizing cream onto somebody’s diaper rash and the only thing that will stop and give you pause will be the price tag of what you’re slathering on the baby bottom at hand, and not whether it’s organic or hypoallergenic or tested for use on infants under the age of 2. And then you’ll shrug and keep rubbing it in, mentally high-fiving yourself for remembering to put anything at all on that poor little butt.

Babies don’t really get any easier the more you have. It’s you who grows in confidence, experience, and, frankly, indifference to what you formerly perceived as ALL THE THINGS that mattered so very much when offspring were just a hazy concept and your expanding waistline was all you had to show for your parenting experience.

So, to all my inquisitive fellow grocery getters, imma let you in on a little secret: Yes, I do in fact have my hands full. But let me assure you, when there was only one in the cart, he was perched in an organic bamboo-cotton card cover pulled from the massive depths of my plastic-coated diaper bag, retrieved and installed only after a healthy slathering of anti-bacterial hand sanitizer had been applied to every square inch of cart surface. I also had a baby carrier stuffed in there, lest he become dissatisfied and prefer to ride upon my bosom for the duration of our stressful foray into the store.

My hands were just as full when my car held only one car seat. It’s my heart and my brain that have enlarged now, and there’s more room for error, more room for fun, and more room for patience to manage the additional children you see.

Catholic Spirituality, motherhood, Suffering, toddlers

The Distressing Disguise of the Toddler

June 16, 2014

We’ve been trying to incorporate more daily prayer into our little household, and with toddlers underfoot and a hungry baby calling the mealtimes, it isn’t the most prayerful environment. Honestly, it’s the antithesis of what I picture as a prayerful environment. But, work with what you’ve got, right?

Last night found me on wakeup duty at 11 pm, 11:45 pm, and then midnight. All the same child, and all requests of a similar vein: “I’m thirsty, I’m hungry, I just can’t sleeps.” This particular child, my sweet eldest son, is my most challenging; he is the most like me in temperament, and he may be more intelligent than I am. He challenges my authority daily, and he is constantly practicing his litigation skills during nap and meal times. We’re two of a kind, and there is nothing quite like looking into the mirror of your child and seeing some of your own deepest struggles reflected back at you.

As I hoisted him up on the kitchen counter last night, perhaps a tad too forcefully, I shot a resentful glance at the digital display on the stove: 12:04 am.

Doesn’t this kid know how hard I’ve been working all day? Don’t I deserve some peace and quiet between 7 pm and 7 am? Why can’t he just wait until breakfast for his next calorie download?

I looked at his small, tear-streaked face while I peeled his banana in the dimly-lit kitchen. Suddenly seized by an affectionate impulse, I bent down and kissed each of his little bare feet, dangling limply off the counter top. Hadn’t I just read a quote from Bl. Mother Teresa earlier today on somebody’s blog? Something about seeing Christ in the distressing disguise of the poor?

Well here was my street urchin. Here was my Calcutta. Standing in our kitchen at midnight, resignedly peeling fruit for a child who is allergic to sleep and knows no end of testing my patience. He was not an interruption, I suddenly realized, but an opportunity to show greater love. Love that cost me something, love that must be wrenched from my selfish heart and offered with straining muscles and forced smiles and a bone-weary soul.

Here in first-world America, surrounded by luxury and convenience and shielded from almost all physical suffering, it was the closest approximation to the radical, self-giving love preached by the saint of the streets that I could make. Take my looks, take my free time, and take my pants size…but when you take my sleep, that’s when my real Calvary begins.

I tried to see him as a little image of Christ, this naughty son of mine, and even while I felt a tad dramatic embracing and kissing his dirty little boy feet, I felt intensely that this moment was an opportunity of grace custom made for me. He needed a drink and a midnight snack, but not as much as his mother needed a chance to flex her flabby muscles of self-denial.

It’s all very well and good to pray with your children when’s it’s convenient. It’s essential, actually. Earlier in the day I’d felt quite satisfied after praying 3 decades of a ‘cheerio rosary’ with this same child, interiorly patting myself on the back as we counted out 10 Hail Mary ‘o’s’ and some raisin Our Father’s which he painstakingly tracked and consumed as we worked our way through the mysteries.

Parenting, I’ve got this! I thought to myself, feeling the warm glow of accomplishment. And it was an accomplishment, getting my child involved and engaged in formal prayer. But it cost me very little.

There are opportunities for both kinds of grace every day in this vocation: moments that are easy and natural and flow out of the steady rhythm of a happy home, and moments that feel enormous when they occur, demanding sacrifice and seemingly-heroic patience.

I just pray I get better at recognizing the latter, never content to remain only in the former. I don’t want to be a surface level Christian with my children. Happily for me, they don’t seem content to let me remain there for long.

(hosted at Catholic Exchange.)

About Me, breastfeeding, motherhood, toddlers

A Day in the Life

April 9, 2014

In the spirit of preserving memories for future generations and because people seem to dig these kinds of posts, I figured I’d give it a go…

(*disclaimer: this may have been the very worst day of my entire motherhood to chronicle, but journalistic integrity compels me onward.)

Let us begin…

7:09 am: someone is snorting and tugging on my shirt. I open my eyes and blink at Evie, lying in a sweaty little bundle under my arm. Oops. I don’t really remember pulling her into bed with me, but I suppose it happened at some point in the night. Oblige her by nursing until she falls back asleep.

7:19 am: roll carefully out of bed and watch as Evie stretches out like a teenager, flopping her arms over her head and trying her best to take as much bed space up as possible. Blow gently on her floppy black hair and laugh before creeping out of the room to find…

7:20 am: COFFEE. My amazing husband has an espresso waiting for me on the counter and has already fed both boys. Bless him. I could never breastfeed without the tag team system we have in place, whereby I handle the nighttime parenting and he takes the 6 am – 8 am shift. If I know I have at least an hour of two of uninterrupted sleep coming my way at dawn, I can handle almost any nocturnal shenanigans. Which reminds me…

7:26 am: peek into boys’ room. Whew, no fresh vom. Joey’s 6 hour stomach flu seems to have run its course, and the dorm smells only faintly of puke and Dawn dish soap. Crack the window open to let in the spring air and flee the scene.

7:31 am: sit down with my egg and Arbonne protein shake. Hear my phone ringing from the other room and run to see a missed call from my little sister. Dang, it’s my day for preschool carpool. Slam the shake down and run to pull on actual pants, and a shirt that is not black. I have maybe 3 shirts that are not black, so this is a sign of real effort in living.

7:45 am: breakfast is done and I really should leave, but Evie is ‘wolfishly hungry’ says Daddy. Dave is going in late this morning because he has a lecture series to emcee this evening, so he agrees to watch Evie and JP while I run Joey and his cousin to school. I nurse Evie for 5 minutes to abate her hunger and scan Facebook for morning news.

7:56 am: oops. We’re late. I ~~toss~~ gently place Evie in her Rock n’ Play and shout a hasty goodbye to Dave before bundling Joey into the van. He’s wearing a retro thrifted Superman t, a Fargo-style fur-lined winter hat with ear flaps, a puffer vest, and his little brother’s gray cargo pants. He is a legend in his own mind. After a quick blessing from Daddy, he’s in the van and ready to roll.

8:01 am: a minor accident has traffic backed up. Joey is delighted by a firetruck and ambulance parade and reminds me to pray, so we say a quick Hail Mary and inspect the bumper damage as we creep by. He knows about a third of the words to the prayer now…Catholic school FTW!

8:11 am: roll up to my sister’s house and grab a nephew. We’re gonna be so late…

8:19 am: arrive at school, running to the preschool entrance to beat the timed lock that automatically seals at 8:20 (I think? I’ve never been late enough to actually miss it). Hustle the boys into their classroom, check their mailboxes, make awkward small talk with their teachers and run back to the parking lot. Remember that for once I didn’t do a guilty leave-behind of any other offspring in the van and relish the temporary silence of having no additional cargo for the 17 minute drive home. Mentally recommit to Dave Ramsey’s principles as I look longingly at the beautiful houses in the neighborhood surrounding our parish. Resolve to never eat out again or buy any clothing so that we can buy a house sometime before 2019.

8:39 am: Home again. Take a hungry Evie from Dave as he is one-handedly finishing the breakfast dishes. I. Married. Up. Sit down to nurse and read a couple morning blogs.

8:46 am: Dave is asking me if checks and pinstripes can work together. Nope.

8:58 am: Finish an impromptu dusting session of the main floor. Look regretfully at my 2-week-old white cami that I’m using as a dustrag before throwing it down the basement steps to the laundry. Curse our ‘new’ old top-loading washer that has so far shredded the spaghetti straps on five camis and an embarrassing number of other unmentionables with stringy parts. Try to remember to buy one of those stupid mesh bags to wash delicate laundry in.

9:00 am: strip protective plastic trash bag off of Joey’s pillow (under the case; no suffocating allowed in this house) and decide to run through all the bedrooms and bathrooms dumping the small trash cans into it. Arrive at the front door with an entire trashbag full of dirty diapers and thank God mentally for modern conveniences and the good sense to have given away my entire stash of cloth diapers before we moved to Rome. Never again, landfills be damned.

9:01 am: Dave is ready to go and we pray a quick morning offering with John Paul sandwiched between our legs shrieking about ‘his monies!’ Dave takes the trash bag from my hands and heads off to work and I see that our cans already lining the curb. I have the best husband.

9:06 am: scrub the kids’ bathroom down with a pair of diaper wipes. Wonder if my toilet will be any less disgusting when my boys are teenagers. Decide the answer is probably not one I want to know.

9:10 am: sit down to start writing this lovely thing. JP is still screaming for ‘monies,’ so I dig 33 cents out of a dish on my dresser and line the coffee table with change for him to count. He squeals with delight and finds an old Trader Joe’s bag to use as his ‘purse.’ I try not to be too disturbed.

9:40 am: look up and see John Paul lying in the Rock n Play, cackling to himself and counting his monies still. I’m a little embarrassed that all I’ve been doing for the past 30 minutes is recalling my day thus far, but not embarrassed enough to stop.

9:43 am: time to switch gears and start looking at headlines for Heroic News. Look at my open tabs from last night and count at least 3 bizarre headlines that apparently caught my attention before bed: “Jesus didn’t care about being nice or tolerant and neither should you,” “NH Teacher fired for friending students on Facebook” and “How to spot a psychopath.” Decide that I probably am one, and get to work.

9:50 am: JP alerts me that “Evie doll is cwyin, mama” Find a somewhat unhappy baby in her swing and get a whiff of JP’s 3rd diaper bomb this morning. Carry both offenders into the boys room and set Evie down on Joey’s bed (mattress on the floor) for some dreaded tummy time while I address JP’s nasty. Mentally vow to find and kill whoever keeps feeding him raisins. Wonder if it was me.

9:56 am: nurse again. Reflect in gratitude for Evie’s stellar nursing abilities and my own gift of being able to type while she eats. Lovingly stare into the screen of my MacBook Air and rejoice in its small lightweightness.

9:57 am: JP is trying to put a pull-up on his stuffed monkey and is laughing hysterically. Wonder if it’s time to think about potty training him, as Dave insists. Mentally slap myself across the face for even thinking this thought. Think about going to the library and/or Target before preschool pickup. Ask JP if he wants help outfitting his monkey. Help him.

10:01 am: He decides monkey would prefer a diaper.

10:02 am: Evie is no longer pleased with my multi-tasking. Shut computer.

10:20 am: Target it is.

11:16 am: Ooops, Old Navy was closer. $89 later and many spring colors later, I’m now late for preschool pickup, but I no longer look like a haggard recovering meth addict in a facility issued head-to-toe stretchy black uniform.

(School pickup, Lunch, nursing, phone calls, texts answered, bathroom trip with creepy 2-year-old observer in tow.)

1:24 pm: Ahhh, naptime/quiet time. Joey has been fighting this relentlessly since around Christmastime, but now that it’s warming up he has relented to lie on a Superman sheet in the backyard with a stack of library books and a handful of roly-polies. I harvested the roly-polies for him. Vom.

1:25 pm: the remains of JP’s quesadilla is hardening on a paper plate (survival mode 4ever.) I’m only semi-drawn to it, so this new eating plan must be working.

1:27 pm: they’re all quiet at the same time. Evie in her swing and the boys in their respective nap zones. The second best part of my day has now begun.

1:28 pm: Joey is back. He needs a paper bag and a handful of sticks to have quiet time with. He asks me if I’d like to join him. I stare at him, wondering why God thought it would be funny to make my firstborn an extrovert.

1:30 pm: I settle down to write and check some emails. I see one from my editor at Catholic Exchange and I start thinking up ideas for another piece later this week. I never plan posts ahead of time, and I hardly ever write down ideas that come to me, but maybe I should. At this point what I write is 90% spontaneous, though I do have occasional insights in the shower.

1:31 pm: I haven’t showered today…

1:37 pm: And I’m not going to. Joey is back and he is “all done with his quiet time.” I break his heart by telling him he is mistaken. I wonder if i should start planning dinner, and then I remember the chicken sausages I put on the counter to defrost this morning. I move them to the fridge and, remembering that Dave has a work dinner, consider making salads for dinner for a second night in a row. Joey must have taken me seriously, because he wandered back outside with a sippy cup filled with Pellegrino. I absentmindedly finish the rest of the bottle.

1:44 pm: Retire to my room to hide from Joey for the remainder of ‘quiet time.’ A friend texted us an invite to come play afternaptime, and I consider waking JP up early just to get us all out of the house. Evie is crying to nurse from her swing. Flop onto the bed to nurse her while browsing for news stories with my free hand. Update the site with breaking news. I love having a baby who loves to nurse lying down.

1:59 pm: I got distracted by the internet. I look up from my reading to see Joey sitting in my doorway with his stuffed animals in his arms. He looks at me guiltily and then sits down on the hall floor and starts reading the atlas. Whatever.

2:03 pm: I can’t imagine anybody is still reading at this point. I can’t believe how many times each day I am interrupted. Start streaming the new Ingrid Michaelson album (free on iTunes for a week!) and Joey crawls up into my bed and announces “I just want to beeee with you.” I send him to wash his ropy poly hands before letting him crawl up next to me. He covers my the back of my arm with kisses and snuggles into our bed. Now I’m a mommy sandwich.

2:30 pm: naps are a bust. Wake a sleepy John Paul and toss all 3 kids in the car for a trip to a friend’s house and some magical Vitamin D time in her stay cation of a backyard. Pick up a nephew on the way because YOLO, and my sister has to take somebody else to the doctor.

4:05 pm: Why do I bring them anywhere? Oh yes, socialization…

4:43 pm: cooking dinner. Way too early. Trader Joe’s chicken sausages on the barbecue with asparagus and baked potatoes.

4:50 pm: everybody is yelling for something, but I’m happily sweeping through the house and flinging dirty laundry/errant toys/random books down the basement stairs. All our toys and books now live in the basement, and my favorite part of the day is pitching things down the stairwell one by one. Clean house = happy mommy.

4:52 pm: dinner is served.

4:59 pm: dinner is over. Dammit, I’ve overplayed my hand. I run a bath for the boys and they run screaming towards the bathroom, shedding clothes as they go. The floor is littered with asparagus, but I did make them ‘mop’ the spilled milk under the table.

5:15-5:46: books are read, diapers are applied, teeth are brushed, and then I sort of lie there on Joey’s bed, letting them both jump on me while they yell “fight fight fight!” and proclaim it wrestling time. Wish for the hundredth time today that Dave was home for bedtime.

5:50: prayers. A quick, incoherent story about some pigeons, a penguin, Lightening McQueen and Mater flying to Rome for JPII’s canonization. Lots of random words in Italian. Ends with a trip to Old Bridge for gelato. Joey is satisfied. Hit the lights and head to my room to nurse Evie.

5:58: brag on Facebook about having put my kids to bed 2 hours before sunset. Hear banging and shouting from the back bedroom,

6:35 pm: Both boys are watching a double episode of Curious George on a laptop propped on their dresser. Eating granola bars. I’m a sucker.

6:40 pm: fine, one more episode. Evie is asleep in her swing, so I unload and load the dishwasher and spray down the counters and table. Check for new headlines and get briefly immersed in a stupid post on Facebook. Wonder why I came crawling back to my social media habit for the umpteenth time.

6:46 pm: because the internet.

6:50 pm: bedtime for real this time. Good night, sleep tight.

7:00 pm – 8:00 pm: Sit at computer. Think about doing a couple waiting loads of laundry.

8:05 pm: is it too late to take a shower? Evie wakes up and wants to nurse. I don’t feel so hot…

8:25 pm: oh, the stomach flu. Now it’s my turn. Spend the rest of the night in a prone position on the bathroom floor, returning occasionally to bed to lie there moaning. Please, God, don’t let the baby get this.

11:54 pm: PLEASE GOD don’t let the baby get this. Dave offers her a bottle and she refuses. Violently. I attempt nursing in between bouts of vomiting. Joey wakes up screaming that he’s hungry and Dave goes to comfort him.

Maaaaaybe this was not the greatest day to chronicle…but it’s certainly not one I’ll forget.

motherhood, toddlers

7 Quick Takes: Boys, endless eating, detoxing, a baby swing, and dystopian teen lit

March 28, 2014

What? Too many and varied topics in one meager quick takes header? Yeah, maybe. . .

1. But I stayed out till 10 o’clock feasting my eyes on the visually assaulting and sensory-overlaoding ‘Divergent,’ and found myself shoveling salty, unbuttered popcorn into my mouth in a mindless cycle of dig/grab/stuff while the screen exploded in violent, rapid-firing images in front of me. The movie was good, and pretty faithful to the book, but my sister and I both experienced the odd phenomenon of ‘dystopian drift,’ for lack of a better explanation, where every end-timesy novel we’d read in the past couple years melded together in our brains, rendering the storyline of the film both surprising and kind of confusing.

At several points I was really concerned with where Katniss was hiding in all the wreckage of the bombed-out Chicago skyline, and I also couldn’t quiet the nagging fear that this was all supposed to be taking place in the Pacific Northwest, and that nobody was supposed to be touching anyone else.

Moral of the story: I probably need to dabble in other literary genres. But Divergent was good! Go see it.

2. My boys are skinny and on the short side, but they eat like ravenous animals. Joey in particular is like, 32 lbs and the shortest (well, and youngest with a September b-day) in his class but he begs food like an angry line backer on a Sunday afternoon. I can’t remember where I read this concept, but I allow them free access to ‘cranky cheese’ in a drawer in the fridge – either Baby Bells or string cheeses – in the hopes that their blood sugar levels will stay relatively stable between meals. They don’t. And, they beg for food and milk all day long, and on the days where I wearily acquiesce, they proceed to boycott their dinners, screaming about how unappetizing everything is.

Then, for his piece de resistance, Joey cries hunger at bedtime. Every night. And begs for food because ‘his tummy hurts all around’ and he is ‘really, really hungry.’ And because I’m a sucker, and because how can a mother refuse to feed her skinny child, I give him milk. Or a mouthful of peanut butter. Sleep, rinse, repeat.

Any thoughts? He was actually a much better eater when he was gluten-free (and that’s another story for another post). Now he’s a picky, bossy 3.5 year beggar. Who orders ‘cappuccinos’ (a steamed milk, courtesy of our espresso machine) many mornings of the week.

3. Speaking of raising male wolves, any suggestions on how to pry them off my ankles for large portions of the day? I read this fascinating piece in the Atlantic earlier this week, and then Michelle’s wonderful post on being a Little House on the Prairie Mom, but I can’t seem to convince them to leave me alone. Unless I’m trying to get them into the car and then, you know.

By the by, our backyard looks eerily like the ‘adventure playground’ featured in the Atlantic article. Complete with abandoned plastic bottles, piles of dangerous looking wood, and perhaps the occasional nail. So man up, boys!

4. Screen time. I had a great conversation with an acquaintance at an Annunciation party this week (envious of our social life?) about how she cut her two boys off from screens, cold turkey, and they turned into amazing readers and creative little souls almost overnight. Almost. Anyway, we’re on day 3 and it’s kind of killing me, but we’ve had no Curious George nor any Daniel Tiger in our house for 72 hours and counting…we’ll see how long mommy can hold out.

My main motivation for limiting the little monsters’ time in front of the laptop is mainly because Joey acts like a crack fiend when his show is over. Even when he senses the story arc beginning its descent towards denouement, he starts jonesing for his next hit and bargaining with me for ‘just one more, just one more.’ It’s sick. And I’m over it. I may be afforded 20 minutes of quiet for a private shower and blowout, but I pay dearly for it in the form of back talk, whining, fighting, and crying the rest of the afternoon. I hate it. So we’re experimenting with life in 1994. Wish us luck.

5. I had a couple requests for the pesto recipe I mentioned in Wednesday’s post, so here it is, loosely adapted from this one:

-3 cups loosely-packed fresh basil (de-stemmed)
-1/2 cup (ish) fresh parmesan chess
-3-4 tablespoons extra virgin Italian olive oil
-1-2 cloves crushed garlic
-1/2 cup raw almonds
-2 tbs fresh lemon juice
-sea salt and pepper to taste

Dump it all in the food ninja or your food processor of choice and blend away. I have to make it in batches because my ninja is teeny, but eventually the whole batch fits in there. It’s just a process of getting the basil condensed. This stuff is delicious and potent and a little bit goes a long way when tossed with pasta or basted over chicken or spread on sandwiches. It keeps in the fridge for 4 days…at least that’s the longest we’ve ever had it on hand. 🙂 I’ve heard you can spoon it into ice cube trays and freeze it and then pop the cubes out and keep them in a baggie in the freezer. Again, we’ve just never had leftovers…

6. I’m a terrible mother, and I just pushed both birdies from the nest into the backyard so “Mommy could finish her work.” And here I sit, ‘working’ … also, Genevieve has this swing and I love it. And she sleeps in it kind of a lot. And has a flat spot on the back of her head. Am I the worst mother, truly?

7. I’m starting Arbonne’s 30 day detox Monday, (hopefully, if it arrives soon enough. And my bff is a consultant, so I did not pay that price for it.) and I’m really excited to blog it all out for accountability purposes. And because people can never get enough of reading about stupid things other people are doing to lose weight and get healthy, right?

Anyway, after seeing myself on camera (I guest-hosted Heroic Media News this week and I’ll return again next week – the show should be live on EWTN by late April) in the edited footage, I had a ~~mini~~ actual panic attack. And I know I’m only 13 weeks out from Evie’s birth. And and and…it’s still hard as hell to see yourself looking like a complete stranger because of how your body has been ravaged by childbirth. Always hard. Hopefully I’ll see some results aaaaand I’ll have a fun giveaway up on the blog at the end of it.

Now off to Jen’s with you, and a very happy weekend.

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