family life – Page 5 – Mama Needs Coffee

Catholic Spirituality, Culture of Death, Family Life, mental health, Parenting, politics, sin, Suffering

As a parent, you have one job

December 16, 2016

(I mean, aside from the obvious keep them alive/fed/clothed and try your hardest to get them to Heaven part. Does that go without saying?)

I had someone make the following bold statement to me earlier this year, and it rocked me to my core:

your primary job as parents is to provide and secure the peace in your home.

You know who I thought about when I reflected on that statement? I thought about the dad from “Life is Beautiful.” I thought about his heroic, self-sacrificing and odds-defying performance to erect a brave and shining barrier of innocence over his little boy in the midst of unimaginable horror. As the world literally crumbled around him, his father shielded him as best he could not only from physical harm (and over this realm he had very little control, truly) but perhaps even more critically in their circumstances, from emotional harm.

I feel like we modern parents tend to kind of do the opposite. Whether it’s because many of us were ourselves exposed to pain or danger or brokenness in our family of origin, or because we watched so many of our friends go through hell as kids, many of our generation of parents seem to be questing after some vague sense of authenticity or relatability with their own offspring that is going over, frankly, like a lead balloon.

On the one hand I can understand the earnest desire to be open and honest and reliable with our children, but on the other hand, my kids are going to learn soon enough about the heartache, the danger, and the sin in this world, and it actually isn’t my job to sit them down and tutor them in it.

Because the world is a cruel place. Kids get sick and die. They get abused. Their families fall apart and bombs fall on their cities and their friend’s dads leave their friend’s moms, and vice versa.

But they needn’t know every excruciating detail.

In fact, if and to whatever extent we can possibly spare them the details, I believe it is our sacred duty as parents.

Right now bombs are falling on children the same ages as mine in Aleppo. As Christians, we need to fall on our knees and pray for those affected, and give material aid to reputable organizations (highly recommend the Catholic Near East Welfare Society) who can deliver food and medicine and shelter on the ground. But my kids, at ages 1,3,4, and 6, do not need any details about the tragic circumstances in Syria. They should not be watching the bodycounts scroll by on the news, or listen to me listening to NPR within earshot.

It is essential, in fact, that I shield them from the horror of war and human cruelty as much as possible during their formative years.

Our children will absolutely learn that the world is not a perfect place. That people sin. That people hurt each other. That sometimes kids get hurt, too. But it is critical to their development into healthy, functional human beings that we don’t saddle them with that knowledge prematurely.

When my 6 year old asks why we pray for babies in mommies’ tummies to be safe, that does not open the door for a frank conversation about abortion. If he explicitly asks what abortion is (as has happened before), I deflect and say that sometimes babies get hurt, and that not everybody believes that every human being has the same rights. And then I change the topic.

(I take a similar tack with the sexual curiosity stuff, not because sex is bad in any way! But because it’s not developmentally appropriate for him nor is it necessary that he know the nitty gritty.) Allowing our children to ask questions and answering them in a way that is both honest and honoring of their developmental stage and age is a tricky line, and it’s one I’m learning to walk with some trial and error as the months and years roll by.

I had a little friend of my kids’ come to me earlier this month with a tearful story about another family’s deep pain, their disintegrating home life, and the fear this child felt about the whole situation. As I tried my best to toe the line of appropriateness with a child who is not my own, I reassured this little one that this wasn’t their burden to bear, and encouraged them to give the situation over to Jesus as much as possible and to let the grown ups handle grown up stuff. Because kids have their own work to do that is perfectly suited to being a kid.

I have no idea how effective that was, but my heart ached for the burden this child had been asked to carry, inadvertently or not. There were gruesome and salacious details in the story that could have come from a prime time drama, and this little person’s eyes were filled with tears over it.

This is not okay. And whether our kids are getting it from overhearing us having inappropriate adult conversations within earshot, or by watching programing that is explicitly not suitable for children, or even just hearing an earful from one side of a phone conversation when we think they aren’t paying attention, (they are. Ask me how I know.) we have to be so, so mindful of our duty to them.

Their innocences is our business. And maintaining that innocence requires sacrifices on our parts.

I can’t listen to whatever music I like in the car anymore. Do I still love Dave Matthews Band and Adele? Yep. But I don’t need the 4 year old asking me what does it mean to send your love to your new lover, mommy? just because I couldn’t be bothered to switch on KLove or change the CD during carpool pickup.

I can’t watch shows depicting adult themes and filled with violence and horror when they’re awake. (Should I be watching those shows, period? That’s another post for another day.)

I shouldn’t have sensitive, nuanced conversations about world affairs and politics and war and unrest in earshot of my kindergartener, who has the right to experience the world from a disposition of curiosity and wonder. Soon enough he will know of hatred, bigotry, war, and gruesome suffering. My job is to mold his little heart and soul to be receptive to a good God Who alone can heal those division and redeem that pain. And to ensure, to the best of my ability, that he grows to become an honorable man who will do his part to create beauty and goodness in this world. A child who is robbed of a childhood, who does not have the opportunity to encounter beauty and goodness, is unlikely to grow up to be this kind of adult.

We need to be so careful and so conscientious of their environments. To the best of our abilities. What they’re watching, what they’re reading, whom they’re spending time with and what they’re listening to. And, ahem – looking into the mirror – what kinds of things their parents do or say when they’re stressed, angry, overwhelmed or in pain.

I can just as easily make a chink in their armor with a careless word or an exhausted scream of frustration and anger. And then, when it is I myself who have disturbed the peace in our home, I must kneel down at eye level and humbly ask forgiveness from the little one who depends upon me to keep this space sacred, to keep it safe.

Please hear this: This is in no way an attack on parents whose children have been exposed to violence or inadvertent abuse of any kind. We live in a broken world filled with pain, and the smallest victims are the most tragic. Our little family has not been spared from heartache.

But it is our job as mothers and as fathers to help our children to feel as safe and as secure as possible while they are small. The world outside can wait, and time will ensure that it does not, not for long.

We must take up the mantel of adulthood and respect the profound dignity of the child and the sacred charge that we grown ups have to protect them from evil.

Even if the evil is becoming the norm, all around us.

In our homes, at least, let them feel safe, insulated against the harsh elements in our own little Nazareth, growing and learning and developing all they will need to navigate adulthood. Which will come soon enough.

Family Life

3 years with Christmas Evie

December 15, 2016

This girl. She’s my girl. She’s also occasionally my frenemy (hysterical sobs at the slightest correction or stern expression a normal girl thing? Pls advise.) She’s funny and high spirited and smarter than all of us (I think) and she only ever does things on her own timeline, her own way. I thank God daily that she is still in the >5% for height and weight because unless I pick her up and physically carry her somewhere sometimes, SHE IS NOT GOING.

And for that I thank the Lord. That she was given her physique and not, well, Luke’s. For example.

She is proof to me that babies are the kids and adult humans they will one day become from day one. She arrived after three excruciating days of intense prodromal labor, one false alarm trip to the hospital, one baby shower throughout which I labored at times visibly sweating in front of my guests (which is a fun party theme, you should plan one) and then finally, she was here. 10 days before her Christmas due date. For which I am also eternally grateful.

She is sassy, has the most precise elocution and dictation you have ever heard in a toddler (well, now preschooler I guess. Sob.) and knows way more than the average lady baby about all things Star Wars related. Just last night she pointed to a bottle of soap on the grocery store shelf and said “I do like Darth Vader, but I love Elsa,” surprising us both.

It’s funny to watch the more “girly” parts of her bubble to the surface under the dominant tomboy (always have hated that term) exterior. She still lets me dress her in basically whatever I want, which is a dream, so I kit her out like a little college freshman in skinny jeans and pink Sorrel’s from the thrift store with a herringbone pea coat on top and she’s like, ooooookay mom can we get on with it now?

I dread the day she starts resisting my sartorial efforts on her behalf. But I’m also curious about her own style, because she’s so chill about clothes, I wonder if she will care much at all.

Two weeks ago, she unceremoniously ripped off her diaper and handed it to me with a matter of fact “I don’t wear this anymore” before hopping up onto the looooooooooong contested potty seat and performing her duties as if it were an old, tired schtick. She has since had a single accident involving distraction during baking (understandable) and really nothing further to report. She is also night dry in an astonishing one-two punch that none of her nameless elder siblings have yet managed to land.

But that’s Evie. She does what she wants to do, on her own terms, in her own time. Just like sitting up (8 months) walking (18 freaking months) crawling (19 months. Confusing, yes?) and running (constantly, ever since then.) When I think about the hours we logged at PT and all the extra attention we lavished on her trying to accomplish those evasive motor milestones, I have to laugh because meanwhile she is jumping off the roof of the playhouse in the backyard and trying to scale the fence to get to the neighbor’s trampoline.

She still only weighs about 27 pounds, and Luke is edging ever closer to her with each bite of lunch he swallows. I’m not sure how tall she is because well child visits are not high in my repertoire of mom skills, but she is definitely sufficiently tiny that people startle when she speaks to them in complete, detailed sentences in the Queen’s English at Costco.

Last night she told me her birthday party was perfect, and that the only thing that could have made it more perfect would have been beef jerky. When I’m upset or mad or tired, she has been known to lay a little hand on my head or shoulder and start sweetly praying “Hail Mawy, full of gwace…” until mommy either bursts into tears or feels better. She likes to carry our poor, long-suffering cat around the house slung over her shoulder like a fur throw, and has taken to calling her “my little teenager,” because, you know, at 4 months old now, she’s not a kitten, not yet a woman.

Girlfriend, you’re the coolest. We love you little Evie doll. Happy birthday.

Catholic Spirituality, Family Life, feast days

A Simple Advent Plan

November 27, 2016

And I do mean simple. In years past I’ve delved deep into the Church’s liturgical traditions and a mish mash of my own childhood to begin piecing together what our little family’s observation of the season would look like. Last year I even hosted an Advent series detailing other families’ traditions. It was awesome.

This year I have no tiny baby. I am not 10000 weeks pregnant, or pregnant at all, in fact. My kids, at 1, nearly 3, 4 and 6 are mostly sleeping through the night. And I am still tired.

It’s not the same kind of tired, but it’s of a quality that has me slowing down and looking for ways to scale back. To relax into the small t traditions of our own family, to discard what hasn’t worked in the past, and to adopt practices that will be truly helpful this year, in 2016.

It has been a long, hard year. I think the Year of Mercy was aptly named and excruciatingly effective. I know countless people for whom this has been true. Now that it has drawn to a close and we’re on the threshold of a fresh liturgical year, today in fact, it seems like the right moment to exhale deeply, to look around and see what might be simplified, and what might simply be superfluous, and to show it to the door.

This afternoon I spent some time decluttering our kitchen and living room. I loaded two large trash bags with unused dishes, unwanted vases, mismatched plates and too small snow boots. I know friends who could use some of this. I know the thrift store down the road could use the rest. Might I someday regret not having saved a pair of girl’s snow boots, size 4, should God send another daughter and should she be that size come wintertime?

Perhaps. But I doubt it. I doubt that holding onto the excess – even if it isn’t excessive by any stretch of the imagination – will bring me more peace, or bring more beauty to our small home.

I find myself craving silence, both visual and auditory. We played Christmas music on Thanksgiving day and it was warm and wonderful. And now we’re waiting until those big feast days in December to turn Kosi 101 back on when we’re driving. My James Taylor holiday playlist is sidelined. Not because it’s morally wrong to listen to Christmas tunes in Advent. But because I don’t have the stamina to carry that football from November through mid January. And every year I tell myself “this year we’ll celebrate all 12 days of Christmas. I won’t kick the tree to the curb on December 27th.” And every year I fail. Because I really don’t have the stamina for it. I’m not my sanguine 6 year old son, whom we’ve actually nicknamed Kringle, who gins up enthusiasm for Christmas lights come Labor Day. And since it largely rests on me to set the liturgical tone in our home, I’ve gotta do what works.

So limited Christmas music before the big day. St. Nicholas Day (Dec 6) for sure will see me cranking the Pentatonix. And the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (Dec 8) will be bumping, too. And Our Lady of Guadalupe on the 12th. And St. Lucy’s on the 13th. And, and…there’s no lack of feast days in December. The Church is good to her children like that.

In addition to shunning the tunes, I’m going to try to keep to a strict grocery budget these next 4 weeks, planning simple meals and resisting the temptation to stop for Chipotle or run through Chicfila. It will help our bottom line and waistlines, and it sets a more subdued tone for what is a season of sober preparation, if not penance. The readings from Mass today were sober, somber, and warning. If the master knew the hour the thief would come, he would be prepared. So too must we prepare for His coming – as a little baby, and at the end of time in glory, and in each of our lives at the moment of our own deaths. Forcing myself to plan and execute dinners that don’t involve ripping open a back of tortilla chips is a level 1 mortification I can practice that keeps my head in the “pray and prepare” game and doesn’t let me get too far into the “already party let’s party” game.

Finally, the tree. O Christmas tree. What a point of contention you have been in our young marriage. 7 years my husband has made the bigger compromise and let me acquire you early. And 7 years you have almost (and, once literally. Long story.) caught on fire, so dead you are come Christmas Day. This year we’re getting the tree on Evie’s birthday, which is December 15th. Still probably too early for some of the liturgical rigorists out there, but seems like an eternity to me, coming from a family whose tree was proudly twinkling over the Thanksgiving spread more years than not.

But I’m seeing as I settle into my 30s – well into them now, I might add – that I don’t have to fight to force traditions to appear, and that it isn’t necessary to duke it out over our respective family of origin practices. We’re never going to have a Thanksgiving tree, neither are we going to be running from tree lot to grocery store parking lot on Christmas Eve, looking for Charlie Brown’s foliage. We’re somewhere in the middle, and it’s working out pretty well.

Meanwhile, our kids are concocting traditions out of memories that I didn’t even realize they were making, that I wasn’t even aware were that important. The Jesse tree that I’ve failed to complete every year is gathering dust in the garage, and there it will remain. But the little manger and a box full of straw beside it, almost an afterthought last year, elicited shouts of joy when I brought it into the family room this morning.

I forgot to buy Advent candles or, um, a wreath, but we’ve got 4 black candlesticks lined up on the dining room table waiting to be filled, and somehow we have four separate nativity sets sprinkled throughout the house, all sans Bambino Gesu till the big day, and the kids are so excited about them. Again, not a tradition I painstakingly planned or executed to perfection. Just something that has sort of happened, and now they treasure it.

I hope this Advent season is a chance for spiritual recalibration and rest. And for you and yours, too. And if I am tempted to drum up a newfound devotion to St. Lucy so that I can put a crown of candles on Evie’s head, which is an adorable tradition but hasn’t found it’s way into our family liturgy, I hope I can chill instead. Sit on the couch with some candles lit and pray a Rosary. Read the Blessed is She devotional for the day and spend 4 minutes in silent mental prayer. Close some browser tabs on the computer and admit to myself that probably that thing I was thinking about buying isn’t really necessary. That maybe we can drop a meal off for someone or buy a coat for a kid who needs it with the money I would have spent.

I want to have the chillest Advent ever.

Who’s with me?

(But for the record, we’re still totally going to sit on Santa’s lap. He’ll be expecting us, after all.)

Catholic Spirituality, Catholics Do What?, Evangelization, Family Life, feast days, liturgical living, Parenting

Raising saints {with a little help}

October 18, 2016

The other Friday night I helped shovel lackluster chicken nuggets (GF so no surprise there) and carrot sticks into the mouths of my young before we jumped in the car to head downtown, fighting wrong way rush hour traffic into the city. (I don’t know what constitutes a good Friday night for you, but I’ll just leave that on the table for your next date night consideration.)

Our destination was the basement of Denver’s beautiful cathedral, where we met up with dozens of our friends, several more dozens of their children, and a handful of our favorite priests and religious brothers, members of a relatively young religious order, the Servants of Christ Jesus.

I’ve written about them before because they’ve been around just a little bit longer than we have, as a family. (I even had the privilege of teasing out some of the common threads between our two vocations in a piece I wrote synthesizing the master thesis penned by their newest ordained priest.) And because they are actually a pretty significant component of what we’re trying to do, as a family.

We’re trying to raise saints.

I first heard Fr. John Ignatius use that phrase in a talk by the same name, given in a parish hall to a handful of young couples with brand new babies and toddlers. I had one baby in arms and one in utero at that time, and I remember looking a little disbelievingly at the squirming blonde head on my lap and wondering when – if ever – the stuff he was talking about would apply to us.

One line in particular stood out to me in particular, perhaps because you can take the girl out of the party scene but you can’t, well, you know… but it was this: Catholics throw the best parties. The biggest feasts. You want your children to grow up knowing this… recognizing it from what they have lived and seen played out in your family and in the larger community you’re building around them.

I’m paraphrasing because it was at least 5 years ago, but the concept of our Faith being incarnate and tangible, not only in the liturgy and in the way we worship together, but also in the way we recreate and celebrate together, touched me deeply. And it thrilled me to think that I could help my children understand the richness and the beauty of Catholicism by throwing great parties.

I’m not talking here about cake toppers and printables, or about elaborate tables with perfectly-seasoned ethnic food representing whomever’s feast day it might be (though if you’ve got a Hobby Lobby loyalty card and you aren’t afraid to use it, power to you!)

I’m talking here more about cultivating a deeply-rooted and life-giving community of like minded families and friends, and of freely welcoming people into that profound experience of belonging.

Of having your kids excited about so-and-so’s birthday party, yes, but also knowing that we’re going to be praying over that child as a community before the candles are blown out on the cake.

To have had the experience at least once (I’m told it becomes more possible – not easier, but more possible – when they’re a little older) of watching the candlelit sanctuary explode into light with the rising strains of the Alleluia during the Easter Vigil Mass, and then spilling out into the parking lot with plastic cups of champagne (or apple cider) and streamers and platters and platters of cookies and celebrating because He is Risen. And of not only intellectually knowing that, but also feeling it in their hearts and in their imaginations.

And oh, how I want them to remember the hours we spent around the dinner table with men in white collars and black habits, (and sisters too! though we haven’t found our nun niche quite yet) sharing stories and plates of spaghetti and highlights from our week, bantering over politics and sports and news and life. And woven throughout it all, an awareness of the Lord’s presence, an unconscious sprinkling of theology that has nothing to do with lectures and classrooms and everything to do with a living witness of the Faith.

So that’s why we made our way into the basement of the Cathedral that evening, stepping into what could have easily been mistaken for a preschool co-op with dozens of children scattered in rows of seats and dotting the center aisle.

Guitar chords rang out as Br. Peter led the group in praise and worship, and then deep toddler reverence (which is louder and more, ah, intense than regular reverence) fell upon our little group as Fr. John processed in with Jesus in the monstrance.

While Fr. knelt at the end of our time of Adoration to sing the Divine Praises, little knees bent around him (and some full body toddler sprawling was also in play, because it might have been bedtime or maybe just some really charismatic 2 year olds), and somebody captured this:

That’s what we’re trying to do here. Point them to Him.

And these good men are helping lead us along the way, pointing us towards Jesus, bringing Him to us in the sacraments, and knitting our community together in worship and play.

If any of us do, in fact, succeed at raising saints, it will only be by the grace of God.

Thankfully, He hasn’t left us totally to our own devices. I am so grateful for our community here in Denver, and I am also painfully aware that it is all too unique. My prayer is that as the New Evangelization grows and matures, and as the first line of those of us who were formed in it go out into the world and the larger Church to serve, this will not be a crazy, off-the-beaten path thing. That other cities around the world will have this kind of community, even while society is secularizing all around us.

That we would find one another, grasp hands, and then invite someone in. And then do it agin. And again.

May we be bold enough to attempt raising saints. (And may God grant us ALL the graces and the resources we need to make at least a good college try.)

Culture of Death, Evangelization, Family Life, motherhood, Parenting, Pornography, reality check, social media

Why “Don’t Look” won’t be enough

October 10, 2016

I am the mother of three sons and one daughter. My kids are young still, but my firstborn is now within a couple years of the average first age of exposure to pornography. Which means that kids as young as him have seen it, have stumbled upon in accidentally, have been intentionally exposed by an older sibling or cousin or neighbor kid, and are already struggling with feelings of confusion, excitement, shame, fear, and curiosity.

In this digital age, it is all but inevitable that my children will encounter pornography at some point during their childhood. And that breaks my heart.

But I can’t stick my head in the sand and just try not to worry about it, hoping that if I don’t mention it and if we’re careful enough at home and vigilant enough with our network filtering software (which is important!) and discriminating enough about our media consumption (also essential!) and picky enough about how we do playdates (SO huge. You have no idea what your neighbor might be watching late at night, and what might pop up on their son’s tablet during an innocent Youtube search for rocket launches or scenes from Team Hotwheels), we’ll be fine.

That isn’t enough. In other words, I have to equip myself as a mother to help my children navigate the murky waters of the digital world, so awash in pornography and violent, addictive content, and I have to equip my children to face this brave new world.

I can’t leave it up to chance. This one is too big, and the stakes are too high.

While both men and women struggle with pornography in increasing numbers, boys are particularly vulnerable in the era of a smartphone-in-every-pocket. Men are wired for visual stimulation. It’s beautiful and essential and intrinsically masculine, and it is a component of their intentional design that I wouldn’t change even if I could. But there is a multi-billion dollar market built around exploiting that facet of their nature and ensnaring young minds and hearts in a dark web of profitable addiction that is predicated on increasing levels of violence, misogyny, and dehumanization.

And it’s profitable as all hell, make no mistake about that. For every media soundbite or expert opinion that “a little porn is harmless,” or “pornography is a natural competent of a healthy relationship,” a rich pornographer who makes his or her living off of pimping out young women and children is laughing all the way to the bank.

(Porn kills love. For a totally secular perspective and a fantastic resource, check out “Fight the New Drug” and the great work they’re doing, especially with adolescents and college aged kids.)

I wrote a series on “porn proofing our kids” a while back, and afterwards a rep from Covenant Eyes: CMG Connect reached out to me about a new resource designed to empower parents to proactively engage with their kids on the topic of porn, and to help them build a safe, open, communicative family; a “safe haven.”

CMG Connect Parents is full of good video content, articles, and other resources for parents who are in all stages with kids of all ages.

Whether your family is already wrestling with this issue, you’re unsure of where to start (or whether your kids have been exposed yet) of if you’re like us and have young children and are looking down the pike to the future and wondering where to begin, this is a good place to start.

They are also offering a free 30 day trial of their acclaimed “Covenant Eyes” filtering program, a multidimensional resource that filters harmful content, alerts parents to potential problems, and can provide individual accountability and monitoring for help in overcoming an existing addiction. We’ve been hemming and hawing over which filtering software or device to use and when we need to make the leap, but after my husband spent 3 days last spring attending a conference for work, he walked away from the sessions on trafficking and addiction absolutely convicted that the time is now.

Even if your kids are little and aren’t using the internet on their own yet, now is the time to install those guardrails and establish a culture of safe and responsible media use. Not only are you protecting against accidental exposure (and I’ve seen some freaky stuff pop up totally unrelated on Youtube), but you’re also protecting the babysitters or other caregivers who come into your home and may connect to your network, along with houseguests and visitors who may access your WiFi (and in turn, you are protecting your network (hellooooo, targeted ads) against harmful content other people may access via your network without your knowledge. So many people are fighting a great battle, and you truly never know.)

Really, I can’t think of a reason to have unfiltered internet, period.

So do me a favor and start the 30 day trial, will you? And start clicking through some of the video content on CMG Connect. My favorite video is the one featuring two moms, with one mom walking the other through happening upon a probable pornography problem with her 14 year old son. It’s full of common sense, compassion, and a destigmatization of the problem, and it contains some tangible resources and a sort of guide map of what that journey look like for one family.

And of course, above all, we take our cue from Padre Pio: we pray, we hope, and we don’t worry. We don’t wallow in the “what ifs” or the regrets, and don’t anticipate the future with terror. Being proactive, wise, and confidant is a far cry from cowering and fearful. With common sense, open communication, and a helpful toolbox, our kids don’t have to become statistics in an adolescence behavioral journal.

I hope you’ll check it out.

(Thanks to Covenant Eyes whom I partnered with on this post for the industry-leading work they’re doing to empower families to stay safe and healthy. All opinions expressed are my own.)

Family Life, motherhood, Parenting, toddlers

More work, more love

October 3, 2016

(and if I’m being honest, more diapers)

While I was sitting vacantly before the keyboard this afternoon a happy little reddish-blonde head bounced up from underneath my chair, and two bright blue eyes crinkled with delight over having located me. Luke is baby number 4, but he is beloved in a way that numbers one through three (sorry, kids!) were not privileged to experience.

I do love all four of them very much, but if I’m being honest here, I’m a little bit in love with Luke. Maybe it’s the mellowing effect of having done the pregnancy/newborn thing a couple times and being able to relax into the enjoyment of it, maybe it’s the cacophony of joy as his older siblings orbit him like adoring planets, racing to retrieve him from his bed in the mornings, or maybe it’s just the winning combination of the sweetest smile and the most joyful temperament, but this kid has me smitten. I kiss him more than is probably socially acceptable, and even now as I sit here tapping the keys, he’s tearing the lid of the trash can and searching for coffee grounds to dig in and I’m smiling benevolently at him over my shoulder because it’s adorable.

Somebody get a message to my first-time momself that I will eventually lower my standards to an unrecognizable level of filth and indulgence and that it will be fine. It will all be fine.

It’s only the machinations of a divine economy that could yield increasing returns of joy and pleasure from decreasing levels of sleep and time and money. It doesn’t make sense that this little person should have brought so much joy with him when he banged open the doors to our hearts a little over a year ago, but there it is.

I never wanted to have a large family. If anything, I was ambivalent about having children, period. Not because my own childhood wasn’t great (it was), or because I didn’t like kids (I do. For the most part.) but because I seemed to lack that nascent maternal instinct that had my girlfriends easily answering “1 of each” or “3 boys, 3 years apart” when asked about their reproductive futures. When I peered forward into the shimmering mists of time, I could never see clearly what it was that I wanted, exactly.

Which is why motherhood has been so pleasantly surprising and so gruelingly difficult, at turns. I didn’t really plan for this, and even now, at Costco, when someone blinks in astonishment or delight at my little crew and asks if I’m done, I never know exactly what to say. I don’t have strong feelings either way, that we’re “done” or that there are “(X) more babies” waiting for us (<– never was too keen on that theologically-sketchy concept). But I do have strong feelings for Luke, and for each of my children. Every one of them is an incomparable miracle, someone I never could have dreamt up or planned or, quite frankly, executed to the level of perfection they each possess.

I am astonished by the level of collective joy that seems to titrate up with each new arrival. And yet. Even knowing that, even having experienced it firsthand four times over, I still can’t fathom it happening again. I can never love another baby the way I love Luke, I’m sure of it. And yet, if God does send another baby, (which, for the record, He has not currently) He will also send the love. And it will be a new love, and a greater love, and a love that literally did not exist before the object of it’s affection did.

Babies come from love, but they also bring the love.

There is never quite enough time or money or sleep to go around, and yet there is. It works out. Some months or days are tighter on energy or money than others. And some weeks are grueling, and some seasons are disappointing and trying beyond belief. But there has never been a moment that I regretted saying yes to these kids, and if anything, each subsequent baby has deepened the love I have for my older children. (Which doesn’t mean – please, please hear this – that smaller families have less love.)

But, to limit the size of one’s family out of fear of a lack of love, a poverty of love, to imagine that there is a limit to love…that is the lie.

I may be afraid of having another baby for all kinds of reasons, but I’m not afraid that there won’t be enough love.

All I have to do is look down at my little puppy dog Luke (currently eating deli turkey off the kitchen floor #reallife) and know with deep certainly that the love is there, that it will come in abundance. And that it will overflow the bounds of my grinchy little heart and stretch it just a little further, until I’m that mom who is kissing her toddler’s fat neck in the checkout line at King Soopers and wondering if there was ever another cherub alive whose (now borderline feminine and becoming confusing to strangers) curls were so perfect, and who laughs a little and shakes her head when asked “is he your first?” and answers honestly, “nope.”

About Me, Catholic Spirituality, Evangelization, Family Life, liturgical living, Parenting

Do you have a family liturgy?

August 16, 2016

These past several days, trying to carve some semblance of tranquility amidst a million flattened boxes, carpets that smell like dogs and cottonwood seeds blowing so thickly that they’re being sucked into our new house by the box fans that adorn every window (no AC. Bye bye, luxury), I’ve been totally overwhelmed by the lack of order to our lives. Life with 4 kids is always a little on the chaotic end of the spectrum, but throw big life changes into the mix and it very much feels like the inmate are running the asylum, and they’re not even particularly well fed inmates.

I scooted away this afternoon for my 1000th trip to Lowe’s and some internet time and I left our babysitter the following items on the counter: 8 baby carrots, half a bag of corn tortillas, 2 oz of nacho cheese Doritos and a jar of peanut butter.

Good luck, family.

I was thinking today that part of why our days are so hectic, aside from the obvious physical chaos of a move and a new home, is because we lack a basic rhythm to our daily lives. I alluded to as much on Facebook last week when I let slip how eager I was for the routine of school to be upon us, because as deeply as I love my children and as sincerely as I respect my homeschooling friends, the reading, writing and ‘rithmetic are being unabashedly outsourced in this family.

But I can’t outsource it all. For sure we’re still responsible for forming little consciences and catechizing little hearts. I guess I’m just poking my head up out of survival mode after the longest summer on record and, with a newly-minted one year old still the reigning baby in the house (#Marquettemethodforthewin) I’m feeling ready to start implementing some smallish steps towards sanity.

So what do you guys do? What does your “family liturgy” look like? By this I mean the liturgical rhythm to your days and weeks, and I’m not talking Sacred heart of Jesus cupcakes or St. Juan Diego piñatas, but the regular Scripture study with your kids, the daily Mass attendance (or not), the family Rosary or decade, the morning offering, the recited litanies.

Do you start your day with family prayer? Dave and I pray an offering together and invoke our special patron saints, and we pray again a gratitude list and a protection prayer at night, but the in between parts are where I’m struggling to fill in the blanks.

I want us to be the ones who introduce our kids to personal prayer, who help them understand their fundamental identities as sons and daughters of the King. I want them to learn to spend time in Scripture every day, and to follow along with the liturgical cadence of the Church year, attuned to the seasons we celebrate as a Catholic family.

I want to raise Saints. But I am a decidedly unsaintly mother 98% of the time. I struggle with my temper, with patience, with wanting to steamroll them in the name of efficiency and productivity. And I am, quite frankly, usually d-o-n-e by bedtime, which is when our current daily prayer time takes place.

So, I humbly turn to you, dear readers, and I ask first and foremost for your prayers but also for your suggestions, your best practices, and I welcome your stories of solidarity. How do you “Catholic” in your house? What does it look like in practical terms, and what are some age-appropriate steps I can take with my crew, current ages nearly 6, 4.5, 2.5 and 1?

Thanks in advance. I have to go spackle something now.

The pirate nun wants *you* to raise ’em right

Catholic Spirituality, Evangelization, Family Life, feast days, motherhood, Parenting

Back to school with the saints

August 1, 2016

It’s that confusing time of summer where the temperatures are still hitting triple digits some days, but the big box stores are rolling out mega packs of white socks, pencils, and $.25 cent bottles of glue amidst the s’more’s displays and fireworks stands.

While the kids are still mostly swimsuit clad during all daylight hours and sticky with high fructose corn syrup from popsicle lunches, there are visions of packed lunches and completed physician’s forms dancing in mommy’s head.

The end of this summer will mark the end of an era for me as a newish mom: all my kids home, all the time.

Come late-August, I’ll ship one to all-day Kindergarten and a little brother to 3 day a week full-day preschool, so life is going to shift radically. Which is hard to imagine when all 4 are tearing through the backyard in varying states of undress, flinging mud and Legos.

“Treasure this time,” I remind myself, picking a sodden swimsuit out of the dirt, giving it the sniff test, and then draping it to dry in the sun. And I am. But I’m also looking eagerly towards autumn. My babies are growing, and the oldest of the bunch is of an age where he’ll soon be spending more of his waking time in someone else’s care than in mine. It’s fantastic and terrifying all at once.

For one thing, trusting your child to someone else is a huge leap of faith. And it’s one that can be fraught with second-guessing, thanks in part to the roiling milieu of social media. Is it really the best choice for us to homeschool? Will my kids be safe in this public school? Can we afford the tuition or the drive to Catholic school?

I’ve found it helpful to throw it back a little further, and to examine some of the lives of the saints, observing the role education played in each of their lives, along with the wide variance among them. There are 3 I’ve been thinking of specifically as I prepare my heart (and my wallet) for this Fall:

St. Francis Xavier

The feisty sidekick of St. Ignatius of Loyola, Francis was a co-founder of the Society of Jesus and all-around top athlete and academic. The pair met at the University of Paris, an aristocratic party boy with endless ambition and a visionary saint with a calling from God.

After 3 years of patient investment into Francis Xavier’s life, Ignatius at last persuaded his ambitious friend “what profit is it to a man to gain the whole world if he lose his soul?” Francis became convinced, and he became not only an effective missionary and a saintly Jesuit, but is now a universal patron of missionaries. He gained the whole world – and his soul.

Moral of this story? Pray for your kid’s friends. Pray especially that they’ll make saintly friendships like this one that changed the course of history. Not just that they’ll “stay out of trouble,” but that they would encounter among their peers true matches made in heaven. Francis and Ignatius show us it’s possible.

St. John Bosco

This saint is perhaps a more natural fit for those parents who’s little darlings are walking on the wilder side. Or perhaps are less academically inclined and more mischievous. St. John Bosco not only knew what to do with “those kind of kids;” he actually preferred them.

Raised by a widowed single mother, John was gifted a scholarship at the age of 15 by a generous uncle, where he blew through high school in 3 years, graduating with high honors despite his lack of formal primary schooling. As he advanced through university studies and eventually seminary, John never outran his reputation for tutoring and mentoring underprivileged and unchurched street urchins. “His boys” would come to represent the great mission of his life’s work: the founding of the Salesian order.

Pray for your kids’ teachers, that they would be as zealous for souls as John Bosco, and as capable of seeing the good even in the tough cases. St. John Bosco was reported to have uttered, in his last days on earth, these final words: “tell my boys I’ll see them in heaven.”

St. Zelie Martin

St. Therese, aka “the Little Flower,” was her spirited youngest daughter, a child who’s fragile emotional state caused her mother no shortage of worry at the outset of her young life. Zelie was a work at home mom who ran a successful lace-making business with her husband Louis, who was also a canonized saint, (they together marked the first joint canonization of a married couple in 2015).

Despite not being able to breastfeed her daughters and having to outsource much of their babyhoods to wet nurses (talk about potential mom-guilt) and losing 4 children at birth or shortly thereafter, Zelie was a mother on fire with the love of Christ. Despite the many, many ideals of perfection she had to relinquish throughout the course of her motherhood, culminating finally with her life itself, she remained fixed on a single goal: get her family to heaven.

All her work inside and outside the home, and every choice she made for her family aligned with that goal. Everything else was secondary. And while she probably kept a beautiful home and her girl’s school uniforms were probably lovely enhanced with their mother’s needlework, she was ultimately aiming far higher than top-of-the PTA heap – and with one daughter canonized and recognized as a Doctor of the Church and another (Leonie) on her way to recognized sainthood, it’s safe to say that Zelie raised a successful brood. Pray for her intercession as you make eternal choices for your own kids.

So there you have it: three saints with wildly different backgrounds and stories, and three friends into whose ears you can whisper hopes and dreams for your kids this school year.

Family Life, motherhood, Parenting

Someday they’ll stop asking

July 18, 2016

Hey, is this thing still on?

Welp here we are, 2 weeks later and not even a new baby or an international trip to show for it. But a much, much needed respite from blogging and all things internet-related was had by me, courtesy of the punishing process of home-buying in a seller’s market and a mild case of adult chicken pox, just to spice things up.

I feel better now. But my doctor warned me with a waggling eyebrow to chill out and get a handle on that stress, else I wanted to be a 33 year old woman with, well, stress-related illnesses. More on that later. The chilling out part, not the stress-related illness part.

So, where was I?

Ah yes. Last night around 10pm. Kids abed, but the biggest boys only just. (Something about weekends and popsicles and the sun staying up so dang long has pushed and pushed and pushed bedtime until the precious sliver of adult swim between diapering, teeth-brushing and cuddling and my own unconscious head hitting the pillow has been whittled to nil.)

Dave swung his head into our room to ask me “the usual,” which is our shorthand for “mommy kisses and cuddles,” performed after the exhaustive storytelling and wrestling routine that is daddy’s domain. He gave me a nonchalant smile, “I told them I’d ask, but that you’d probably give the standard reply.” And then he was off to find his book and a nightcap of peanutbutter from a spoon.

I meant to shrug and roll over, resuming my Kindle session, but I couldn’t get my head back in the book. About 5 minutes later I heaved myself reproachfully out of bed and padded downstairs, making my way into the room we affectionately refer to as “the troll cave.”

It smells and resembles such.

I knew they’d be long asleep, and that they’d be sleeping so hard that nothing I could do would wake them, should I have wanted to. I also knew I’d be free to whisper, tousle bleached blonde hair, and stroke still baby-soft cheeks without wiggling and farting noises and getting drawn into a wrestling match. It’s easy to be a tender-hearted mother while they’re sleeping.

I stood in the dark troll cave and whispered my dreams for their futures in their sweaty little ears, telling them what good and strong and joyful boys they are. That God has a great plan for their lives. That they are on an amazing adventure. That I was sorry for million ways I’d failed them that day.

After a few minutes I made my way back upstairs, flicking lights off and closing down the house for the first night shift. A teething baby has made uninterrupted sleep patterns once again a thing of the past, but I’m hopeful that this too shall pass.

Because this, too, has already passed. Is already in the past. I’ve had too many moments with each baby slip away into the hazy recesses of time, all but irretrievable, blurring together in a storm of exhaustion and endurance.

And even though every season of parenting can feel like It Will Surely Be the End of Me…it does pass. And like a hormone-addled idiot, I sometimes find myself longing for the sweeter moments that were present there too, alongside the hardship, because once they’re gone, they really are gone. Having 4 kids hasn’t made me more immune to the transient wonder of a crawling baby in the house, sending a panicked flurry of door and babygate-slamming adults fanning out in his trajectory, trying in vain to intercept any and all danger. Luke started crawling last weekend, and you would have thought he was not only my first baby, but the first baby I’d ever seen, period, to rise up on hands and knees and drunkenly careen into sliding glass doors and under end tables.

So last night when I got back into our bedroom and Dave smiled at me over his book and asked what I’d been doing, I told him.

“Someday they’re going to stop asking for me to come in and kiss them.”

And when that day comes, I don’t want to look back and hang my head over all the times I was too tired to say “yes.” I want to smile as we move into a new stage of late-night ice cream bowls and heart to hearts during drive time, remembering when they were tiny and slept like hibernating bears, and I could lavish them with kisses and cuddles and tell them they were my sweet babies.

Doesn’t mean I’ll say yes every time they ask, by any means. Mama’s still wrecked after a long summer day of full contact parenting. But I want to say yes most of the time. And I want them to remember the yeses.

So here’s to doing better. Upward and onward.

About Me, Evangelization, Family Life, motherhood, Parenting, toddlers

Grocery shopping with kids, and other small sufferings

July 5, 2016

They only occasionally nap together still. Today I figured, still hopped up on legal fireworks lit well into the 10 o’clock hour last night and an endless infusion of high fructose corn syrup and food dyes, would be a rare quad-nap opportunity. Perhaps the last of an era, with the eldest kindergarten-bound in August.

No such luck.

I’ve threatened to pull the plug on Netflix indefinitely, held out the specter of a week without popsicles, and made various empty threats about skipping the zoo with grandma tomorrow, and still they lurk in the shadows, popping up from the basement to inform me of waking nightmares, spooky noises, uncomfortable Star Wars pillowcases lacking sufficient starch, and a host of other ailments too ridiculous to recount here.

I just disciplined thin air. Head whipping around at the sound of crinkling plastic, I barked at a grocery bag to “get downstairs if it ever wanted to play with Toby across the street again.”

My bad, grocery bag. We’re well into mommy PTSD territory now.

Still, when they do awaken for the 43 time from this “nap,” I will probably load them into the car and head to the library down the road. I will probably not put on makeup before lugging the double stroller out of the trunk and filling it with babies and overdue batman comic books, (and actually, this really great YA fantasy novel from Raymond Arroyo that is guaranteed to scratch a lingering Harry Potter itch if there are any other recovering fans out there in blogland) and we’ll stumble into the air conditioned oasis of learning and distraction and at least one or two mom/nannies will raise eyebrows and give a verbal salute to the insanity of taking multiple children anywhere in public.

And I will smile.

Because they will be right, and because it is hard. So is hitting up the doctor’s office and the pharmacy back to back with octopuses leaning out the cart, swiping foodstuffs from shelves left and right and hoping against reasonable hope that today will be the day mom forks over $5.99 for the lego star wars mad libs in the stationary aisle. Dare to dream, little ones. Dare to dream.

Raising children is a lot of work. It’s worthwhile work, but it’s grueling. I feel like those two things go hand in glove more often than not.

I have no lesson to share. I have no happy ending for today. My kids are a hot mess of needs, and I am a hot mess of frustration and pain from a viral illness I thought only people in nursing homes could contract. I cannot call in a sub, hit time out, or free myself from the next 4 hours of life. At least not responsibly, given that I’m the only adult home.

And I wish I could spin this into some fluffy parable about redemptive suffering and the privilege of being a mother, but while those things are real and true, they’re not always in the forefront of my sucks-at-suffering brain.

Nevertheless, I do have a few gems of experience to polish and throw out onto the internet, in case nobody else has explicitly told you these things before.

First, doing errands with kids probably won’t kill you. It will make everything take longer, but it will also create a magical time-sucking portal in your day whereby you can burn 1, 2 or even 3 hours of prime whine-time real estate out in the wild public square instead of your own backyard. Maybe this is a downside for some? But my kids seem to thrive in public settings. Perhaps because we have done so many things as a family unit, minus daddy, for so many years. They’re 100 times more likely to tantrum at home than abroad, and for whatever reason, the gas station and the grocery store are 100 times more interesting to them than their own playroom. Go figure.

Second, people need to see moms doing stuff with their kids in public. When I walk into Whole Foods with half a preschool class and a ~~dead eye stare on my face~~ smile for anyone to see, I’m sending a very simple message just by existing. It’s something along the lines of, “hi, we’re a biggish family. We come in peace. Where are your sparkle waters and diaper wipes, por favor?” Why, I’ve trained a whole cadre of food service industry professionals in a 5-mile radius to hardly startle at all, at least visibly, when we walk into their establishment.

Third, my life is actually really easy. Maybe yours is too? I can say this with boldness because even with a teething baby in the house, the aforementioned elderly viral illness, and a pair of cracked out 4th of July sugar junkies “sleeping” downstairs, my life is really easy.

I have very little actual suffering to my name thus far. I’ve had the usual share of heartaches, disappointments, wounds, and losses to bear, but in the grand scheme of things, my house is not going to get torched by militants, my children are not going to starve to death, and I’m (probably) not going to die in a terrorist attack. There are so many suffering souls in this troubled world of ours, and it is good for those of us who live privileged lives to embrace the small suffering we do encounter and bear it, if not well, than at least adequately. And yes, it’s pathetic that my suffering involves trips to the dentist and pained attempts at daily Mass spent mostly kneeling in the vestibule angry-whispering, but you’ve got to work with what you have.

Finally, people are really, really good. They are! Deep down most people want to interact with you in a positive way, even if they think the proper foray is a question about your sex life. I can count the truly mean-spirited comments on one hand, and that’s in 6 years of motherhood. I cannot count the positive comments, because they’re well into the hundreds. If you go out in public with your children, I can almost guarantee someone is going to smile and say something so undeservingly good to you that you might choke back tears.

Agree? Disagree? Rather have a root canal than take your kids into the liquor store for a bottle of wine and a handful of suckers? I know at least one of my sisters will read this and shake her head over my gluttony for punishment here, but surely I am not all alone.

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