Five Quick Parenting Tips: How to serve your family without losing yourself.

Reclaim your time

It is easy to be swept up in caring for others. Families are busy and the demands on parents is constant. Sometimes the demands of others seem to steal the hours away from us - but it doesn't have to be that way. Here are five things you can do today to reclaim your time and better service your family without losing yourself. 

How to reclaim your time:

1. Be organized. Think of organization on a continuum. As a parent you must have flexibility to respond to others needs. At the same time you frequently have small batched of time you can utilize if you are organized. For example, can you sort the mail daily and respond without it piling up? This only worked for me when once I set aside stamps, envelopes, pen, return labels and my checkbook in a drawer together. Otherwise, I spent too much time each day looking for a pen. 

2. Don't distract yourself. It is easy to distract ourselves with screens whenever we can. When you finally have a minute to pause, take that minute to breathe and think, not just click and scroll.

3. Prioritize. Decide each week what is essential and what is ideal, then protect the essential and strive to incorporate the ideal. If it is essential that you pray for 5 minutes in the morning, protect that time. If it is essential that you hit the grocery store Monday morning or attend an important meeting then make it happen. If you really want to have coffee with a friend, schedule it, and build the rest of your time around that appointment. If you have to cancel, be sure to reschedule right away. Thinking wistfully about doing something won’t get you there. Take the small steps to make the important things happen.

4. Use your quiet time carefully. Separate your tasks into things you can do with others around (fold laundry, wash dishes), and things you need quiet time to do (read, pray, respond to calls or emails). Use your quiet time for the things that you do better or more efficiently when you are not distracted. Using your quiet time carefully enables you to be more present to your family when they want attention.

5. Work towards a simple routine. This helps your family to better anticipate when you are and are not available. My family knows I am awake at 6, but not responsive until I come downstairs closer to 645. They know I do my weekly planning on Sunday. They know I am usually in the kitchen from 5-630 each night looking for company and conversation. Even young children can learn the best time to come to you for snuggles or reading time or conversation based on your schedule not their impulses.

We all have just 24 hours in a day and we all have a responsibility to be better stewards of the time we are given. 

Being at home with the family can be personally taxing as the demands seem constant. With intentionality and purpose though you can still serve with love and devotion, and maintain some semblance of self and you grow through your vocation.  

“We must take all the care that God wishes to take about perfecting ourselves, 

and yet leave the care of arriving at perfection entirely to God” .

- St. Francis de Sales

Thanks for stopping by!

You Earned This

You earned this consequence. 

She looked at me with tears rolling down her cheeks "but maaaaaaaammm this is soooooo unfaaaaaaair." Repeatedly we seem to be having the same conversation, or echoes of the same conversation. And inevitably it ends with me being unfair.

I whispered to my husband who sat quietly nearby pretending not to listen.

 

"Am I on track here?" 

"Yes".

I keep coming back to the notion that punishments are not arbitrarily dealt in our home. Consequences are not given - they are earned through behavior. They are a predictable response. When words fail to bring about the necessary correction, we reach a point where continuing to talk won’t suffice. 

There is a bit of cognitive behavioral theory at work here. The mind is both incredibly complicated and also fairly simple as well. When we offer a reward for certain behavior, we are encouraging that behavior. Similarly we can encourage a behavior by taking away some negative stimuli. When we take away a pleasurable thing, we are discouraging the behavior. By giving a punishment or painful response, we also discourage the behavior. 

It is important to talk about things, but talking doesn’t always change the behavior as desired. As parents, we need to exert the least about of force in order to elicit the proper response in the child, because ultimately we do want the child’s internal motivation for good to do most of the work. Their hedonistic tendencies and poor executive functioning means we sometimes need to step in and add some external motivators for behavior. All of this is happening in a time when we are striving to connect and relate to a loved one who is naturally pulling away from us and forming their own concepts of who they are. 

No doubt my daughter will remember this consequence into her adult years. With God’s grace she will remember it as the time when she realized mom and dad really meant what they said, and not remember it in some other distorted way. A parent’s words, promises, rules, and standards should be upheld. Children push, test, and stress those ideas to see if they will stand. Our job is to show them that we are reliable. We mean what we say. We are consistent and intentional about our parenting. We won’t be swayed when we are on the proper path. 

As My Oldest grabbed his keys and headed to the door for school he simply said, “You guys are doing the right thing. I still remember when you took away my play station for a month”.

I don’t feel great about the situation. Although I have peace, my heart hurts that her heart is hurting. I know I would feel guilt if I just let her off the hook. My job is to help her grow, not to coddle her, lower our standards, and let her be the comfortable version of herself. I want her to be the best version of herself, which requires hard work and perseverance. 

Raising teens is hard. I am finding more and more with my daughters especially that I need to keep praying for spiritual detachment. I cannot parent them with the primary goal of receiving their love and affection. That is both ineffective and disordered. I must parent them with the goal of helping them and myself to grow in goodness. 

Holiness is the objective, not friendship. 

For more on motivation theory and how it can help inform your parenting practices read this post (here). 

The End of Pandemic Parenting

A friend said recently, “It is as if we are living in some dystopian novel”.

Like many of you, I have been slowly adjusting. I have been thinking of this time as “a time that is set away”- different and somehow almost suspended.

When we first embarked on our Springtime of Pandemic Parenting, I suggested that we all relax a little. That was when I thought that by the time summer rolled around, I would be vacationing far away countries, and visiting colleges with my oldest, rather than living each day in my same t-shirt, answering the routine question “What are we going to do today?” with the routine answer “Not much”. 

Early on, I encouraged you all to be a little more child-led in your approach to the Spring. Let your kids watch movies and play their video games. Let them Facetime their friends and make messes creating with all those amazon boxes. Whatever you needed to do in order to just survive the realities of living together 24/7, for this short period of time, was unlikely to create lasting damage in your children.

And here we are many months, MONTHS – not- weeks- later, and it is time to change our mindset. Because the “time-out-of-time approach“ works on vacation, or summer break, or some shortish time frame. But it is not the optimal approach for everyday parenting.

How to Raise Anti-Racist Kids

For Christmas this year, I got Dr. Crystal Fleming’s 2018 book How to be Less Stupid about Race. In it, Fleming writes “living in a racist society socializes us to be stupid about race”.  The main premise of her book, is that the current broader culture, in her words “exposes us all to absurd and harmful ideas that, in turn, help maintain the status quo” p3. When something is part of the mainstream culture, it becomes our normal. Good-hearted people, can then contribute to the pain and suffering of others, without realizing it. With the proliferation of thoughts and ideas, of opinions and emotions, ignorance to the issues of race can no longer be an excuse for perpetuating racism.

Addressing issues of racism from a parenting approach, can be a way to address the culture in our own home- how we look at situations, how and when we discuss things on the news, with whom we socialize and how we interact with others, how we answer difficult questions. In and through our conversations, we can work to change the culture in our homes, and can continue to change our culture as a whole. Change happens on a micro-system level in the 1:1 interactions we have with our children and our friends.

Development of Racism

Racism is a way of thinking about something – it is a thought process that begins with stereotypes, biases, and prejudices based on an oversimplification or a generalization of groups or people.  This starts as soon as we notice differences, because our brains strive for simplification – our brains are going to try to classify, generalize, and oversimplify. We have to combat this because racism, biases and prejudices are inherently evil.

By age two, children recognize physical differences and by age 3 and 4 children start classifying things, including people. Children may start questioning why people have different hair or skin tones, and just like with gender they don’t necessarily see race as salient.  By age 4 children show age preferences – then by age 8, children come to understand racial constancy. And this is really a ripe time to talk about cultural awareness and racial identity.  Obviously as questions come up, we can and should talk about it with younger children as well. We should not shy away from dialogue. There is nothing shameful about talking about race.

Compressing as a Remedy for Stressing

Sometimes when a muscle or joint is super tight a therapist, rather than stretching the area, will compress it in order to get it to relax. It seems counter intuitive, but it works to help that area to relax. The other night I found myself in one of those parenting moments of heightened anxiety. Maybe it was the storm outside, or the cancelation of practices (I am horrible with changes to the schedule), maybe it was the soundtrack of our life with the thump - thump - thump of the ball against the wall and the chatter of the girls interrupted by thunder outside…regardless, I found myself in the kitchen barely keeping it together.  I took deep breathes and tried to show prudence in my response to the little loves and their requests, all the while feeling a constriction in my entire torso.  I was at that moment that I just gave in. I gave into the tightness and stress and confusion in the schedule. Rather than continuing to stretch myself I constricted. I turned inward. I grabbed my rosary and went room to room asking each of the kids at home if they wanted to join me for the rosary. Right now.  In the dinning room. I sat with my 13 year old and we just prayed. And as promised a peace came over us and over the home. There are three things in this situation which were bold and new for me.

1) I prayed in a very public space.
2) I invited the kids to join me instead either demanding it, or hiding from them.
3) I added something sacred during a time of day when I typically was simply responding to the needs of others.

Let me tell you that in moments of intense frustration, I rarely have the wisdom to turn to prayer. But just as it is counter intuitive to compress a muscle that needs to be stretched, when we are stretched beyond what we think we can tolerate, we too must compress, and rest in the Lord. And sometimes that means adding something to an already full or overwhelming situation. Rather than stripping away tasks on the list, sometimes we need to add prayer to the top.

No Advent Fails

As usual I had lofty goals for Advent this year. My Advent journal was prepped and ready, the decorations were up, many of the gifts were purchased, and I even bought my purple and rose colored candles ahead of time.

And as usual my goals of really entering into the season, and spending time in deep contemplation about the arrival of my Lord and Savior in the form of a little baby, went unrealized.

Each year I have some excuse. This year I got sick. Not deathly ill, or even super sick requiring Rx or a trip to the doctor. No, I just got a really persistent upper respiratory something.  It came the first Sunday of Advent and just hung around all month. It sucked my energy, my motivation, and kept me at an arms length (or more) from many friends and families.

And it slowed me down. In a time of hustle and bustle, this little bug dropped me into first gear and I sort of trudged through life. The result of this dampening of energy meant that the class party I had to organize was fine rather than great (no one seemed to care that the hot cocoa was actually chocolate milk), the Christmas cards did not go out (or even get addressed), the family ate quite a few more take-and-make dinners than normal (and enjoyed every bite), the gifts were simplified all round (who cares if the packages have bows), and we left the Christmas party early (unnoticed I am sure).

So what if we only lit the Advent candles a few nights each week. Advent isn't about lighting candles, or planning the perfect party or sending an amazing card. Like all of our special times in the church calendar, Advent is about living life differently. Sometimes those special times are feast days, sometimes they are fasting days, sometime they are seasons of preparation, but they are different for a reason. They shock our system. They help us to notice a truly Joyful or Reverent time. Advent is a time to prepare for that truly Joyful time of Christmas.

Too often we hope for a grand revelation during our Advent or Lent season. We look for a conversion of our own heart, without realizing that when align our hearts to Christ, we are continually being transformed. This Advent I had to slow dow.  Really slow down. I had to choose what was important, what was urgent, and what could be left out. And then I just let go of it all. I stead of getting out of bed to read my journal and write and reflect, I stayed in bed and just prayed. Good prayer. Just talking with Jesus in the silence of the early hours and resting in His love.  And that is how I prepared. It wasn't extravagant, or complicated, or even recommended, but it worked. It wasn't a Fail. And now we get to celebrate.

As this New Year approaches what sort of goals are you going to set for yourself? Are they going to be lofty-impossible-to-achieve goals that leave you deflated and defeated as the first flowers of spring pop up, or are they going to be less measurable goals that lead to a transformation in your heart and mind?

Self-care in Stages

Photo credit @anniespratt via Unsplash

School started this week and I am not going to lie. I was thrilled. With 4 kids at home all summer I was acutely aware of a startling lack of anything that resembled self-care. The first day back had me wondering how best to celebrate having a quiet house all day for the first time since becoming a parent 14 years ago. I debated between going home to take a nap and going to a friends to do some work wilts drinking mimosas.

And that got me to thinking about self-care. Because self-care is all about the self and it will differ with each of you. My hope is peaking in my evolution will give you pause to look at your own, and help you to seek some significant ways to take care of yourself, where ever you are in life.

In my pre-parenting life, self-care was all about betterment of the self. I would go for a run a few times a week. I ate well. When I didn't eat well I would run a little more. I was able to mostly sleep until I naturally awoke because my graduate school classes were typically later starts and I never had to be at work before 9am. I got the occasional expensive coffee drink as a treat. I got plenty of alone time naturally.

Once we got married and started our family, I turning inward, not to myself but to our little growing family. As we solidified our union as husband and wife, we began to bond with other couples who were in a similar stage of life. Those relationships were often family based and frequently instructive for us as we embraced the new roles of Mother and Father. Self-care in those days meant regular lunches with these friends or playdates where my friends and I would watch the children play and dissect every little concern over coffee. It meant getting out of the house and talking with another adult eye-ball to eye-ball. It meant dropping the children at the gym not so that I could sweat, but so that I could clear my head of the little chatter and delved into a fictional life while I sort-of worked out, all the while balancing a book in my hand.

That was about the time I converted to Catholicism and began the mom's ministry at our parish. I had two little boys and I craved relationships with women whose eyes were on the cross and whose end goal in life was an eternity in heaven. I didn't want to just spend time with other people. I wanted to spend time with people with whom I shared values, and goals, and dreams. I wanted my children to grow up in a community of people who had strong marriages and strong faiths. Self-care started to mean more about my internal and personal growth. It still had a social aspect, but it wasn't about passing time with people. It was about growing with them. I would gain weight with pregnancy and loose it again only to gain it once more with each pregnancy. My gym time, which I still considered critical for self-care, was for mental health more than physical health because it seemed I was almost always pregnant or nursing.

And then the children started school, and I found a resurgence of discretionary time and a introduction of outside demands. People started asking things of me. Will I help with Vacation Bible School? Sure. Will we hold a bake sale? Sure. Can you help decorate the church for Christmas? Sure. Wanna run the parish consignment sale? Sure. Do you want to join our bunco group? Book club? MOPS? And on and on it went and because there was no end to the opportunities and I quickly became engulfed. There was so much I wanted to do and getting out of the house one night a week was a delight. Having a night "off" from the bedtime routine was bliss. Self-care meant escaping the responsibilities of family life for just a few hours, even though that often meant taking on other responsibilities. I became a compulsive volunteer, because it meant I could leave without guilt.

And then Baby Number Four came along and escaping became impossible. Our schedules, the demands at home, the needs of the children overwhelmed the schedule. Whereas self-care once meant saying Yes to serving outside the home, now it meant learning to say No. Learning to say No to the things in life that overwhelmed me, consumed me, and kept me up at night was one of the healthiest lessons I have learned as an adult. I realized that each time I say Yes, I took on a task that could be completed by someone else. Saying No to serving provides others the opportunity to say Yes. So I began saying No more often. If it wasn't something that I was uniquely prepared for or had a gift for, I could now say No. Saying No became the primary way to say Yes to myself and to God. I stopped doing and started being. I started to become intentional.

And I began writing. I let the Lord call me to a new life within, a new love within. He spoke to me in prayer and lit a love for words within me. He called me to serve in the quiet. During nap times, during preschool, while the little ones played. I was able to serve Him and use my unique combination of gifts, training and experience in a way to that left me without guilt or exhaustion.

Now as I settle into my 40s, life with a teenager a kindergartener and two in between has left me with little headspace for writing. I have found different a unique ways to serve outside the home through my writing and my role with Blessed is She. I am back to trying to escape, but mostly just so that I can breathe without children around. As my teen stays up later and later the quiet time at home in the evenings has been reduced. I hit the gym a few days a week for vanity purposes as my metabolism and muscle mass both decline. I have a glass of vino in the evenings and take pleasure in the fact that I can drink decent wine from a nice glass, and it is a healthy thing to do as I watch my HDL's. My friendships are solid. They aren't just the parents of my children's friends, or relationships I cling to from other stages in life although I thankfully do still have some of those. They are heart-to-heart friendships with women I want to grow with. They hold me accountable and advise me. They seek my counsel, recognize my strengths, and tease me about my weaknesses. Self-care also means escaping with my husband - Date nights, an annual trip with another couple, and a little trip for just the two of us. I will continue to grow through the years, but real self-care means making sure that my husband and I grow together as well. With the distractions and demands of parenting kids, a tween and a teen this is my biggest challenge.

One day, I am told, I will blink and it will be just my husband and me. I will be saying goodbye to the baby and entering Empty Nest status, and self-care will look much different from how it looks today. It will challenge me to evaluate how much time and energy I am willing to commit in order to combat natural aging. My hormones will shift and I will be forced to adjust relationally and emotionally. I predict a bit of a return to self-care as it once was with a more self- rather than other-focus, but now that focus will be on the internal not the external.

Self-care won't be about seeking out time away, but it will be about boundaries of some sort because it always is. Self-care will still concern balancing the needs of others and the needs of the self. And so the flow of self-care from external care - to care of family unit - to care of social/community unit - to care of internal self will continue.

Take a minute and think - Where are you with your self-care? What does that term even mean to you today? Is self-care taking just a few minutes to veg out on social media? Is it something as simple as listening to your favorite music or building a favorite activity into your weekly routine? Is it intention or does it come naturally? 

Thanks for stopping by to think with me today!

Journeying with Jesus

Remember that story from Luke 24, when two of Jesus's followers were walking on the road to Emmaus, and they come upon Jesus (the Risen Lord) and they were prevented from recognizing Him? They were walking along the road talking about everything that had happened, come across Jesus, and then when he asks them what they are talking about the disciples tell him all about what happened. Cleopas, one of Jesus' followers tell Jesus that he is the only one in Jerusalem who doesn't know what happened. 

I love this story because it reminds me that I too get wrapped up in the drama of the day and fail to see Jesus right before me? As hard as I try, I know that I get sucked into the reality of human life today and I am blinded to the truth that He is still here in the word and in the flesh, revealed in the breaking of the bread. I sometimes talk of Jesus as though he were a character from a book, or more intimately as a loved one who has passed away, but in doing so I fail to internalize the reality that he is still with us in The Eucharist.   He is beside me now on this road and he hears every prayer of my heart.

How can we recognize God in the day to day? The answer is intentionality. In my life finding God in the day to day translates into study, community, and service. They are three points on a triangle, three legs of a stool. I need all three in my life.

Study. I can study the word and delve into the lives of the saints who knew God through a deep intimacy. I can allow myself to be lead through scripture daily by my Blessedis She sisters or others who have a gift in this area. I tune into workshops online. I carve out prayer time each morning and visit him in Adoration as often as I can. This is how I get to know my Beloved.

Community. The men on the road to Emmaus were not traveling solo –they were together. Jesus ministered to His disciples in a group, not just one-on-one. We are called to walk to road in community with our brothers and sisters in Christ. My sisters in Christ challenge my assumptions and my biases, they support me when life gets overwhelming, and they call me to be a better version of me. Who are your spiritual sisters walking on the road beside you?

Service. The actions of our bodies, how we spend our time, and how we serve those in our lives all provide evidence of the depth of our Love for God. A common phrase around my house is “you might as well choose to serve with a joyful heart because you are going to do the work anyway”. We should strive to serve with a joyful heart, happy to be offering a sacrifice of the self for God.

Jesus' followers prayed and served in community. When we nurture each aspect of our spiritual life, study, community, and service, we are able to grow more wholly.

Do you have a tendency to get caught up in the daily drama and miss the miracles around you? How do you find His very real presence before you? How can you feed your soul today? What resources do you have to help you to better understand your faith? What physical action can you take today to serve God in love?

The Slippery Slope of Spirituality

Photo Source

If you aren't moving forward spiritually you are slipping back.  

This was a statement, a reality, a truth, that I came upon during my RCIA classes. It may have been in a book, or it may have come from a speaker.  But I loved the quote because it highlights the danger of being luke-warm in our faith- we show up to church usually and check the attendance box.  Gone to church? Yup. I am done for the week. I am a good Christian.

We all think we are more pious than we really are.  Closer reflection and prayer leads us to a more accurate assessment - reality.

For instance, I am a far cry from my monthly confession goal.  I like to think of myself putting my faith first, but there is a concrete example of me NOT doing that.  And facts are facts.

Our need to have an accurate understanding of our own spiritual life is even more important when we are raising children.

If we don't set the prime example, if we skip mass, if we don't take them to their catechesis classes or have them involved in ministry or service work, what baseline are we setting for them? Our hearts pull us closer to the church and we make excuses- no confession this week because we have that birthday party and the soccer game and there just isn't time.

The kids don't ever see the pull, the evaluation, the careful mental negotiation- all they see is the end result (confession, mass, volunteering, or birthday parties and soccer games). Of course we want to let them go to birthday parties, but sometime we need to say no and choose something that is better for them. We need to ask "what do they gain from this experience?", and "Is it worth all the running around to achieve that goal?".

Stuff is going to slide- so what do you want to be the "stuff" that slides?

As parents we have to establish the baseline - then add to that. For our family, baseline is mass on Sundays, boy involved in one ministry each (liturgical reading, altar serving), and my husband and I are each in a small group, and we adopt-a-family each Christmas. We can't do any less than that, but we can add to it...so in comes daily mass when we can, journaling, Jesse Tree during advent most years, praying the rosary occasionally, frequent confession. For many, our extras are their baseline- and that is okay. We do what we can, when we can. Maybe someday I can get to that point too. But having outlined things that are "essential and non negotiable" gives me a solid footing to build upon as we try to grow in Christ as a family.

So I ask you, what is your baseline? What are you reaching towards? What is helping you grow closer to Christ and how are you helping your children to grow closer to Him as well? Because after all if you aren't helping them move forward spiritually you are holding them back.

Thanks for stopping by!

How to Survive the Seasons of Motherhood: Redefining Your Normal

When my firstborn was about 6 weeks old, I sat at my kitchen table and sobbed.  I was on the phone with a friend who had two older kids.  She had just told me I wouldn't ever sleep again.  I was ToTheBoneTired, and maybe without thinking I had asked "but how much longer before I get some sleep?".  I was really glad she was so honest with me though because it helped me realize something.

I had to stop trying to reclaim my past life and instead I needed to redefine my normal. 

I thought I had hit my groove a few years ago. With each child I had adapted and been able to keep up well enough.  I was mothering three little-ish ones, was able to make dinner most nights, founded/ran a pretty decent mothers group at our parish (read more here). I was in a neighborhood bunko group, had a cool book club, went to MOPS, and managed to work in a date night as frequently as we could find a babysitter. I didn't know it at the time, but I had it really good. I was able to duck away about one night a week for 'me time', get to the gym regularly during the day for a little break and shower, and even have a regular lunch with friends (and our kids) on occasion. 

I mistakenly assumed that this was what motherhood was going to be like forever.  The advent of our little Anna changed everything, but honestly it would have changed even if I hadn't had her.  I had just turned over leadership of my mom's ministry and helped create a new ministry for women at our parish. My new baby showed me I really could only have 'one baby' so I backed out leadership there too.  My bunco group conflicted with the boys sports, my book club just wasn't worth all the hassle.  Lunches out became too much of a struggle with a gaggle of kiddos and the expense of feeding two growing boys made it extravagant even when they were well behaved. 

The Awesome Nellie from WhoaNellie Photography took this photo. 

Check out more of her work by clicking here. 

So I have to redefine normal again. Normal is no longer taking care of the family and filling the spare time with stuff that I love doing.  It is no longer taking a shower every day or grabbing lunch with a friend.  


It is school projects and soccer/dance/gymnastics/piano, homework and groceries. And laundry laundry laundry. I have become a TwoCart Costco shopper and nothing that is easy before seems easy anymore.  

It is as if my 24 hour day has been slowly shorted.  Just a few minutes each day.  Like my LifeClock is fast and I always think I have more time, but each day I have just a little less.

So I sleep less, I wash my hair less, I shop less (unless it is for food or done online), I make more lists, I exercise when I can (usually with children or dog in tow), and it takes me forever to finish a book. I find ways to volunteer that are short-term, low risk, and low stress, and most importantly done as a team with people I love. I write when I can and try not to stress about the weeks that have gone by since my last blog post. 

The Awesome Nellie from WhoaNellie Photography took this photo. 

Check out more of her work by clicking here. 

My challenge at this stage is recognize that this too is a stage, and find the beauty in the chaos. My time of having one child in Jr.High, one in Preschool, and two in between will be short.  Even though we aren't able to have more kids (more about that here), I recognize that I will need to stay open and maybe even embrace the changes that come with family life. Six years from now (God willing) I will only have 3 kids to tuck in at night.  It is a scary thought but at the same time comforting, because I know that there is no way I can maintain this pace for more than a few years. But I don't have too, because it is just a season. 

Whatever your season in Motherhood, embrace it sister. Don't stress about it. Realize it is the normal for this time, today and tomorrow, but your normal will evolve into something new.  Embrace the challenge and know that you will grow into the newness. The newness brings opportunity to grow, to grow in Faith, to grow in virtue, ultimately to grow in Motherhood. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Entering into Lent

My Advent was a total fail.

Seriously.

I think we lit the candles on the Advent Wreath most nights simply because my children have pyromaniatic tendencies, but other than that it was a mess.

I had my surgery (explained here) three days into Advent so I know I have an excuse.  I don't feel particularly guilty about how Advent went, but I am energized now to really embrace Lent. I don't think I have ever been excited about fasting, prayer, and almsgiving.  The post surgery recovery has been filled with 'rest time', eating, drinking sugary coffee drinks, eating more, and binge watching Netflix. I am ready to snap my physical and spiritual world back into shape, but I really don't want to go too crazy with my aspirations and lead with another seasonal fail.

My plan is pretty simple.

Prayer.  

In the morning before I brush my teeth. Even if it is a short and sweet prayer - just something.  I love my Blessed is She devotionals.  They come to my email like magic in the middle of the night so they are often the first thing I look at when I turn on my phone in the morning. They give me the days reading and a short reflection with some question or two to ponder through the day. I am really going to work to make this a serious habit and not just a usual thing. I am also going to the Beauty for Ashes Retreat (signup here!).  It will be wonderful!

Almsgiving.  

I need to do some more serious purging of my home.  Not just getting rid of clutter, but really determining what I do/do not need, and getting rid of nice things that I do not need.  I have a tendency to hold on to things because I like them and only getting rid of stuff that I don't like.  I am going to try to focus on giving away some good stuff that is just excess.

Fasting.  

In the past I have looked for loop holes - pregnant & nursing or illness - anything that would let me get out of fasting guilt free.  Is that horrible to admit? I really don't like fasting but oh my body needs it.  It is crazy to think that the church in all her wisdom knew of the importance for our bodies to spend some time being cleansed of the excesses of life!  So I am actually (gasp) looking forward to fasting on Fridays (and the obligatory Ash Wednesday & Good Friday too).  I am going to try to focus on more simple meals too this 40 days. A dear friend told me wisely that even Cambells Soup for dinner can be an expression of Love - it is better to do it simple & lovingly than extravagantly with tears.

Family Life.

As a family we need to find something charitable to do as well so I am looking into those local options.  We keep a kindness and sacrifice jar on the table during Lent as well and each child makes some personal commitments as to how they want to live their time during Lent.  "Not Yelling" is typically something that makes everyones list.  We trace our hands and then write our commitments on those hands.  They all go up on a paper cross I put up in our hallway.  We then have a visual reminder all 40 days that we are each striving to live out certain commitments. Keeping the focus for the whole 40 days is hard for adults and kids too.  I have some other ideas on what to do in my post from last year (read here).

This year in addition to the handprints and jar,we are going to have a little pre-Lent family talk about virtue and sin.  I was listening to a conversation this week on Catholic Radio's Fighting the Good Fight with Barbara McGuigan.  Her guest (whose name eludes me & I couldn't trace) was discussing the relationship between sin and virtue and brining forth the ideas of St Thomas Aquinas among others.  I loved the way he presented the virtues as a way of battling sin.  He discussed our tendency towards certain evils (maybe pride or anger) and the complement virtue that we can strive for to combat the specific sin.  St. Thomas Aquinas points out that our sins are often hidden from us and therefore made difficult for us to eradicate.  Striving for a virtuous life, rather than focusing on rooting out sin, can therefore act a as a backdoor to combat those specific tendencies we want to reduce or eliminate.

Villainous Vegas Vacation

I recently spent a long weekend in Las Vegas, on The Strip, with my 12 year-old son.  This was not my first (or second or third) choice of venue, but we were traveling with his team for a soccer tournament.  After Facebooking (can I make that a verb?) my awesome Blessed is She sisters in the Southwest Region, I had enough tips for the trip to feel adequately equipped to deal with our trip to Sin City.  Las Vegas is a beautiful place surrounded by snow tipped mountains and blue sky.  The Strip was less beautiful and provided the backdrop for a lesson on the various dangers of gambling, lust, greed, gluttony and general hedonism. Places like Las Vegas prey on the weak.  They provide the invitation to sin, not just normalizing but encouraging immoral behavior.  Think of their slogan “What happens in Vegas stay is Vegas” - it is a statement of permission that normal rules (and morality) should be suspended. Although surroundings can encourage and facilitate sinful behavior, the evil driving our own sin comes from within each of us. 

In the book of Mark (7:23), Jesus instructs us that evil comes from within, not from outside.  

“But what comes out of the man, that is what defiles him.

From within the man, from his heart,

come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder,

adultery, greed, malice, deceit,

licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.

All these evils come from within and they defile.”

Places and situations are not responsible for our sins – WE are. WE make the choices to engage in the sinful behavior that is harmful to our souls.  If we can accept that we are personally responsible for the choices we make, and that the evil comes from within, not outside, then we are intellectually and emotionally better equip for battling that evil. 

Surrounding ourselves with people and situations that will help us in our battles against sin is helpful and prudent, but it is not the only way to deal with the evil within.

Loosing my Fertility and Looking Beyond Babies

A few months back I wrote a post (here) about fertility and the possibility that I may be loosing mine. It was mostly a rambling post to process the possibility that I may be done with my childbearing years.  Today I am re-reading that post and ministering to myself as I come to terms with that possibility being a reality.  Turns out the specialist I saw has found the sources (three!) of my problems and they are all able to be remedied by a hysterectomy and some other surgical stuff at that same time.

The hysterectomy is the big think though - that is where they remove your uterus.  Your womb.  The home were my 5 babies grew and one baby's heart stopped beating. Ugh.

They are going to take the uterus and leave the ovaries so that I will hormonally still be mostly the same, I just obviously won't have a menstrual cycle or the possibility of having kids naturally.  I will still go through menopause (and get those lovely hot flashes) at the normal time, but I won't obviously loose any cycle then because I am loosing it with the surgery.

Cognitively... I am okay with all this.  I have four beautiful children to wake up to every morning. I have had 5 pregnancies and 4 C-sections. I have a medical solution to my pain and soon I will be pain free and able to really live again like a healthy person. It will mean 2-5 nights in the hospital and 4-6 weeks to heal so that isn't so bad.

Emotionally I am still not OK.  Not at all.  I keep asking myself why do I have such a heavy heart?

Emotionally I am filled with such sadness. The slow down in my blogging is a reflection of the darkness that is settling over me. I just don't want to do anything anymore. I want to escape. I don't want to think about it and I don't want to write about it. I really just want to sit in my room with a good book and forget about everything around me.  Cheerful right? This blog post itself has taken over a month to write.

Accepting the reality that I won't have any more kids is a shock to my system and I can't help but think of those women who DON'T have a full house already.  So first and foremost I am sad for others.  Just having a little glimmer of what it must be like, makes my heart feel like it is breaking - not for me but for them.  I can't possibly know what that feels like to have empty arms and to know that your body isn't working in accordance with your will.  I feel a bit betrayed by my body and really, in all honesty, that uterus has served me very well.  It was quite irritable during pregnancies but it didn't fail me.

There is a larger part for me however, that sees my sadness is tied up with a sort of confusion.  As a Catholic woman being open to life is part of who I am.  Even though my husband and I weren't planning on more kids, we certainly weren't closing any doors if you know what I mean.  We have had our own struggles with NFP (which I wrote about here), but have generally embraced it since my conversion. For us, "being open to life" has always been inextricably linked to having kids and practicing NFP. And now it isn't.

The Happiest Parents Have A lot of Kids!

Or at least that is what the popular press is reporting.  I was shocked that they were covering it at all, but not so surprised that they got the results just a little wrong.

As a mother of four, I was thrilled to hear about Dr. Harman's findings out of Australia's Edith Cowan University. Often when the news reports research in my field, I go straight to the source and have a little chat with the study author. It is a perk of having the letters P H and D after my name. Dr. Harman sent me copy of the actual study summary and we went back a forth a few times about the research.  Although she said the results being reported are a little misleading, it appears as though we do have evidence that of "the more the merrier" really is mostly true but maybe not in the way you think.

Dr. Harman conducted a 5 year research study with the goal to explore the relationship between resilience, social support, self-esteem and life-satisfaction in parents, (source). Dr. Harman found that mothers of four or more children were the happiest group of the various family types. She did not however find that mothers of four or more were happier than mothers of say two children, or less happy than mothers with eight kids, because she didn't compare family size, but rather family type.  Dr Harman writes in her summary discussion

Overall, mothers of large families with higher self esteem were more likely to report greater life satisfaction. One interpretation of these results is that mothers of large families feel supported (older children helping younger children, for example), but may lose their sense of self.

Dr. Harman said that mothers of larger families overall had higher self-esteem.  They basically feel like they are doing a pretty good job and are well supported. They also were more likely to report greater life satisfaction. She speculated that they may loose their sense of self in the process - she didn't measure that quantitatively, but collected some qualitative data that directed her to that conclusion. But that loss of self is still associated with greater life satisfaction so maybe we shouldn't fret so much about having to drive the dreaded mini-van (for more on that click here).

The next great question is of course

"Why do lots of kids correlate with greater life satisfaction?"

Dr. Harman was sited in The Sydney Herald in August (2015) as stating "The parents usually say they always wanted a large family, it was planned that way, and it was a lifestyle they'd chosen".  So are these parents who choose this lifestyle just a different 'type' of people?

Yes, actually. That seems to be at the crux of this study comparing family types.

As a mother of four myself, and friend to many mothers of four or more children, I can say as a lay person that parents like those in the study who have been purposeful in having a larger family are likely couples who have chosen to take an optimistic and hopeful approach to parenting. I am not speaking of research here, but rather experience when I say that these types of parents tend to able to embrace the beauty and joy of parenthood and delight in their little ones. When discerning whether or not my husband and I felt our family was "full" with just the three, my mother pointed to my (then) 2, 5 and 7 year olds and said she could think of 3 reasons why we should have more kids... Gracie, JR, and Anthony.

Parents who choose large families, don't let fear prevent them from loving another child.  They love with reckless abandonment and choose to leave a family legacy not of human 'replacement' or social reproduction, but of human expansion.  

I recently got caught up reading about the War of the Roses in England.  Truth be told, I was reading historical fiction (not real history), but one thing that struck me in the novels was the love and appreciation that people used to have for large families. Large families were the ideal and each child was embraced as a blessing. There are many social reasons for this of course, but I found such comfort in that attitude which permeated the (then) Catholic society, whereas I find the current cultural (secular) attitude to be isolating. In present American society, the stereotype is that couples with many off-spring either don't know how babies are made, or they are too ignorant to stop it, or they are socially and financially irresponsible. A couple couldn't possible want more than just a few of these little people, right? Children are not seen as a gift, or a blessing, or something to cherish. They are approached as one more thing on a checklist of lifetime achievements and something to accept in moderation.

College (check), job (check), spouse (check), house (check), 

kid one (check), kid two (check), vasectomy (check).

Large families are more chaotic, but that chaos doesn't descend overnight. We grow into the noise and the chaos. We start with one (or maybe more) at a time and slowly re-adjust our family life, then we add another and re-adjust, and then make room for another, and another. Good parenting is about adjusting and shifting as our children grow and mature.  In our adjusting and shifting we too grow.  Growth is constant when you have a larger family and living a little off balanced allows us to turn to one another and to God with great regularity, often resulting in a closer knit family.

Large families require both parents to be completely committed to the family. In order for large families to really function you have to have both parents really involved. Although the division of responsibility can still be fairly traditional in many of these families, large families require that dads participate in the daily raising of the kids, even if that role is as mom's cheerleader. All of the children learn how to pitch in and help out, because just one person can not possibly do it all.

This study is great evidence of something that those of us with large families have known all along. Having large families is great for our mental and spiritual health. Yes it is messy. Yes it is crazy. Yes, it is hard. Yes, we have to loose ourselves in the service of others, but all parenting is messy and crazy and hard. There is no shame in loosing a little of ourselves to make room for more love. The love that we share in a family grows exponentially with each child we welcome into our home. And with love comes happiness.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this. There is so much to say on the topic and space here was limited.  I hope this research sparks conversation and as always, thanks for stopping by!

For more on raising multiple kids check out this post (click here).