Prayers Needed for These Priests!

Tom and I received a text earlier today from our friends in Phoenix - two priests from their church were both seriously injured last night during a break-in to the church.  One of them, Fr. Walker - only 28 years old, died in the hospital.  The other, Fr. Terra (whom we met, a good and holy priest) is in critical condition. Police have not caught the criminal(s).

with Fr. Terra last November

Please keep the priests, their families, and their parishioners in your prayers.

To read more:
Fox News
CNN
Rorate Caeli (has some good biographical information about them)


Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.  Amen.. Amen. 

New Perspectives on NFP

I finally got around to reading Simcha's book The Sinner's Guide to Natural Family Planning.

I avoid ever paying full price for a book (I know, I know - it's good to support the author.  But it's also hard to fit in our budget.), and I didn't expect this one to show up in our library anytime soon.  I hoped to borrow it from a friend, but they were all reading Kindle versions (darn that new technology!).  I finally buckled down and bought it on Amazon (it's selling for a really reasonable price, so if you're still curious about it, buy it!) because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

I have to admit, I expected to hate it. Maybe I even wanted to hate it.  Despite all the reviews claiming that Simcha finally spoke the truth about the challenges of NFP instead of rhapsodizing about what a magical beautiful thing it is, I suspected that she must still be secretly "propagandizing" NFP - something I believe to be a legitimate, but often over-rated practice.

I was pleased to discover that this wasn't true.  She spoke a lot of sense in this book, and shared a great deal of wisdom - gained over the years of her marriage.  More than a guide about dealing with the challenges of NFP, I would say that this is a guide to how we fallen humans can live out a Christ-centered marriage.  Even though my husband and I are not using - and never have *really* used - NFP, there was still a lot for me to learn here.

It's an age-old truth, but something which has continually impressed me is the fact that with age and experience often comes wisdom.  Recently, I've gained a bit of understanding on something about NFP that used to baffle me.

I've shared some of my thoughts on NFP before (see here and here), so you might know that I'm pretty down on the way it is is commonly "sold" by Catholics.  I think people want so badly to provide an appealing alternative to contraception (which is always immoral) that they talk up NFP as being a positive thing, rather than the morally neutral tool that it is.  It's kind of like saying, "isn't it awesome that I got sick on Sunday and was dispensed from the obligation to attend Mass?!"  No, actually.  You may have been perfectly sinless in missing Mass, but it kinda sucks that you had to be sick, and I don't think it's anything to be thrilled about - even if it means you finally had a chance to pray five Rosaries.

At least some portion of my distaste for NFP came about because I just could not understand the motivations a lot of people had when deciding they needed to postpone another pregnancy.  Yeah - pregnancy and children are exhausting, but...who said life was supposed to be easy?  The primary purpose of marriage is procreation.  I suspected that NFP was often over-used by Catholics.  I tried very hard never to presume anything about particular people, but something always seemed "off" about the fact that pretty much every couple we heard about seemed to be using NFP to intentionally plan out each of their conceptions.  What ever happened to just accepting babies as they came - even when they came close?  Do you really need to jump right back into charting and postponing the second after you give birth?  Why do the midwives have to write down what sort of family planning I'm going to use at my 6-week post-partum checkup, and why won't they accept my answer when I tell them "none"?  I never understood the fear I sensed in other women over the thought of another pregnancy.

But then I gave birth to my third child.

When my first two kids were born - I mean the moment they were born - my very first emotions were this intense mixture of relief and "joy that a man has been born into this world" (Jn 16:21).  But when my sweet little Linus came out, I just felt numb.  Joyless.  Tom was weeping in happiness, our doula was praising my hard work and smiling at the beautiful baby we helped create, the nurses were all fussing over him.  And there was me just lying there, staring straight ahead.  Stiff with dread.  All I could think was "how many more times?  How many more times do I have to go through pregnancy?  Through labor and childbirth?  I don't want to do this for the next fifteen years straight.  I would like to never have to go through this again."

I'm not saying any of these thoughts were entirely rational.  And they weren't very holy.  But they were very human.

Even after we brought him home, my transition to caring for three kids - as I've mentioned before - was not easy.  It was NOT EASY.  For me to even admit this means it was a significant hardship for me. I am a person who is usually able to deal with stresses and challenges fairly well - I may get frazzled, but I never feel defeated.  But there were days this time around when I was not sure I could handle it.  When I felt like I was drowning.  I felt like I kept putting out feeble "calls for help", yet no one understood or listened.  Everyone expected me to be strong like always, and adjust to the new baby as easily as I had with the first two.  No one realized that I needed to be taken care of.

This expression of despair captures about how I felt

Tom and I have said from the beginning that we wanted a "big family" (whatever that means.  We don't have an ideal number - we're just thankful for what we get).  And we still do.  So it was hard for me for the longest time to understand why people could feel the need to postpone another baby unless there was some major major crisis in their life.  Why waste those fertile years?  Why go through the struggle and the hardship of trying to abstain and figure out God's plan each month, when you could just live out your married life naturally and let the babies come as they would?  Our grandmothers didn't have NFP to fall back on, and they had huge families, and seemed to be happy enough....

But I had begun to notice a trend on comment boards and internet forums.  In many cases, the people who were either the most critical about the use of NFP or the most fanatically impressed with it were rather young - with maybe one or two kids.  The ones who had the more measured and reasoned perspective on it were those who were older and often had many children: People who had endured the exhaustion and wear-and-tear of many pregnancies, but also felt pleasure and relief as their kids grew old enough to help and began to blossom into unique and wonderful people.  People who knew the anxiety and despair of an unintended pregnancy, yet had also found that those unplanned children were one of their life's greatest blessings.

I was talking to Tom only a few weeks before Linus was born about how I wouldn't be surprised if my perspective on welcoming new children continually changed as our family grew.  I realized that we could conceivably hit a point where we just felt too overwhelmed and as if we could use a break between pregnancies.  And now for the first time, I've had a taste of what that emotion is even like.

So I think I've gained some perspective now.  Every family and every person is different, and sometimes people really feel that they could use a "breather" between the babies in order to be a better parent.  (and I'm sure there are any number of other legitimate reasons for postponing a pregnancy, which I'm not mentioning now).  Most people wouldn't go through the struggle of practicing NFP unless they believed they had a legitimate reason.  Perhaps if they're honest with themselves, not all of those people do have legitimate reasons.  But maybe those reasons don't have to be as dire as I once thought.  If things hadn't settled down significantly for me this time around, maybe I'd be considering joining the ranks of those many confused women attempting to make sense of their wacky post-partum fertility signs right now...

But I am dealing better with everything.  Though life is still very busy with all the projects we're doing around the house, I think the toughest portion of the transition to having three kids has passed, and we've found a new rhythm.  (And um, can I just brag right here for a minute about my amazingly easy third baby?  He goes to bed at 9pm, wakes up once at 6 am to nurse, then goes right back to sleep until 10am or so.  It must be God's special gift to me!)  

So here's about how I'm feeling now: At this point, if someone told me "you are going to be handed a new baby in nine months", I'd say, "ok - things might be a little crazy, but I'm game."  But if someone told me, "starting today, you will have to suffer through another nine months of pregnancy, and then endure the travails of childbirth, and then have another child to take care of, making you the mother of four under five", I'd maybe flip out a little.  I really....don't like being pregnant (Tom is encouraging me to remove the word "hate" from my vocabulary).  But I do love new babies :-)

I still don't want to use NFP, and I still think it's important to think of it as something that is definitely less than the ideal.  But it's presumptuous to assume we will never have a reason to consider postponing a pregnancy.  Who knows what the future holds.  Who knows how my perspective will change as I gain experience and insights.  Seriously, I only have three kids now.  In my circles, that's a small family.  What do I really know yet about life and marriage and child-rearing?  Not much!  But I'm continually learning and growing.

Celebrating Pentecost/Our Kitchen Renovation

I am sorry if you clicked here looking for some fun ideas from me about how to observe Pentecost, a.k.a. the day the Holy Spirit came down to the Apostles and Mary, a.k.a. "the birthday of the Church" with your kids.  Because I've got nothing right now!

I have had kind of a crazy week.  Our car has been out of commission for days, forcing me to reschedule most of this week's original plans; we had a family funeral [my uncle passed away over the weekend, prayers for his soul are appreciated] and its various events to find rides to every day; and I've had a guy working on a kitchen renovation for me (yay!!) all week, forcing us to be very "creative" (read: spartan) with our meals as I don't even have access to the kitchen for most of the day.  And we've been out of milk for three days now, which might not seem like a big deal, but to my kids it kind of feels like the end of the world.  

And because I'm a bad Catholic and pretty much haven't attempted daily Mass since I had my second kid, I needed Facebook to remind me that Pentecost is tomorrow*.

So I am looking to you, my kind readers, for any doable last-minute ideas that I could pull off to help the kids - or at least Sly, who is almost four - grasp a bit of what Pentecost is all about.  We can't make it to Mass, since the church-across-the-street that I can actually walk to has it at the same time I need to be home for something tomorrow.  And it can't involve food, unless it's something that needs no cooking.

Maybe some sort of craft involving a "tongue of fire" or a dove?  Actually the dove might be a bad idea, because I think I've finally convinced Sly that the Holy Spirit is not really a dove, but just like a dove, and I don't want to confuse him all over again :-)

Thanks in advance to anyone who shares an idea!

Every now and then, I actually remember to take a few photos of this little cutie.  I feel guilty, but that's just how it goes when you're the third child, and the least demanding one of the bunch.

***

Kitchen Renovation!

Our compromise when we decided to go ahead and put an offer on our house was that we would make some changes to the kitchen so it would become more useable for me.  I had nixed many a house over the months of torturing our realtor house shopping, due mostly to their tiny and unworkable kitchens.  A kitchen is the most important room in the house for me, since I spend so much of the day there, cooking or cleaning (can.not. wait until the kids are old enough to help more with these things).

To show you what I'm currently working with, this here is the entirety of my counter space.

I can barely even fit a cutting board there.  I constantly have to walk back and forth across the room to the stovetop or the trash can while I'm cooking, because my little food prep area is separated from them.  Also, our kitchen has four doorways entering into it, which makes it really hard to fit much else in the room.

We came up with a few things that will help, though - some new cabinets, an extended countertop, and a nice big single-bowl sink are going in.  Our tiny kitchen is soon going to double in cabinet- and counter-space, yet still be "below average" size for both.  We won't be getting a dishwasher, a pretty modern oven, an island, taller cabinets, or many of those other items I could list for my "dream kitchen."  We will barely even have any wall space left for decorations.  But I'm excited!

And so are the kids!

  ***

Oh, also! I recently got to meet Amelia, whose very enjoyable blog I've eagerly followed for a while now, knowing full well that she was the sister of a good friend from college, yet being too awkward to actually tell her that I knew her brother....anyways, I finally got the guts to send her an e-mail informing her that I intended to say "hi" to her at his wedding which we were both attending (thus giving myself no chance to continue being awkward and just dodge her the whole time), and we finally got the meet in real life :-)  She's the second person who I've met after first getting to know through a blog.  It was again an enjoyable yet surreal experience.


*No, Pentecost is on Sunday - I was just being careless before.  See comment below :-) At least it gives me a little more time to prepare!

The House, the Kids

Things have been busy around here.  Taking care of the kids is taking up a lot of my time...we still haven't quite hit our groove after the newest addition.  And any spare moment I get is spent working on some sort of "project" in our new house, or running out for yet another trip to a "home improvement store" for supplies.  Tom's been pointing out that we keep starting new projects without actually finishing all the "open" ones.  I realized that he's right, because lo and behold, I don't have any completed project pictures to show on here yet!  Soon, hopefully :-)

Here's one sneak peek, though.

 The off-white/green combo is the "before" and the white/teal is the "after"...

***

I set up a sandbox in the backyard for the kids.  Well technically, I set up the empty box, and my husband handled the sand.  I could not lift those 50 pound bags!  We've been lugging this dang thing from house to house since Sly was a baby - my mom gave it to him as a gift when he was much too young for it.  And then we didn't have a yard for a long time.  It's good to finally get some use out of it. 

The first time the kids played in it was while Tom was watching them on his own.  I went out with friends one evening, and suggested playing in the sandbox as a fun activity for them while I was away.  I got a text from Tom a little later saying, "this sandbox sucks.  There's sand everywhere!!".  Teehee. 

The kids enjoy it, but I'm not sure how long it will last.  We already forgot to put the lid on one day, and now it's filled with pine needles and rain water...

***

We attended a friend's wedding last weekend.  It was a Ukrainian Catholic wedding, and by far the most beautiful wedding I've ever attended.  And that's including my own, which was the traditional Mass, and also quite beautiful!  The prayers, rituals, and symbolism were so edifying.  During the ceremony, the bride and groom are each crowned by the priest.  As my friend's program explained:

The bride and groom are crowned as "king and queen" of their own home, a new Christian kingdom, which they will guide with wisdom and love as an extension of the Kingdom of God.

The crowns also recall the victorious crown of martyrdom, since every true marriage involves self-sacrifice from each spouse.  The word martyr means 'witness,' and the couple will bear witness to Christ's presence in their lives, which requires both to die to themselves and to give their own lives for the other.

What a powerful symbol!  It definitely inspired me to commit myself more strongly to my own wedding vows.

***

This little man has been growing like crazy.  He's my biggest baby by far, hitting the 97th percentile for length, and almost as high for weight!  At seven weeks old, he started wearing six-month clothes, and I would not be surprised if he's up to the next size soon. 

It's actually kind of nice, because it means Sly's hand-me-downs might actually be the right sizes for the right seasons now.

***

And my Stella is turning into quite a troublesome toddler.  Her obsession with toothbrushes (which is really gross, because she carries and uses everyone's toothbrushes all over the house) is finally being re-directed.  But now she's become interested in my makeup.

First she found my eye liner, and decided to put some on herself.  She watches me very intently every time I'm applying makeup - and actually hands me the next item, in the proper order.  I don't usually wear eye liner, but when I was dressing up a bit for the aforementioned evening out, she was watching in fascination as I applied it.  So a little later when she sneaked into my makeup and grabbed my eye liner, she knew exactly what to do with it.  Kind of.

Then I caught her applying some very expensive concealer to one of her dolls.

  I think it's time to move my makeup to a safer place!

***

By the way, if you're wondering why I'm willing to spend a lot of money on concealer, let me show you this.

This is me at age four (with a terrible haircut, so try not to linger on that).  My eyes already had noticeable dark circles then.  Age and motherhood have not made that problem any better, I assure you.


 

***

Yesterday, I was reading through some old e-mails from my mom's sister.  She's the person in the family who is interested in our genealogy, and keeps all the photos and records (every family has one of those, right?).  She had sent a photo of my grandmother as a young woman along with her siblings and parents.  This picture was taken right after they'd received the news that her brother had been killed in the war (WWII).

my grandmother is on the far left

Look how stricken everyone is.  I thought it was fitting that I found this on Memorial Day.  It's so easy to think of it as just a fun day to have a cookout, but sometimes it's good to be reminded of what it's really about.

A Lover-ly Motherly Day // Answer Me This

My husband and the kids all worked hard to make yesterday a very special Mothers Day, and I enjoyed many little luxuries.  I would have been happy with just a handmade card by the kids, but I think I got spoiled this year.

In the morning, Tom let me sleep in, and took the older two kids down to the kitchen make me breakfast in bed (I'd said just toast and coffee would be fine).  It was nice to get a little more sleep, though it was interrupted several times by tantrums happening in the kitchen.  First, Sly started bawling because Daddy make the unforgivable mistake of putting the bread into the toaster himself.  Then Stella had a fit because she didn't want to leave her own breakfast for a minute to help bring my food upstairs.

I enjoyed a peaceful - but somewhat lonely, I have to say - breakfast on my own.  Then I was able to get a shower with no kids in the bathroom the whole time!  As I was heading to get dressed, Tom had a present for me: a weather forecast station.  Every morning, I ask him to check his phone's weather app to tell me what the temperature is, so I know how to dress for the day, and I've often said that one feature was the only reason I kinda want a smartphone.  But now I have this little gadget instead, and I think it will be useful.

And then what was perhaps the best gift of all:  As Stella brought me my toothbrush (which she'd just finished brushing her own teeth with.  Ugh.  She has an obsession with toothbrushes right now), I'm pretty sure she said "Mama" for the first time!  Yep, at the ripe old age of 21 months.  She already graduated from the babyish "Dada" to calling Tom "Daddy" months and months ago.  She also says the names of both her brothers, three of her grandparents, at least one uncle, and various animals.  But not "Mommy"!!  Perhaps I was just hearing what I wanted to hear at that moment...but it still made my day.

At Mass, there were carnations for mothers.  As we were leaving, I saw there were a lot left, so I grabbed two more.  I figure I'm entitled to one for each child, right? :-)

We had been toying with the idea of going on a picnic for lunch, as we've done in past years.  But by the time we got home from Mass, it was just too late to throw that together.  We needed to take our family photo and put people down for naps instead.

squinting from the sun

I ended up with a rare opportunity to go alone - well, Linus came too, but he's still no trouble, so he barely counts - to JoAnn Fabrics to hunt for the perfect fabric for Sly's future curtains...unfortunately, with no luck.  It was still so nice to be able to leisurely browse the store without all the kids along.

Wanting to give me the day off cooking, Tom decided we should walk down to a little local restaurant in our new neighborhood for dinner.  It was nothing fancy, but it was a tasty burger-and-beer joint, which is probably my favorite sort of restaurant anyways.

Stella's is the grease-stained card....she was eating buttered toast!

And when we got home, there were more presents.  First two sweet homemade cards from the kids.  In Sly's, he wrote out all the letters of "Mommy" and "Sly" by himself.  Not exactly in the right order, but by himself, which was pretty exciting.  I also got some very pretty jewelry (which Tom swears he bought on clearance right after Christmas, and says not to worry about the cost) and a handy stay-cool towel thingy.  I suppose to help me get through another non-air-conditioned summer.  We'd seen one of these years ago, and been impressed with how cold it stays.  Now I'm just wishing I'd had it during my latest birth - it would have been soooo nice.  So take note, any women who are expecting babies!

It strikes me as a little funny that some of the ways my family celebrated "mothers day" were by letting me take a break from my usual motherhood duties (such as cooking meals or...putting up with kids breaking into the peace of my morning shower!).  But sometimes those little breaks can be so nice, and - more quickly than you'd ever expect - make you miss being surrounded by your demanding yet sweet little people.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Joining this week's Answer Me This

What's for dinner?

Chicken pot pie, kindly brought to me by one of my friends in my Catholic moms group.

What's the last thing you borrowed from someone?
The Story of a Family about the childhood home of St. Therese.  I enjoyed it, because I always love to learn more about this wonderful Saint.  But I feel that it could be improved by a better translation from the French.  Some parts read a little awkwardly.  And the author assumes a Frenchman's knowledge of the country and customs, which I do not have.

What is your favorite prayer?
The Divine Praises are an awesome prayer for reparation of blasphemy.  I especially love the last line: "May the heart of Jesus, in the Most Blessed Sacrament, be praised, adored, and loved with grateful affection, at every moment, in all the tabernacles of the world, even to the end of time."

What is the oldest thing in your house?

I had to consult with Tom on this, but didn't get a very satisfying answer.  We have a handful of books from the 1800s...but I'm not sure of the exact dates.

What's the best concert you ever attended?
This is a tough one!  I haven't been to a concert in a while, but P.C. (pre-children), I went to some good ones.

Andrew Bird is one of the greatest live performers ever.  I've seen him four times.  He's almost a one-man show.  He plays guitar and violin, sings and whistles.  He uses a loop station to accompany himself and create these incredible layers of sound.  The first time I went to one of his shows, he was just in a tiny venue (actually, the very lecture hall in which I was taking an architecture course at my college), and was up on the stage packing up his stuff afterwards.  I wanted to go talk to him, but chickened out.  When he came back to Pittsburgh that summer, I went to the show, and swore to myself that I would talk to him afterwards.  And I did!

I'm making him uncomfortable

Other close contenders are The Decemberists (the Hazards of Love tour) and The Moody Blues (who I never expected to get to see live, since they haven't really been popular since about 1969).

Do you have a nickname?
My immediate family calls me Chris (which I hate when anyone else says it, but they get a pass), and my extended family calls me Chrissy.  Everyone else calls me Christine (or Mommy).

Our Mothers Day Tradition

Mothers Day (or is it Mothers' Day?) is coming up this Sunday, so I thought I'd share one of the ways our family observes it each year.

When Sly was a baby, Tom told me about a nice tradition from his family.  His paternal grandparents had fourteen children (!).  Every year, the family all gathered out on the front porch, and had a photo taken.  Tom remembers visiting his grandparents' home as a young child, and seeing years' worth of those yearly family photos, all framed and lined up on the wall chronologically.  He talked about how neat it was to see the family grow and change each year.  We immediately decided that we should start up the same tradition ourselves.

We put our camera on the tripod, set the timer, and snapped our first photo right then.

2011

We realized that we'd have a better chance of remembering to take the picture each year if we associated it with a specific date.  Since Mother's Day had occurred a few days earlier, that became our official family photo day.

2012

2013

(These might look familiar to the five or so people who have been following this little blog since its inception, since these are all my past header images.)

I love that we're taking these pictures each year.  And I think there's something appealing to the "homemade" aspect of them - we don't have to worry about dressing up or hiring a professional photographer each year.  We just set up the tripod and go - come-as-you-are.  And having my family indulge me once a year and sit down for this photo (okay, I won't lie, we take about ten shots, and I choose the one I like best!) is truly one of the greatest Mothers Day gifts I can think of.

My only wish is that we had thought to start it our first year together, when it was just Tom and I.  That would really kick off the photo series well.  I may just print out a wedding photo in the same size, and add it at the beginning of the line. 

I'm so excited to see how this year's picture turns out.  We'll have a new front porch and a new addition to the family!  If anyone likes this idea, feel free to steal it and start the tradition in your own families.  It's never too late!  And I'd love to see how your picture turns out :-)

Answer Me This #1

I can't believe I haven't participated in any of Kendra's "Answer me This" posts yet!  Check them out at her blog.

Are you becoming your mother?
I don't think so really.  I was probably more like her when I still lived at home, because we shared various interests and past-times.  The one area I've definitely noticed myself becoming like her, though, isn't a good one: I totally hear my mom in my voice every time I get overwhelmed and yell at the kids.  But I still love my mom, so hopefully my own kids won't hold it against me too much!

Coffee or tea?
Definitely coffee.  It took until I was  eighteen to develop a taste for it, but it's just so much richer and more powerful (caffeine-wise) than tea. And I need that most days!  I do have to put cream and sugar in it, though.

While we're on the subject, though, I need to point out a pet peeve of mine.  I do drink the occasional cup of tea, but I like *real tea*.  You know, black tea.  Made with tea leaves.  And caffeine.  In the past few years, anytime a friend offers me a cup of tea and pulls out their extensive collection of tea choices, I almost never find black tea.  It's all green or other herbal varieties.  And most friends who come to my house are very disappointed when all I have to offer are various flavors and varieties of black tea.  I guess I should go pick up some herbal teas for guests, but I keep forgetting to do it.


What foreign country would you like to visit?
France, because I took French in high school and sorta remember some of the language, so I'd be able to get by a little better than in other non-English-speaking countries.  Also, in my study of the language, we learned a lot about the culture and history of the country, and I'd love to experience some of it in person.

 
Do you cry easily?
Umm...it depends on the time of the month ;-)

At times when I'm already stressed, I sometimes cry fairly easily when something else doesn't go my way.  I don't tend to be a sappy person - sad movies or stories don't usually produce tears.  But if I'm pregnant, I start crying over all sorts of ridiculous - not even sad at all - things.

Or anytime my kids ask me to read one of these books.


 
How often do you wear heels?
Pretty much never, to my husband's great disappointment. 

Since about eighth grade, I've had a hate-hate relationship with shoes.  Because that's the age when my feet reached their current size: 11.  It is very difficult to find shoes that big.  And when you do, they're either way too expensive, or look like clown shoes.  So I don't really have pretty shoes, just practical ones - ones purchased out of desperation, because they were the only pair at the store that fit me and were the right color.

Also, high heels just hurt so bad.  I'm tall enough already.  It's not worth it.

 
Do you play an instrument?
Not really.  I took lessons in piano and flute for four years each when I was younger.  But I'm no good at either of them.  Hopefully, our kids will go further in music than I did.