Slowing Down

I used to be semi-embarrassed by the first trimester fatigue and morning sickness. I felt like "real women" sucked on raw ginger, used acupuncture, up chucked in one of those airplane sickness bags discretely tucked in her purse--and kept moving on her same daily schedule pre-pregnancy.

This time around I'm sort of wallowing in my slowness. I'm scheduling time for each kid to come and cuddle with me in my bed and watch TV shows on Hulu together. I just finished watching Jennifer Lawrence's appearance on Saturday Night Live with my 8 year old son. This was his first experience with the show that is so perfectly formatted for an eight year old boy who loves acting and practical jokes.

Every season of life has its blessings. This season I'm playing a lot of tickling games with my younger girls because it lets me lay still on my bed. I'm taking long walks with my husband to help the nausea pass. The 10, 8 and 6 year old are stepping up more with household chores. I'm encouraging everyone to work more independently in their school work.

It's a grace to start to see the changes that early pregnancy bring my life as a blessing instead of a problem to be endured in the journey to having a new baby.

On the Bookshelf: Jim Gaffigan's "Dad Is Fat"

Jim Gaffigan is a comedian who has a comedy routine "Mr. Universe" available for downloading at a family friendly price of only $5. His older shows are available on Netflix and You Tube. My kids and I love him! One typical joke that my child who adores camping loves to quote is this:

"My wife likes to go camping. She says its a tradition in her family. It was a tradition in everyone's family before they invented houses!"

Gaffigan's book Dad is Fat is funny! Yet even more than his comedic monologues, this book is tender and sweet and real. Gaffigan and his wife are comedians/theater geeks raising 5 kids in a 2 bedroom apartment in New York City. In terms of being the Odd Family Out, the Gaffigan family of 7 face social judgments in the extreme. All this friction has produced a deep feeling of peace in Gaffigan's soul that is super reassuring for the rest of us Catholic laity.

Here is a quote I love that can so apply to my experience as a blogger.

 "Occasionally I receive comments that associate my musings with being anti-family or somehow dissuading people from having kids.... This could not be further from the truth. I love being a parent and enjoy finding the humor in parenting. If you complain about how you spend your Saturdays taking your kids to birthday parties, that means you are taking your kid to birthday parties. If you complain about how hard it is to get your kid to read, it means you are trying to get your kind to read. If you are complaining about your kid not helping around the house, that means you have a fat, lazy kid. You joke about it. That's how you deal. If parents don't like being a parent, they don't talk about being a parent. They are absent. And probably out having a great time somewhere... Failing and laughing at your own shortcomings are the hallmarks of a sane parent." (pg 24-25. bold type is my addition)

I'm so stealing that line as my defense against the mean thought police who patrol the Catholic blogosphere-- "Failing and laughing at your own shortcomings are the hallmarks of a sane parent." It's not my job to sell NFP or gain new recruits by painting a picture perfect world of Motherhood inside a large Catholic family. My job is to stay sane--which I define as staying connected to the God of Truth and Mercy. Failure and laughter are the signs of a sane parent!

Thank you Gaffigan for writing a great book about Fatherhood that I I swallowed whole in one sitting!

My First Happy Pregnancy!

(Because when are posts on this blog not weird and controversial?)

I found out I was pregnant last Friday. I took the kids to spend their weekly allowance at Target. We never hit the dollar section at Target anymore--so it took forever for three kids to make a final decision on their VIP purchases. I picked up a pregnancy test. I felt nervous about spending the $5.95 for two generic test, because I buy so many of them while my periods are all irregular during breastfeeding and they are never positive.

When I hustled all the children out of the van at home, Jon was home from work. I didn't even kiss him hello as usual. I told him "I bought a pregnancy test, I'm going to take it now." I took the test and it turned positive right away. Usually I have to wait the full three minutes and then I kind of look closely and try to see a faint plus sign. This time it turned positive right away.

I was so excited that I ran out of the room. All my family was gathered in the kitchen hanging on Jon who was cooking rice for dinner. I shouted "I'm pregnant!"

Hannah started screaming "We're having a baby! We're having a baby!" All the girls started jumping up and down and dancing in the kitchen. Even my only son had a faint smile on his lips. It was a picture post card moment.

The only odd part was that my husband didn't move. He kept calmly cooking dinner. I knew because I know him, that he wasn't unhappy about a new baby, so there must be so other reason that he wasn't reacting. I realized that he hadn't heard me--which is hilarious because three females around him are screaming 'We're having a baby."

So I went into the bathroom, picked up the pregnancy test, tapped him on the shoulder and handed it to him. The look on his face when he said "Does the plus sign mean you're pregnant?" was so priceless. Soon the rice was over-boiling while everyone jumped up and down in the kitchen and shouted "We're having a new baby!" It was the little moment when my family of 7 realized they were now a family of 8.

Later, when we went to bed, I realized that I still felt so calm and happy. That had almost never happened  before. When I found out I was pregnant with Hannah, I was happy but terrified at becoming a first time Mother. With Alex, I had just quit my job and we had no health insurance. I got in a horrible screaming fight with Jon that night (even though we wanted another baby desperately and were moving to a new State to better raise a family) the timing surprised me. I thought a surprise pregnancy meant I had to go back to a job I hated in a town I hated and I felt horribly trapped. I was happy about my pregnancy with Franciso, but he died. Then I was scared to death of another miscarriage when I got pregnant with Maria six weeks later. With Tess, I was super excited about discovering my pregnancy after almost 3 years of secondary infertility. That was the one I got clearly told about while praying in Church on a Marian Feast Day. Yet my pregnancy with her was mentally hard--I was so scared after the secondary infertility that we would loose her too. She had a beautiful birth--but then 6 days later ended up deathly ill in the NICU. So that sort of cast a pale over my pregnancy/birth memories.

With Abigail, I discovered that I was pregnant 3 weeks after a major move. There were so many boxes still not unpacked in the basement. I found out I was pregnant while Jon was at work. I drove to Target alone and tried to make a bargain with God. "Just give me one month. Just let me get pregnant in August and not in July." I took the pregnancy test alone and when it came out positive I started to cry. I had all these plans on how to make the best of our forced move and make new friends to replace the old ones I missed--and instead I knew that I won't be able to get out of the house for basically four months because the morning sickness had started to get so bad with every pregnancy. I told Jon in a note when he came home from work. We left the bigger kids in the new house alone, put the nine month old Tess in her stroller and started pacing up and down our block. Jon was really happy. He kept himself calm and reassuring. We just kept walking up and down the block because we didn't want to be out of sight for our older kids. It took a good 30 minutes of walking up and down the block before I felt strong enough to start to feel hope for the new baby. When we came inside, I asked Jon not to tell the kids.

This pregnancy is different. I told everyone I was pregnant right away. I found the baby a godmother one hour after the pregnancy test. I feel this calm hope. I am so grateful to be pregnant at 38. Tess will become 3 in August, and I've spent almost all that time praying for other babies in the NICU. All that prayer has changed me. With Abigail, it was within 9 months of having a kid with a NICU stay and I was terrified of the new baby getting some worse disease or birth defect that was just going to cause the baby massive amounts of pain.

Now its like my perspective on life is inside out. Life is a gift. I don't expect anything. I just love this baby sight unseen. I'm grateful for today. I'm living inside the present! Today I have a new baby! I don't know if this baby will make it to birth. Or make it home after birth. Or spend a year with colic and infant reflux. Somehow all of that uncertainty, rather than making me scared, just makes me feel extra grateful. Today we have a baby!

It's funny, I keep thinking "This is what people must people must feel during their first pregnancy!" I'm pretty stiff necked. It's taken me seven pregnancies to get to the calm hope that many faithful Catholics feel immediately after their honeymoon. Yet God is gentle. God is good. It's not where I started in my motherhood journey that matters, its where I am today. I'm bonded so deeply to every single one of my kids. I'm humbled by this love I have for my husband. My love for my husband is not perfect--its the imperfections, and the unevenness of my love for him and his love for me that makes our marriage beautiful. I'm so grateful that with all the messiness, that my life is rich and good and deep. Love is a journey.

St. Teresa of Avila, pray for me!

Back to School Prep--- The Portable Classroom

I'm pregnant with a baby number six--YEAH!  The only downside is that the first trimester fatigue has hit and I'm expecting some horrible "all day" morning sickness to find me soon. For the past two pregnancies, I've skipped teaching school for the first trimester. (A totally smart strategy if you find yourself in a similar situation.) This year, however, I've got one independent reader and one kid who is really close to making a big leap in his reading skills. I hate to lose this momentum, so I'm trying to set up homeschooling this year so that there is some independent movement forward while Mom is exhausted on the living room couch for a few months.

I invented "The Portable Classroom." I took a $3.50 RE Storage Cube from Target as the base. I assigned each kid a different color: blue, red, purple, and green. Then I got the school supplies to match each color. For example, Hannah has a blue notebook, blue pencil case, blue scissors, and blue ruler. Theoretically, I should be able to tell which kid left out their scissors after class.

The real purpose of the classroom in a box system is that every kid has their workbooks, their library books, and their art supplies inside an individual box. They can check these boxes out from Mom in the morning. They can get their assignments from me and then work on them anywhere in the house. They can also work on the floor of my bedroom if they need to ask me detailed questions.

After they are done, they bring me their box and show off their work. In our house the rule is that no one gets to go on the computer to play Minecraft or Roblox before they finish their homework. Now the added rule is going to be they have to gather up all their stuff, turn in their box, and be ready for the next day.

I'm usually the "anti-workbook" girl, but I went ahead and bought thick workbooks for the kids in 1st Grade and 3rd Grade. I figure that no matter how sick I get, making some progress in writing and phonics each day will be good. I don't need brilliance in teaching this Fall, I need help with consistency.

I also invested in buying thick Pre-School workbooks and school supplies for my almost 3 year old. Tess wants to be counted as a "Big Kid". She pesters me all day for "More Homework Mommy." I've never really taught academic preschool before but this kid demands it. I love having a big family because whatever educational theory I have like "Kids don't need preschool" goes totally out the window by kid number four. This year I figure whatever extra prep work I do for the 3 year old is actually saving me time because she'll be happy and busy for most of the day.

I'm hopefully that this extra organization, which feels very foreign to me as an unschooler, just helps give us a little structure during the First Trimester. My goal for this baby is "Stay in a good mental space." I feel like even more important that watching what I eat, is being really careful about cultivating good mental health habits. My tradition is to do nothing in school and then crash around month 3 where I start to feel like "I'm a horrible teacher and I'm ruining my older kids education by adding a new sibling to their life."

Now I'm more realistic. Homeschooling is hard enough. I don't need to make it harder. I'm picking easy workable goals for each kid. For my 5th grader its going to be "reading, writing, and basketball." I feel like having a few manageable goals, and meeting them, is actually better for my self esteem while pregnant than to drift along without any goals or benchmarks.

The nice thing about pregnancy is that it slows me down and forces me to be more conscious of self-nurturing. I hopeful that these changes are subtle enough to have lots of staying power.

Sheryl Crow - Easy (Official Music Video)

My favorite "lets make the best of our staycation" song.

The Roughest Part About Community Life

One of the most soul searing moments in my life happened during my Carmel scrutiny interview. Picture a long table filled with super Orthodox Catholic men and women. I'm sitting alone at the head with my pregnant belly scraping the edge of the table.

 I got thrown the soft ball question "So how is your prayer life going?"

 I said "It's going badly and it's going great!'

 An interesting change happened during this pregnancy. Before I had a built up this strict prayer schedule that was so strong it held fast during my Father-in-laws unexpected death and my daughter's unexpected NICU stay. I used to be able to pin point these measured insights from my morning prayer routine.

But this pregnancy had left me with very bad morning sickness, no matter what time of day I tried to pray. So since it doesn't ever get better, I just resigned myself to the goal of praying during sickness. I get up every morning at 6 AM and I do the next half an hour "for God." It almost always sucks. Sometimes I actually spend the full 30 minutes in my bathroom throwing up. Some of the time, I'm just obsessed with the thought "I'm going to throw up." Sometimes I'm trying to pray and I'm so tired from throwing up during the night, that I fall completely asleep while holding my bible. But the crazy thing is that when I pray--this awful, "nothing is happening, I'm so not getting anything productive out of my meditation" prayer---huge things start happening during the rest of the day. I said I was so grateful that I got this opportunity to pray during Morning Sickness because I learned so much about humility, detachment, and "letting God do the work and not me."

When I finished my little five minute happiness speech I looked around. There were open jaws all around the table. There was a moment of stunned silence.

Then the attacks started to come.

People where stunned at my self-confidence at doing prayer badly while pregnant with a baby. There was all this suggestion that I'd really let God down by getting pregnant during this important year of discernment before making my temporary promise. In their minds, I should defer for a year (and then abstain from getting pregnant again) because it was critical to have a full year of prayer before making a temporary promise, and I couldn't pray "right" while I had this interference from morning sickness.

I remember thinking so clearly in my head, and finally summoning the guts to say it outloud "But Jesus gave me this baby! How can he be disappointed that I've got Morning Sickness during Morning Prayer?"

The more I grow in Faith, there is this beautiful growth in self-confidence. It's not like "self-esteem" as much as this quiet confidence that I'm in a relationship with Jesus, and he's the one feeding me. He's the one inspiring me. So if my eyes are firmly fixed on "Him" I don't have to take my esteem from matching the crowd around me.

Having a sort of "Jesus is my guide, not the world reference" is beautiful for me because it comes out of a growth of obedience. As an adult convert, there were many things I had an intellectual issues with the Catholic Church. I had to check my ego at the door and say in obedience "Okay, what does my new Mother Church say about this issue and how can I start to get myself into that shared mental space?"

Yet the more I confirm, the more I surrender--the more individual I become. My life has become my own. It doesn't look like other women's lives. Sometimes the most tension I have is with other Catholic women who have a deep faith because we get easily annoyed "You see so close to me, yet you're a little different. Therefore, You Must Be Doing It Wrong!"

I'm really learning to embrace differences among my friends. There is not a cookie cutter ideal of what a loving marriage looks like. Holiness is not defined by a set number of kids, or matching housekeeping habits, or even identical prayer habits. Holiness is defined by a real and authentic relationship with God. 

Community can have rough moments. There are times in Carmel when I want to crawl under a table and die of embarrassment. There are times in Family Life when I daydream what life would be like as a hermit. Yet Community refines me. It helps me clarify my thoughts about God. Community helps me practice my virtues. Community revels to me my hidden sins. Community life is vital to my Faith.

Teresa of Avila, pray for us. Help us grow in community.

On The Bookshelf: Anxious to Please

It's impossible to overstate how much I love Anxious to Please:7 Revolutionary Practices for the Chronically Nice. James Rapson and Craig English take the common problem of "people pleasing" and repackage it as "chronic niceness." Chronic niceness is getting stuck in one mode of relating to other people. It stems from an inconsistent attachment to a primary caretaker as an infant called "anxious attachment."

This doesn't seem like a big social problem, because who cares about a few adults who are always "too nice?" In my mind, this is why Chapter 2 alone should be required reading for all Catholics. In this chapter, the authors describe all of the cultural factors that are making anxious attachments epidemic among modern American Families.

I loved this book because it gave validation that anxiety about causing social conflict is a real problem. This book gave clear, easy instructions on how to become more authentic in your social relationships and less "stuck." This secular book is written on a purely psychological level--yet it really mirrored my Carmelite journey. Concepts like "going into the desert" (spiritual retreat), "warrior training" (spiritual battle), and "sisterhood practice" (community building) share a common focus with my Carmelite spirituality. 

I feel like reading such clear and accessible language from two psychologists who suffer from this same problem complimented everything I'm learning as a Carmelite on how to interact more honestly with others. Somehow having a secular take reinforced all the messages I'm receiving in prayer.

My goal as a human being is to stop being 'nice' and to start becoming kind. For me, when I'm stuck in chronic niceness, I'm faking closeness. I'm stuffing my anger. I'm distrusting my friendship with another human being. I'm sort of disrespecting God who gave me all these beautiful emotions for a reason.

In this book, the concept of a warrior is a woman who is emotionally grounded enough to feel her feelings, reflect on them calmly and then take decisive action if necessary. This is opposite my natural pattern which is "be nice, be nice, be nice" and then "explode in anger" after sustaining pattern of emotional injuries.

When "chronic niceness" stops becoming an unconscious pattern, I'm free to start becoming truly charitable. I can choose to be kind, instead of remaining terrified of all conflict. I feel like this book helped me put labels on common problems and provided interesting solutions to living a more authentic, less stressful life.

Feast Day of Mary Magdalene

I love Mary Magdalene. I've taken her name as my Carmelite name. I thought I had chosen her for one reason a few years ago, but today I realize that she's a mentor for me in the virtue of perseverance. I really lack that virtue and it messes me up royally in my life. Yet what a gift to discover today that the Saint who guides me in Carmel is renown for her perseverance. It's like God already packed what I most need in my survival backpack up Mount Carmel before I even recognized I'm in danger. St. Mary Magdalene, pray for us!


From a homily on the Gospels by Gregory the Great, pope(Hom. 25, 1-2, 4-5:PL 76, 1189-1193)

She longed for Christ, though she thought he had been taken away

When Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and did not find the Lord’s body, she thought it had been taken away and so informed the disciples. After they came and saw the tomb, they too believed what Mary had told them. The text then says: The disciples went back home, and it adds: but Mary wept and remained standing outside the tomb.

We should reflect on Mary’s attitude and the great love she felt for Christ; for though the disciples had left the tomb, she remained. She was still seeking the one she had not found, and while she sought she wept; burning with the fire of love, she longed for him who she thought had been taken away. And so it happened that the woman who stayed behind to seek Christ was the only one to see him. For perseverance is essential to any good deed, as the voice of truth tells us: Whoever perseveres to the end will be saved.

At first she sought but did not find, but when she persevered it happened that she found what she was looking for. When our desires are not satisfied, they grow stronger, and becoming stronger they take hold of their object. Holy desires likewise grow with anticipation, and if they do not grow they are not really desires. Anyone who succeeds in attaining the truth has burned with such a great love. As David says: My soul has thirsted for the living God; when shall I come and appear before the face of God? And so also in the Song of Songs the Church says: I was wounded by love; and again: My soul is melted with love.

Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek? She is asked why she is sorrowing so that her desire might be strengthened; for when she mentions whom she is seeking, her love is kindled all the more ardently.

Jesus says to her: Mary. Jesus is not recognized when he calls her “woman”; so he calls her by name, as though he were saying: Recognize me as I recognize you; for I do not know you as I know others; I know you as yourself. And so Mary, once addressed by name, recognizes who is speaking. She immediately calls him rabboni, that is to say, teacher, because the one whom she sought outwardly was the one who inwardly taught her to keep on searching.

For All the Saints: The Carmelite Martyrs of Compiegne

A beautiful retelling of the story behind yesterday's Carmelite Feast Day, the Carmelite Martyrs of Compiegne.

For All the Saints: The Carmelite Martyrs of Compiegne

Happy Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel

My favorite Church Holiday of the year!

Embracing the Fear of Motherhood

I'm part of the first generation of Latchkey kids and No Fault Divorce--Generation X. My husband and I are an oddity among our friends. We met. We married. We had a kid. All in the span of a 3 year period from January 2000 to March 2003.

The friends we had in Madison, Wisconsin sort of drifted into "couplings." People were together for years, then they broke up.  Two girlfriends I knew experienced dramatic break-ups while shopping for engagement rings at the local Mall. There is something about Generation X that makes us wary of commitment and positively allergic to parenthood.

When people shout on the internet "I'm choosing a child-free marriage," I have empathy for that viewpoint--which feels very disloyal to my cadre of fellow large family Catholics. In my 20s, I was terrified of failing at Motherhood. Mothering seemed like this Titan of Responsibility. I had this inner certainty that I'd screw up as a Mother and horribly maim an innocent child emotionally for life. Skipping out on motherhood didn't seem like exercising a free choice as much as "leaving an important job to the experts."

When I found myself pregnant, thanks to the strong nudge of my new Catholic faith, I had such intense fear. I used to dream that I'd forget my baby. I dreamt that I'd place the baby in her car seat down on the sidewalk, struggle to find my lost car keys in my pocketbook, and then drive off in my car without the baby. The nightmare part came when I looked around the empty car and I realized that I had totally forgotten that I was now a Mother.

I had a kind female OB during my first pregnancy. I felt comfortable talking to her about my over-whelming nausea, my fear of needle pricks for blood draws, and about my discomfort with the idea of nursing. I never once told her about my reoccurring nightmares about forgetting the baby once she came out. Some fears about Motherhood felt to deep to speak out loud.

Spiritual growth comes fastest when I embrace my weakness. When I speak the unmentionable, embarrassing, icky stuff out loud. I was not cut out by either nurture or nature to be a Mother. Yet God handed me 5 souls to care for during their most vulnerable moments in childhood. When I receive a gift from him of that magnitude, especially when I didn't spend my childhood cuddling plastic baby dolls and imagining one day I'd be a real Mother too, there is a tendency to shrink back--to tell God "I'm not going to be any good at this. Here take the baby back."

I feel like God knows my weakness so well, that he lead me to become a Catholic before he gave me a daughter. That's what being pro-life means to me. I accept that a pregnancy is a "non-returnable gift" from God himself.

There is a promise God makes to us. He promises to "shepherd us beyond our fears" as the hymn suggests. Fear is real. There is reason for me to fear Motherhood as a broken, sin-soaked human being. Yet when I honestly hug that ugly, bitter, cactus prickly fear of failing as a Mother--something beautiful emerges. Hope.

Precious Mother of God, pray for us.

The Beauty of Standing Still

Ten years ago, I undertook the very first empty vacation of my life--three months of maternity leave with my first born, my Hannah. If you have ever held a newborn for more than twenty seconds, especially if its your own, my calling maternity leave a "vacation" should make you giggle. Or become furious. Or experience both feelings at the exact same time.

When I was pregnant with Hannah, I was so emmeshed in this psycho-cult of "smart, achieving womanhood" I could not remember ever standing still. Even in the summer. Especially in summer.

Starting in the fourth grade, I started acting in summer plays, collecting ribbons from Sailboat races on Lake Michigan, earning accolades at camp, and striking out while playing church softball. In high school, I started collecting special summer programs the way some people collect stamps. In college and law school, summer break was about gaining valuable experience in important sounding internships.  I'm not sure who I was trying to impress with this endless cycle of activity--but subconsciously it seemed vital for me to never stand still.

With this pattern of compulsive "movement", one of the most frightening aspects of being a new mother was the decision to take the full 12 weeks of maternity leave (mostly unpaid) offered to me by Clinton's Family Medical Leave Act. For the first time in my memory, I'd be "not working" for a season. I was going to be staying still, with a new baby, and nothing on my calendar for weeks.

It felt awful.

I remember soothing myself with this vision that I would garden. I would put the new baby in her bassinet, and while she slept, I would work on my plants.  (Which because I was a compulsive workaholic were still imaginary. I hadn't planted anything in the front yard of my rented house yet).

The baby came 10 days late. To distract me, my husband drove me to the local nursery every day and bought me more plants. We were crazy maniacs. Every single day we dug up a new part of the yard and planted more stuff. We planted a vegetable garden with broccoli, and a wildflower butterfly garden. Then the new baby came in March. We were so overwhelmed with new parenthood that we never went outside to weed for the entire summer. The broccoli actually started to flower these tiny yellow petals and tasted tough and sour when I sautéed it on our range. We became the eye sore of the neighborhood. People actually knocked on our door to tell us how bad our front yard looked. Every month out of guilt, Jon would mow down the ragged weeds in the "butterfly garden" and throw another bag of mulch around the vegetable garden.

When my new baby came, I stayed alone on my uncomfortable guest bed that I had inherited from my aunt. I nursed my baby while watching back to back episodes of Law and Order. I watched TV. I read. I slept. I showered. I started to fall in love with a new human being.

When I went back to work after 10 weeks, (I caved into guilt that my absence was too hard for my co-worker and cut my maternity leave short by 2 weeks) I was totally shocked that I'd "done it." I had stayed still. I'd done "nothing" for way longer than I ever thought possible.

I hadn't gone mad. I wasn't bored. In fact, the exact opposite. I felt that staying still, inside my house, doing "nothing" (I apologize for thinking once that caring for a young soul was "doing nothing" but that's how my 28 year old mind worked at the time. Baby cuddling didn't count as "work" in my brainwashed head).

I liked who I was when I was sitting still, cuddling Hannah. I liked reading real books. Thinking real thoughts. Making real stuff for dinner. Hanging out with my husband with the pressure of having an uncertain court case 12 hours away. I went back to full time work after my maternity leave was over. I worked my same job for the next 9 months. Yet in many ways, I never went back to work. I big piece of my heart "checked out" of the achievement rat race once I became a mother. I'm so grateful to my kid for that chance, because I think she saved the best part of myself that I buried back in the fourth grade.

This past 4th of July, I took my first "staycation." My husband stayed home for 9 days straight, counting the weekend. We were too poor to do anything. So no camping trip to Harper's Ferry, or trip to the Beach. It felt unnatural and strange and odd, but also--really, really good.

I like who I am when I'm standing still. I like having silence on my calendar and silence in my heart. I don't always like the emotional goo that comes up whenever I stay still--it still feels too good to distract myself with multiple family activities and fun outings. I still like spending money too much. Getting off the "Lets do something fun today" is proving a slow and painful detox.

Yet, there is a beauty in standing still. The harder the virtue of silence is in my life, the more I need it.

Teresa of Avila, pray for us.

Public Service Announcement from a NICU Mama

While I had a baby in the NICU, I heard a scary comment from a NICU nurse. Turns out that Children's Hospital in Washington DC spends the last week in June clearing out their entire Pediatric Unit just to have enough beds for the annual onslaught of child burn victims after 4th of July firework accidents. Chemical burns from fireworks are not cool. One sparkler (which I used to think was a pretty kid safe thing with careful adult supervision) can get up to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

After hearing that comment, I started a new family policy of "we leave fireworks to the professionals." I don't do sparklers. I don't do bottle rockets. I radically changed my inherited family tradition of celebrating the 4th of July with lots of home grown firework displays.

Happy 4th of July, everyone. Have a safe, prayerful, and beautiful day with family and friends!

 

Gettysburg 150 Anniversary

These 3 just looked thrilled to be homeschooled, don't they?

The Littles

Chocolate Milk love feast.

Cuteness Alert

Our new kitten, Luck Jack, has a thing where he hunts and play wrestles with Tessy's little Teddy Bear.

What I Wore to Mass

My blogger friends Rebecca and Nicole encouraged me to update my wardrobe at the thrift store. This outfit from shoes to scarf cost $12. Thank you ladies!

My Home School Philosophy: Remember, I'm Running An Art School Here

I'm rereading some of my husband's textbooks from his Masters of Fine Arts Program and figuring out how to better handle critiques of student work. This is fascinating stuff to me. This is a quote from a famous Graphic Designer Rob Roy Kelly:

"In criticizing student work on a one-to-one basis, first ask the student what seems to be a problem and what they think can be improved. Asking before telling is for the student's benefit. ... A similar approach is to point, or circle, with the finger the problems. Usually the first response is that they don't know. When ... suggested that they respond intuitively, it is amazing how often they correctly find the problem. This procedure helps students build confidence in their own judgment."
                                                                              -Everything is a Work in Progress, pg 168

This quote just reminds me how radically different my homeschooling approach is from most of my friends. It is frustrating to not have a set curriculum. But my goal isn't to merely replicate school inside our home.

My husband is a working Artist. My kids' innate creativity is outrageously high. My job isn't to mold them into little robots who get As in deportment and handwriting. My job is to turn them into the best person that God wants them to be. Part of that task is going to be learning how to best harness their creativity to make things in a future work place.

It's such a hard balance. I can't ram my personal agenda down their throats. (I learned humility in my previous attempts to "Master Reading Right Now--You're In The Third Grade Already!"). But my job as an Art Coach isn't just to sit back and let the kids do whatever they want in their school work.

That's why this quote is so cool. The teacher is teaching. There is a critique of the student's work. There are standards, even in a subjective subject such as Graphic Design. But the teacher is giving feedback in a way that "helps students build confidence in their own judgment."

That could be a huge overarching goal for me as a teacher. Helping my kids build confidence in their own judgment. Think about what a difference that approach could be in the subject of Writing. I wouldn't grade silently on my own with a red pen and hand a marked up Report back to my Fifth Grader. I could circle the spelling mistakes or awkward sentences with my finger and say "What kind of things could be better here?"  The goals shouldn't be to get one perfect paper done for our portfolio review in May. The goal should be to nurture a new writer who is confident in her own abilities and can write beautiful stuff on demand.

Homeschooling is a really healing thing for me. There are days that I hate it! But all good things are hard some days. Over all, the more I come out of our established Education System, the more I have to define for myself "What is it that I want my kids to Learn? How to I best teach them that?" Those are interesting questions and its a joy to be asking them.