Parenting
I love this picture from almost 10 years ago–me and my atrocious Beatles hair cut. My dad cracking some awesome joke. My brother looking overwhelmed by the humor. It’s just an easy, quiet, lovely day around here for Father’s Day. My dad, BABA, is feeding SweetPea her lunch while he reads his Catholic newspaper. My mom, NUNU, is making grilled cheeses sandwiches. We just returned from a gorgeous and peacefilling mass at our beloved parish. SuperBoy was particularly well-behaved, including insisting on folding his hands while walking to communion all by himself, except when he decided to let his baseball free in the pew. All over. Hopefully you and your father are connecting in a meaningful way today. Thank God for all the fathers in our lives, physical and spiritual. It’s a beautiful vocation to be a father, and a real gift to the children/adults whose lives you’ve affected. Me & my sibs lucked out with the best dad in the world, and now I get to watch AA be the best dad to our kids. My dad’s list of accomplishments are many, including, but not limited to: 1) giving us driving directions–from anywhere to anywhere. The man’s mind is google map’s engine. 2) instilling in us a love of classical music, oriental rugs, persian food, and Mel Brooks. 3) teaching us to have a real sense of humor about the human body as he’s a gastro doc. That’s the stomach & colon. 4) helping so many of my friends…
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A few people have remarked lately, Oh, you just do it all, don’t you? Or how do you do it all? You cook from scratch, you probably never eat junk food, you sew all this stuff, you blog, and your children know prayers in Latin. Ahhhh!!! First off, only a few of those are true. Secondly, I fear I’ve become one of those friends we love to hate. And confession–I LOVE unhealthy food! I only eat like this for my kids. And for all this work, you can see what SweetPea’s awkward favorite habit is–she does this any and everywhere!! I’m afraid to become one of the friends whose blog we read and think unmentionables. And then think about how things really aren’t the way they seem. And then compare our lives and happily determine that our life is better than theirs. Come on, unless you’re a saint or waaaaaaaay more saintly than I am (not that hard to be), you know we all have friends we love to hate. We get annoyed at their facebook posts and complain about it to our sisters. We simultaneously think they’re a bad parent but are incensed they haven’t gotten back to us about that missed playdate. We’re petty and small and obsessed with how many people follow our blog/like our facebook status/respond to our emails or texts. We judge. Remember my post on judging {Trying to Retain Judgment Without Being Judgmental}? I just read that social media has enhanced narcissism, or is driven by it.…
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(What’s that yellow stuff on my skirt? Not poop. Yes, that would be the food SuperBoy dropped on the floor at church and I wiped up with ye-old-new-maxi-dress) We’re celebrating four years of marriage today. Four years of being best friends, better halves, parenting partners, and trying our best to help the other person get and stay on the road to the kind of happiness that only comes from a complete gift of yourself. Lord knows my husband’s a saint for many reasons, including but not limited to: taking night shift with kids, bringing me ice cream in bed, binge-watching the new Arrested Development season 4 despite having an early rise for work, being open to living so closely with my family, loving both poker and the Latin Mass with my dad, insisting my mom’s dried up chicken dinners are fabulous (to be fair, she got a new recipe and now her chicken is SO moist!), teaching SuperBoy to be the third base at his law firm softball league’s game, and reading to our squirmy daughter every night, despite her best escape efforts. One of my most necessary parenting partnering elements I need at this point in life is the ability to step away from the needs of a two-children-under-three household for about an hour each night and just do whatever I want. As I write that, I feel guilty. I feel like I should be on 24-7. I feel like taking time to vegetate, or watch a little TV,…
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My son loves baseball. Loves it. Breathes it. Lives it. He knows all the players. He knows their faces on their baseball cards. He knows which teams they’ve played for and which ones they are currently played for. This is a really odd thing considering I know NOTHING about any professional sports teams. Nil. Zilch. So you’d think my husband must be some kind of obsessed person himself. But he’s not really, either. He played baseball in high school and loved it, but until we had a son I never heard him talk about it. It must be that boys bring out the little boy in their dads. It started last summer when he was about 20 months, but now it’s in full swing. Suddenly we listen (never watch) to the game on the radio every night. He wants to know who’s up to bat, and what the score is. He cheers when we win, and is sad when we lose. Clearly I’m getting into this too because I just used the first person plural when making reference to the Minnesota Twins. *sigh* He and his Dada go to Saints games, Twins games, and now his own Dada’s softball league games (which was like heaven on earth!!). And he’s trying to win over his sister to the game, too. Overheard in the car yesterday: SuperBoy to SweetPea “Can you say ‘Joe Mauer’? Joooooeeeee Maaaaaawwwwweeeerrrr. Can you say ‘Justin Morneau?’ Jusssssteeeeeeennnn Moooorrrrrrrrnnnnnnooooo. What about Brian Dozier? Brrriiiiiiiiiiiannnnnnn Dozzzzzzzzzzzzzzzier.” SweetPea to SuperBoy: “Dada.…
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This post applies to any woman out there who’s run down, rabid, raggedy, and feeling like a wreck. Many of those inhabitants of this subset are mothers. Some are workaholics. Some are naturally prone to being hygiene deficient. Others are simply too busy to feel human. Or particularly female. SweetPea is showing off a new dress in her stylish way here! She’s taking the steps. We need to too. 1) Prayer or meditation time. Studies show again and again that taking time away from your busy day for mental prayer or meditation greatly improves your outlook and mental health. It’s a very necessary part of functioning fully as a human being. Connect with yourself; connect with your higher power. For me, this means trying to pray a Rosary daily. In the least, I check in with God in the morning when I wake up, as I trot to SweetPea’s bedroom to do her 5am wake up nursing, and then again in the evening when AA and I pray together. Sometimes it’s just a simple set of prayers. Sometimes we pray something called the Liturgy of the Hours which is ancient and gorgeous. We pray with the kids often throughout the day, at mealtime, bedtime, and nap time. Nap time prayers are specifically for my brother who just deployed to Afghanistan as an infantry officer. SuperBoy loves his Godfather! 2) Take care of your face. Okay. We’re not getting any younger. And if you’re up with kids half/all the night, your…
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Mothers are made of steel stomachs when a child throws up on them, the stomach that is. Mothers are made of late night prayers and warm energies sent out for their Godchildren. Mothers are made of those women in our lives who’ve lifted us, inspired us, fed us, and shown us how to fail well, and how to come back better. Thank God for mothers! My mother is the most remarkable woman I know. I aspire to be like her!
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