Lots of Coffee, lots of kids. It's a peaceful life.
I am down in the kitchen at 3:30 a.m., munching nervously on a bowl of grapes and cut-up banana. I’ve had a bad dream. I can’t sleep.Normally I am not one to place much stock in dreams, despite their significance in the Bible and to psychologists. Most of my dreams are just too weird, and I usually chalk it all up to stress or the cheesecake (ahem) … [Read more...]
No mother could snatch her child from a burning building more swiftly than God is constrained to succor a penitent soul.-- St. Henry Suso Jennifer wrote to ask me about the First Confession/First Communion program at our church, and as such I am going to have this post about Cate’s first confession do double duty.I know that Cate won’t mind!Let me … [Read more...]
Let’s talk a bit about the little trooper that’s my Felicity.Felicity is pictured above in my new blog header. She is as easy-going and gentle-natured as my Angela, say, is not. When I took her in for her 5-year immunizations yesterday, she took it in stride and didn’t say much about it.She cried, because the shots hurt like the dickens, but she … [Read more...]
My boys are far less about talk then they are action.While my three little girls can—and will—fill any given moment with more conversation than a coffee house, my slightly older boys prefer the silence of the sports page and the quiet intrigue of a game of Risk.When my girls go missing, I need only follow the sound of their voices and I will find … [Read more...]
As she and her children ease back into the school year:Dear Lord, please help me to not gasp out loud at what my children have forgotten.Do not let me be sarcastic!Take away my irritation at the sloppy handwriting and the rampant misuse of capital letters.Replace my dismay at their mistakes with thankfulness for moments sitting next to them.Help me … [Read more...]
We always go up as a family to receive Holy Communion. The littlest ones, of course, come along for the priestly blessing.This is my 2 1/2-year-old's favorite part of the Mass, incidentally. “It's time to go up for a blessing, Angela!” I say, and she happily puts away whatever dozen board books she’d been viewing.She always insists on walking up to … [Read more...]
The weather here has been gorgeous, so on Saturday evening we stuffed the kids in the van and made our way to our favorite park. We basically had the place to ourselves—did they perhaps know we were coming?—and we took our Pizza Hut picnic over to a table by the lake. Really, it was lovely: still, serene, and very green.And then the kids kicked … [Read more...]
The Point/Counterpoint Version On the one hand, I got so sick on Pentecost Sunday that I was not able to attend Mass after all. And here I had so looked forward to greedily gathering up all those graces! (A plenary indulgence! Sigh!) There was no way I could have attended, as I was visiting the bathroom (Hello! How are you? Me? Well, I’m a bit … [Read more...]
....is what I found waiting for me on the computer this morning. … [Read more...]
Because clearly, I'm a better parent than I think.I think.Though were you to seek the opinion of my 7-year-old, the words “good” and “parent” would be nowhere near each other in a sentence.Well, kid, you’re just going to have to get over it.And, gulp, so am I.It is bad enough that I had to drag all five kids out into the sub-zero temperatures for … [Read more...]
