Articles from July 2010

Call me crazy, but for me, buying a new pair of running shoes is like buying a new lease on life. The squishy, bouncy, brand-newness of new sneakers seems to defy gravity and seep upward into my body with energy and vigor.

Today I am experiencing such wonder. The box arrived the other day and sat with a sparkle on our front porch. I was giddy like a child at Christmas as I ran out to fetch it and tore off the packaging. New shoes!! And for a good deal, even better!!  As I put them on today, to say that life has returned to my beat-up, sleep-deprived, postpartum body is an understatement. I am instead a hopeful, getting there, almost-6-week-postpartum, almost-running woman, ready to conquer the day’s challenges.

The old sneaks were gems, I tell you, but they were worn out pups. No tread, little cushion, orthotic stains, with old races a very distant memory. It was time.  And so today marks the beginning of a new shoe journey, ripe with possibility.

Each day, each step, we’re getting there… With these shoes I will race up and down the stairs to soothe the cries of my little one as she falls asleep. I will bounce up and down as the boys as I dance to the Wiggles and laugh excessively. These shoes will carry me as we walk my oldest on his first day of kindergarten.  They will escort my crew and me as we venture out and take on the world, five strong.  I will use them to re-discover my athletic self in the coming weeks.  I will elliptical and lunge and stride my way to greater strength and fitness.  They will work tirelessly to comfort and support over miles and days and terrain… to deliver me to a new place many months from now that will look very different from today.  A good different, hopefully better and with more sleep! They hold much promise.

Thank you, dear Lord, for my new shoes.  I praise You today for this very trivial thing; for it is in the little things that we can find great joy.

I have my fall school plans all set and they involve very busy days — which is a good thing — we will be doing school in the morning four days a week and have extracurricular activities in the early afternoon four days a week.  This means that we will be back home for dinner and our family story and bedtime routine and I will have my evenings free to wind down or be with my husband.  My only fear is that walking in the door at 5 pm with hungry kids could slide quickly into a TV and frozen pizza routine, which would be a bummer.  I want to head this off by planning meals which I can prep early in the day and activities that the kids can do while I am getting dinner on the table.

The routine should go like this:  empty your stuff out of the car and shower/change, then one child will help set the table while the others do a contained, planned activity, a school table full of legos or playdough or puzzles or drawing.

So, I will have about a half hour to get the meal ready for the table, which should be plenty of time if I have done some prep early in the day.  My problem is that every recipe I have come up with to make in advance involves ground beef — it is so easy to get the taco meat or spaghetti sauce going early.  I think the slow cooker could also be a help here.

Anyone have any suggestions for a healthy meal that will wait for us, casseroles or crockpot specials, or ingredients that can be prepped and then quick sauteed?

Our budget and waistlines will thank you if you save us from the temptation of takeout!

Several times over the past couple of years, I have almost started a babysitting co-op in my neighborhood moms’ group. The idea behind a babysitting co-op is that mothers take turns watching each others’ children, which is appealing on many levels. First, IT’S FREE, so the only payment involved is, of course, watching someone else’s children for an equal period of time. Second, because mothers are the “babysitters,” moms can generally feel comfortable with the person who will be watching their children. Third, it’s a way to create a social support network among a group of mothers.

The system that I’ve heard of is the “ticket system,” in which tickets (rather than cash) are the currency used. Each ticket is worth half an hour, and all mothers start with 10 tickets (or whatever the group decides). Every time you watch someone else’s children, you receive the appropriate amount of tickets from the mother whose children you were watching. You also use your tickets to “pay” the mother that was watching your children. In theory, there is no obligation to watch someone else’s children – you just do it when it works for you and your family.

There are, of course, a few doubts in my mind, such as: Can I, a mother of three young children, take on someone else’s young children? Can I feel comfortable dropping my own children off at someone else’s home? Would people really be interested? From an organizational point of view, should people get more tickets for watching families with more children, or should the tickets be based only on the amount of time spent babysitting?

So, dear reader, I would love to hear if you’ve had experience with a babysitting co-op of this sort. Please share in the comments section any good or bad experiences, and any advice you may have!

God bless you all this afternoon. St. Anne, patron saint of mothers, pray for us!

We have been having a blast traveling around Europe and England since March for my husband’s dissertation research. It’s academic tourism at it’s finest; the kids and I have been enjoying ourselves immensely, taking on Europe by triple stroller. The drawback is, amid this foot-loose and fancy free adventure, we’ve been quite antisocial and apparently have forgotten our manners. And the English are not especially charmed by children who have forgotten their manners.

We are now passing through Oxford on our way to settle for the final four months of our travels in Cambridge. Thanks to Mrs. C., a part-time resident here, we have been introduced to several awesome new friends. Awesome, like I hope we’ll be friends always even though I’ve only met them twice.

But now that we have friends again, the manners problem is becoming quite apparent in one particular area: I had trained my children not to interrupt me when talking to another adult (and I admit I do really get going in adult conversations, so that took some real patience and self-discipline on their parts). Now, if I’m sitting on the ground talking to a friend and don’t pay attention as soon as my child calls me, my child literally throws her entire body onto my head, tackles me onto my back, then presses her face up against mine as I lie stunned on the ground and states her request. Even my angelic and extremely-respectful five year old Bella does this. It’s happened several times a day recently, in varied but equally-outlandish forms.

Could someone please remind me how to begin from scratch teaching a five year old, four year old, and two year old not to interrupt adults? What works for you? It’s an ongoing area of training, I know. I hazily remember a tried and failed system of having them put one hand on my knee and wait until I was ready to respond to them, but I think this often turned into their using my knee as a drum. I don’t know how I got this under control before, but we have an uphill battle ahead. Onward!

Today we graphed family shoe preference on our living room floor as our Kindergarten math lesson. Examine blue row: “crocs.”

Ha! Take that, MA. and you are the one who recommended the Saxon math home school curriculum! We love it, but we love plastic Swiss Cheese shoes more.

When I first saw a pair of Crocs back in 2005, I was certain I had never, ever, ever seen a more hilariously and hopelessly ugly pair of shoes than these gaudy Swiss-cheese clown-shoes. My New Years resolutions for 2006 were to lose my first-time pregnancy weight and to wait out the Crocs trend come hell or high water.

Our generation has seen a memorable progression of waterproof footwear. Before I was born, if I’m not mistaken, summertime footwear options were either flip flops or old tennis shoes.

Enter AquaSocks. Good concept, since they stayed on your feet well even underwater. Very difficult to put on when wet. Uncanny way of retaining sand. Waterproofness weak: would mildew if not sun-dried immediately after use.  Durability OK: could stop crabs from pinching you but not broken glass in the parking lot. Big plus: no need to ruin a pair of tennis shoes when you go canoeing. Suitability for adult wear: low. Colors available: mostly bold colors and neons. Style points: negative 10.

Moving on a few years to Tevas. Good combination of rugged hipness and waterproofability. Understated color scheme (especially compared to Aquasocks). Resembled the normalness of flip flops but stayed on feet much better than flip flops. Durability OK: could not stop crabs but more likely than Aquasocks to protect from broken glass and rusty nails. Very practical for use out of water as well as underwater. Major style drawback: Teva suntan lines didn’t mix and match well with other shoe styles.

And then weren’t Crocs the next waterproof shoe to enter the scene? I have something to say now, 5 years later. Crocs ROCK. I initially caved out of charity in 2008, when we visited my family in Alabama (on the Bay) and my mom had picked up Walmart-brand crocs for each of the kids. $5 per pair. “Well, they’ll just be our Alabama shoes.” Oh, not so.

Crocs are:

Highly durable. Perhaps indestructible. 100% waterproof, drying almost immediately. They’re too thick to cut with scissors (ask my toddler) or with a small serrated knife (ask her again). Plastic/rubbery, probably non-biodegradable, so it would even take great Mother Nature thousands of years to erode them. Recently, when my kids and I threw them into a controlled indoor fire that we lit as part of our science curriculum, we were shocked to discover them 20 minutes later as unscathed as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace.

Closed-toe, protecting my children’s delicate feet from whatever rural or urban landscape in which we may find ourselves. Thorns on berry bushes and sandspurs at the beach can’t touch my kids; we wade through lakes in the Amazon rainforest and laugh as the piranhas circle our feet.

Easy to put on. Even my toddler can put her own shoes on. And then take them off and put them on again 4 or 5 times, all by herself, as I try to get us all out of the door. She can even do it that one last time, as I’m screaming at the top of my lungs, before I reach the count of three. That is AWESOME.

Fit great. Once they are on my kids feet, they stay on. They can climb stairs or playground equipment, run around without tripping, jump off of furniture.

All-purpose. Is there any warm-weather activity that Crocs can’t participate in? We can go from a museum to a subway ride to a playground for kicking balls to the swimming pool. Excellent traction, slip-proof. My daughters can even wear the white ones with silver bling to be flower girls in an upcoming summer wedding, right?

Waterproof. Amen. I delude myself if I ever think there’s one single day in the spring or summer that my kids will not manage to get their feet wet. From rain puddles (I’m a total softy for puddle-jumping) to wet playground equipment to beaches and pools and sweaty feet, it’s a daily certainty, and Crocs are there for us.

Easy to clean. Wash them with soap and water then place them right back in the shoe basket.

Ventilated: fresh air coming through the Swiss cheese holes at all times to cut down on heat and odor and bacteria proliferation.

Replaceable. They’re darn ugly, so nobody’s going to cry if they’re lost, and they can be replaced for $5.

I am a believer. Crocs are the perfect design and material and weight and price for young children’s summertime footwear. I still don’t wear them myself, for style reasons. If I was an adult man, I would never, ever wear a bright red or bold pink pair (have you noticed this adult-male-wearing-pink-or-red-crocs phenomenon?) But I’ll be oh so sad to say goodbye to this Crocs era, for my children, when it’s time to move on to the next trend in water shoes. Because many summertime shoes do noble things, but Crocs surpass them all.

Having trouble reigning in the potty talk in your home? What is it with the potty (and what goes in it) that makes it so fun for kids to talk about??

I heard a great solution/natural consequence from a friend the other day–when potty talk gets out of control, have the kids sit in the bathroom and talk to the potty. I thought the whole idea was rather brilliant!

We have only had to employ this consequence once, but I assure you, potty talk hasn’t been problem since. Because, really, how fun is it to sit in the bathroom, having a conversation with the toilet? And this option may save you a bar of soap! Good luck!

My daughter was up several times during the night with a fever and bad dreams, so I was exhausted this morning when my husband left bright and early for work.  Hoping to sneak in a few more minutes of shut eye, I asked my oldest to get some breakfast for everyone.  We usually have cheerios for breakfast, but when he innocently asked if they could have toast instead, I said yes.  When they asked if they could watch Cyberchase, I also said yes.

When I rolled out of my room, bleary eyed, at 8:45, I saw five kids with chocolate from ear to ear — that toast had gotten a hearty schmear of nutella on every piece.  The baby was on the floor crying with a cup in his hand, begging for milk, but they had all just turned up the TV rather than answer his cry.  The TV was still on.

I got the baby some milk.  I made a quick call to ask a neighbor to take the failed nanny to swim practice and sent him up to get dressed.  Then, rather than face the mess of chocolate, which has probably made it’s way to the couch now, or the fight of turning off the TV, which has now been on for over an hour, I came in here to vent to all of you.  Next, I will make a big pot of coffee and have some toast and Nutella myself.

Last night, our toddler had a melt-down of epic proportions. The cause: She wanted to go to Mass with Daddy, but Daddy was only taking her big brother – he likes to sit in the front row when Daddy is the lector, and can be trusted to do so…whereas she cannot, at least not yet In any case, evening Masses don’t usually go splendidly with our younger children, so we split up for Mass yesterday. Lesson learned: Never split up for Mass again!

Back to the tantrum. There was uncontrollable crying, there was screaming, there was flailing of limbs and all sorts of other tantrum-like behavior. But do you know what? There was no hitting and no biting. Yes, a bit of grabbing, but nothing more. This, my friends, is great progress, and in the midst of the chaos I was very grateful for it! One semi-cold shower and some snuggle-time later, all was calm and my little girl was able to fall asleep peacefully. Thank goodness.

I wonder what progress God has seen in me lately? My daughter’s behavior is not perfect, but she is making progress and I am very proud of her. Is my Heavenly Father noticing similar progress is one of the imperfect areas of my life? Something to think about on this Monday afternoon…

God bless all of you today. Mary, Mother of divine grace, pray for us!

Today we heard the gospel of Martha and Mary.  It is a story we all know well.  We know that Mary sits at the feet of our Lord and listens while Martha works to prepare the dinner, and that Martha complains to Jesus that Mary is not helping her.  We know that Martha is chastised by the Lord.

I think that priests must get a little nervous when it is time to preach on this gospel.  So many well intentioned, hard working mothers are offended at the notion that Jesus prefers the contemplative Mary to the active Martha.  To lighten this blow, they tell us that it is not Martha’s service that upsets Jesus, it is her attitude of resentment towards her sister.  She must have a more gracious heart and put love into her service.

Easy for you to say, I always think.  Jesus says something very specific.  You are anxious about many things, and Mary has chosen the better part.  While I  agree with the pastors who tell us that the Lord is not implying that all women should go into contemplative orders,  but in order to do this service gracefully and make it an offering to God we must carve out some time of contemplation and quiet prayer in the presence of God each and every day.

This is the tool that will relieve us of our anxiety and will allow us to be gracious about the work that must be done.  We can seek out God’s presence in the tabernacle, we can find it in the Word with just five minutes of reading each day, we can begin each day with a morning offering giving over all that we will do to the Lord.  Perhaps we can make time for an annual retreat or a monthly evening of recollection.   If our Sunday masses are spent trying to keep the children quiet, we can ask our husbands to load them into the car at the end while we spend just a few minutes in quiet prayer.  Then, we will surely be just as busy, but we can go about our week without being anxious about many things.  When we need help, we can ask for it nicely, as Martha might have done if she were not so overwhelmed.  When our children and husbands and guests need our time and attention we can put aside our work and see the face of God in them.

All of our work can be a prayer, but we mothers and wives really need contemplative prayer time, too, so that we do not wind up cranky and anxious like poor Martha, with whom we all sympathize deeply!