Return on Investment

I have a confession - I am one of those parents that, if you saw me on Supernanny you'd shake your head at me.  You'd go have coffee with your friends and say, "you wouldn't believe how frustrated she was getting with her kids...it's just so obvious that they're kids, and that's the way they act.  She needs to get a grip!"  I appreciate the kindness of those who say, "there there, it's understandable".  But just let me indulge my inner Dr. Phil and tell it like it is: I have a temper, and sometimes it's bad.  And the only people that see how bad it really is are my kids, and occasionally my husband.  

There are days when it is more of a trial than others, and today was one of those days.  I texted Jeff and asked for prayer, and in the middle of sending my message wrote something that was like an opening of my soul, and I didn't even realize it until after it came out.  This morning's gripe was with my almost three-year-old (which I have always found to be the most challenging age), and I wrote to Jeff, "It requires so much more of an investment of me into her, which is beautiful, and telling of where I am at now that I'm having such a hard time with it."  Kids are needy - especially little ones.  And the age between three and four years old can be particularly demanding, because it's the age when their little wills start to appear, and they are just learning that can exercise that will whenever and however they (not Mom or Dad) choose.  And while I can be reasonably sure that I can tell my older kids to do something and they will, or impose a consequence and they will listen without screaming and shouting, it's not the same for a preschooler.  They are learning about boundaries, specifically how to push them, and it takes a lot from me to be available and gently guide them through that process.

I can say thus far that my investment into Katie in this area (as, I am sad to say, has been the case for each of the other other boys) has been rather limited.  It's easy to invest yourself in the things that are pleasant with kids (reading, playing games, making crafts, watching movies) but it's a whole different story when the terrain is so rocky.  I always feel like I just don't have time, but then again, what mother does?  On the other hand, the results speak for themselves.  She is, by times, a screamy and frustrated little three-year-old.  And I don't pretend to think that if I just made more time for her she'd never do this.  However I do think that if I invested more time and energy in being patient with her, I could see her through these times of frustration with love, and maybe it would result in a little less screaming (on both of our parts).

I was very grateful the other day to stumble upon the prayer of St. Francis with the kids.  As a Catholic, I have been familiar with this prayer for a long time.  But this time, the words hit my heart with such profound meaning, that I knew it was the Lord calling me to step it up, and be a bearer of peace to those around me.  As the saying goes, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, right?

Lord, help me to invest myself lovingly to my children, and to be an instrument of peace in their lives.  Deliver me from the desire to be understood by them: they are children, they don't know how taxing motherhood can be at times (nor should they).  Help me not to look to them for comfort when I feel spread so thin, but instead to look for opportunities to comfort and love them.  And in so doing, may I see the return of healthy, well-adjusted children, fully formed in the proper use of their wills for the glory of your kingdom.

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Lord, make me a channel of thy peace

That where there is hatred, I may bring love

That where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness

That where there is discord, I may bring harmony

That where there is error, I may bring truth

That where there is doubt, I may bring faith

That where there is despair, I may bring hope

That where there are shadows, I may bring light

That where there is sadness, I may bring joy.

Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted

To understand, than to be understood

To love, than to be loved

For it is by self-forgetting that one finds

It is by forgiving that one is forgiven

It is by dying that one awakens to Eternal Life.

- St. Francis of Assisi

Neediness

I enjoy a special bond with my baby (who at 15 months old is actually more of a toddler these days).  He is really independent (as all my children have been, except my one girl which is kind of nice, and the subject for another note, another day!)  But occasionally, for reasons unbeknownst to me, he will display uncharacteristic neediness.  These moments are usually weeks, if not months apart, and often come at times when he would usually be sleeping, either in the night or during his daytime nap hour.  With each of the other kids, I remember these times of unexplained wakefulness to be particularly stressful, and I remember being not so patient with my children, who as yet were unable to communicate what was wrong and what they needed.

As I relive these moments for the fifth time around (I am a slow learner!) I am starting to realize that they probably just needed comfort.  I am saddened that it took me so long to be able to just give them what they needed as little babies selflessly, and am so grateful that God gives me another chance to get it right with Aaron.  Far from thinking, "oh no, he's awake..." I find myself almost celebrating these cherished times of extra comforting with a boy who will typically not willingly sit still with me for more than five seconds at a time.

Naptime in our house normally goes off without a hitch.  He loves sleeping, and doesn't take a bottle, so when the appropriate time rolls around it's generally just a matter of tucking him in and giving him his snuggly blanket, and he's a happy little boy.  Today he showed no signs of anything different, until about five minutes after I had left him in his room, when he began crying.  I sent Jeff, who was on his way to catch some shut-eye, in to snuggle him for a bit and tuck him in again, thinking this would do the trick.  Nope.  For the next hour we took turns rocking him, singing to him, keeping him in his room, bringing him out, putting him down to play, and feeding him - all to no avail.  Nothing seemed to make him happy.

I noticed in the midst of everything, a profound sense of grace and gentleness that I knew what not from myself.  And I was so thankful that as he squirmed on my lap and viciously fought what I knew he needed most, that I was able to remain calm and peaceful.  I regret the many times before that I have not been able to see as I was today.  I looked into his face, which was screaming with frustration and sleepiness, and I just felt an outpouring of love for this little child.  And it occured to me that babies are no different than anyone else - they are needy.  I am needy.  I have times when I cry for no reason, and I just need someone to hold me.  It doesn't matter that I don't know what's wrong with him, or what to do to make him feel better.  I can just hold him while he cries, for however long that is, and tell him I love him, and it's okay.  He needs me.  I need him.

As I look into his little face, I can imagine this scene repeating itself many more times over the course of his life, over situations of varying degrees of importance.  And I can only pray that the Lord allows me to look at him (and at my other children) in the same way that I see him now - with compassion and love, and a desire to just make him feel better.  

After a long afternoon of crying, my dear little boy finally settled himself to sleep on my chest.  These are among the greatest moments of motherhood for me - not the ones where I have taken a problem away, but the ones that I have stood through my children with, and helped to feel safe enough to rest.  To walk with them through despair to peace, and to see that they made it, we made it, and that we were never really alone.  

Praise God for moments of clarity, when we see life (and our place in life) for what it truly is.  If I can't stop their crying, may I always have the strenght to just be with them through it - never feeling that I am less of a mother for not being able to take it away, but rejoicing in the tremendous honor of offering comfort to someone who needs me.

The Ordinary

Today is the first day of ordinary time.  And I had a bit of a revelation about that.  As I packed up the Christmas decorations, feeling a twinge of sadness at the holiday being over, I realized that we are made for the ordinary.  Holidays and feast days are extraordinary - days the Chruch sets aside to give us strenth, to revive and renew us.  We walk toward the extraordinary - Heaven - every day, and hope to spend eternity there one day.  But here on earth, we are meant to be in the ordinary.

But it's not a sad yearning.  We don't pack our grace away like Christmas decorations in boxes, never to be opened until the next year.  These graces are meant to be carried with us, so that the ordinary is decorated all year long with the grace of the extraordinary.  As with the mass, we are not meant to leave our faith in the church when we leave on Sunday, but to carry it with us into the world where we live - to change hearts, minds and lives, always beginning with our own.

Just as with Sunday mass, we know that we do not walk blindly without direction or purpose.  Our daily journey always points pack to the extraordinary - to the Heavenly banquet we know will one day be ours for all eternity.  Don't mourn the passing of the Christmas season.  Carry it with you as you being to walk once again in ordinary time.  Allow the mystery of Christ born as man to renew your heart every day, and carry that with you as you journey in your everyday life - your gaze always set on the extraordinary life that awaits, that we are so blessed to taste, if only in small glimpses here on earth.

May the grace of the Christmas season sustain us all, and renew each step we take on our earthly journey towards Heaven!

Our Angel Gabriel

A few weeks ago, Jeff and I discovered that I was having a miscarriage. We barely would have known because I was so early along, except that I have been through miscarriage once before. I had taken pregnancy tests as recently as two weeks before the miscarriage occured, which came out negative. However when I suspected that I was miscarrying, I took another test which came out positive. One more little angel for us.

I had suspected I was pregnant a few weeks before Advent began. I had put on a few pounds, my midsection was starting to shift, and my pants were getting tighter. My youngest son whom I was still breastfeeding started getting fussy and refusing his feedings - usually the biggest sign that I am pregnant, because my milk changes and the baby doesn't like it anymore. I took a few tests, which, as I mentioned, came out negative. I became obsessed with checking, watching my weight like crazy and taking pregnancy tests every few days. I felt like I just HAD to know what was going on! As Advent approached however, the Lord began to convict me that I needed to trust in Him. And so, the week before Advent began, I resolved to neither weigh myself nor take a pregnancy test until the fourth week of Advent. In preparation for the feast of the Nativity, I would truly enter into Mary's expectant waiting by mirroring it, as best I could, in my own life. I did so fully expecting to have joyful news to announce to family and friends, just in time for Christmas.

Not long into the second week of Advent, I began to bleed. I assumed it was my period, and I was completely dumbfounded and confused at how I possibly could have misinterpreted things so badly. Up until that point I was certain I was pregnant, and I felt a sense of loss that there would be no baby, at least not yet. It wasn't until the second day of my bleeding that the full picture of what was going on became evident. It began to be less like a period, and more like what happens in the days following the birth of a child. It also was very similar to what had happened when I miscarried for the first time in 2005. Jeff and I both agreed that I should take a pregnancy test, in the event that we were losing a child, because we wanted to know if a life had been created. And indeed, it had.

I felt very clearly initially that the Lord didn't want me to give up hope, and so I didn't. As the days went on however, it became more evident. When we entered Advent with the hope that we were expecting, we had talked about naming the baby Gabriel, in honor of the season of waiting, and Gabriel's message of hope to Mary. Now as we simultaneously rejoiced over another precious child created, and were saddened by his loss, it seemed to be the most fitting. And so it came to be that our seventh child Gabriel was conceived, and now lives in Heaven with his brother John Paul, where we know we can joyfully expect to be reunited one day.

When you miscarry so early, it's hard to really decipher how you feel about things. Of course you feel a sense of loss - but I'm sure it's not the same as it is for women who are further along. And I think the real message for me is that same sense I had from the very beginning signs of miscarriage - that God wants me to hope. I am not sharing this for anyone to be sad for us, but simply because whenever a child is conceived, it is something to be celebrated. I want people to know that we are not a family of seven, but of nine, and that these two children exist and are just as precious to us as the ones we are blessed to hold here on earth.

As parents, the best we can ever hope for is to lead our spouse and our children to Heaven. Every day I hope and pray that I won't mess it up for them - that my own sins and failings which I see reflected in them won't keep them away from God. For two of my children, I know the battle has been won. We all count on their prayer, and feel their love. Each night as we say the rosary, we all ask our patron Saints (whom each of us are named after) to pray for us, and as the kids each announce their own Saint, Jeff asks the intercession of Blessed John Paul II and St. Gabriel on behalf of the children we know join us whenever we pray as a family.

Through his short life, our little Gabriel has succeeded in drawing us ever closer to God. Through the season of Advent he united our hearts with our Blessed Mother and Saint Joseph, and helped to point us in expectant hope to our Lord Jesus. As we draw closer to the feast of our Saviour's birth, I hear the same words spoken by his namesake, the great Archangel: "Be not afraid! For behold, I bring you good news of great joy." And I really do feel that God is doing great things in our lives, and it's only going to get better.

Praise God for the gift of marriage, and the way that it allows us to share in a love so perfect, as Scott Hahn says, "in nine months it needs to be given a name!" We hope and pray this will not be our last little one, but of course, nobody can know that. What I do know is that we are eternally grateful for the five little souls we share a house with every day, and the two that have taken up their dwelling in Heaven. And if God chooses to honor us with another little one, it would be our supreme joy to say, "Yes!" once more!

Anxious Waiting

I don't have too much trouble with anxiety, but every now and then it sets in, for no apparent reason. Such was the case this morning. I can't explain it, but I just had this worried feeling gripping me.

I'm trying to make this advent season about preparing my heart for the birth of Jesus, and part of that has been to listen to Advent music, and save the real Christmassy stuff for Christmas. As I was buzzing about in my worry, listening to my Advent playlist, the song, "Magnificat" by Steve Bell (which is a cover of the John Michael Talbot song of the same name) came on. The Magnificat is the prayer that Mary prayed after the angel Gabriel appeared to her, asking her to be the mother of God. It is a beautiful prayer, the words of which are:

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, and my spirit exults in God my saviour.
For He has looked with mercy on my lowliness, and my name shall be forever exalted.
For the mighty God done great things for me, and His mercy will reach from age to age.
And Holy is His name!

Everything stopped for me as I listened to the words of our Blessed Mother's prayer, and it occured to me the utter foolishness of my situation - that I have nothing to worry about, and yet have given myself over to it: yet Mary was faced with what must have been the most fearful position in the world, second only to the suffering of her Son. You, Mary, barely a teenager and engaged to be married, will conceive a child who will be the Saviour. Yikes! And her response was total abandon, and praise of the Lord. I believe she was joyful, but that the joy came as a result of her prayer, and not the other way around.

Sometimes when we get into a mood, it takes deliberate action and prayer to bring us out of it. We can't wait until we feel at peace to pray - sometimes we have to put on our raincoat, and enter into the storm. This is the example of our Blessed Mother, and this is the message of Advent. We don't know when the Lord is coming again, and He may seem so far away. But despite that, if we pray and turn our hearts to the Lord, only then will we - as our Blessed Mother - enter more fully into the joy that He promises.

My Buddy

Stephen is my absolute middle child. Number 3 of 5 children, he is also at what I consider to be one of the most difficult ages of toddlerhood (4). He is strong-willed and determined, which are in and of themselves wonderful attributes to have. However, for a four-year-old who just will not be quiet at mass because he is so intent on asking you (not in his church voice, either) why those lights are up there on the ceiling, and just will not take "I don't know", "because Fr. Mike put them there", "to light up the church", or any other variation for an answer, it can be quite trying.

I was sick yesterday with a bad cold. When we walked into mass, the kids started to be quite themselves for their ages, and I prayed, "Lord, please give me the strength to be loving with them today, and not to snap at them if they misbehave." I was so very impressed with the good behavior that resulted from all of the kids, but most especially from Stephen. The Friday before we had been at a holy hour, and I timed him out at least ten times (yes, you can time your children out during adoration, haha!). We were the loudest family there, and I was at the end of my rope.

Most of our stuggle comes with just getting him to sit still and not roll around everywhere (which, at four years old, is something he should be capable of, at least for a few minutes at a time). With my older boys, if they are fidgeting or not standing when they are supposed to, I discovered that if I hold out my hand to them, they will reach up for me. Then, simply by holding their hand they will stand up. I'm not sure why, but it's so much better than disciplining them, because they choose it for themselves. And it becomes something to affirm them, not to correct them.

So I put my hand out for Stephen (who was laying on his back on the pew), but he wasn't having it. He rolled around completely ignoring me. I always try to get them to look into my eyes before I say something to them, but he wouldn't even look at me. I could feel my blood starting to boil, and suppressed the urge deep within me to just yank him up out of his seat and say, "YOU STAND NOW BECAUSE I SAID SO AND DO NOT IGNORE ME!!!" Instead, I remembered that he is my buddy.

Earlier in the summer, I began using the buddy system with my kids. If we are going out somewhere, I pair the older ones with a little one to help them get ready, and hold each other's hands while we're out (I had seen it on 19 Kids and Counting). They all responded really well to it, but Stephen did in particular. I noticed that when he played with his older brothers, he started calling them his buddies, and it really meant something special to him. He made up this saying, "buddies always stay together." It has been great, because as the third boy (and with the next child being a girl), I notice that often he get left out of what the older kids are doing, and that he didn't seem to have the same bond as the older boys did. This new concept of a buddy gave him something special to attach to them, and deepened his feelings for them (and they for him). I could get the older boys to do anything for him if I reminded them that he was their buddy. It was beautiful!

So there in the church, faced with the iron will of my four-year-old, and praying for the strength not to just loose it on him right there, my hand still outstretched I said, "hey buddy?" He turned and looked at me with his sweet little smile, took my hand, and stood up straight and still beside me. For the rest of mass, anytime he started to get out of hand I would do the same thing, and my buddy was happy to pay attention and stand beside me.

I watched a documentary about elephants recently. In elephant families everyone follows a matriarch, and the bond with her is so strong that the elephants will turn away even from hunger if she calls to them. I realized at mass that the same can be true for the kids, that if I call on the strength of my bond with Stephen, instead of being stern, he will respond with his affection for me. Don't get me wrong, I know there are times when strict discipline is required. But far too often I think I go to that first, out of desparation. And yesterday, feeling completely empty and drained of myself, I cried out to God and He gave me the grace to see that there is another way, a better way.

Thank you Lord, for showing me that without you I don't have what it takes - but that with you, and in You, I have everything I need to treat my children with the love and respect they so deserve.

The Best Job in the World

When I was growing up, I always loved kids. My cousin and I used to fight for the attention of our many younger cousins. At family gatherings we were willing babysitters to exhausted parents who wanted a break, and I loved every minute of it. I always used to say that if working in day care paid better, that would have been my career.

Funny though, I've tried the babysitting thing. And it's not enough to love kids, I don't think. There is a special kind of person who is called to do that for a living, and my children have been blessed to be cared for by a couple of them. But it's not me. What I have discovered though, is that my ideal job does indeed involve being around kids all day, but that the pay is even much less than that of a daycare worker. It is, of course, a mother.

I was out with my kids earlier today, and I realized how much I really, truly enjoy spending time with them. I always have, but now I don't feel as though a million other things are dividing my attention. On previous maternity leaves I have had the luxury of a part-time sitter, where I could drop the kids off if I had errands to run, or just wanted a day to myself once a week. That, however, would now cost me upwards of $50 just to drop the kids off for one day, and I have a hard time justifying that. The result? Now Jeff does most of the errand running, and whenever I go in town I bring everyone - which means we do something fun together (I'm not one to waste a trip).

People always say they don't know how I do it, and I know they never quite believe me when I say that having more children makes a lot of things easier. I found it way more difficult to get around with three babies than I do with my five children, because the two older boys are older and much more capable of helping me round the little ones up. And I've had seven years of getting around to figure out the best (and most efficient) way to do it. And I'm learning not to put too much pressure on myself - if I make it anywhere at all, it's an accomplishment. I don't stress about being late when I'm on my own with the kiddies.

You would think that having more kids would make you busier, but for me it's the opposite. It is crystal clear the things I cannot do anymore, so I just don't do them. Instead, I get to spend my days enjoying this journey with the best companions a girl could ask for. And that is the best job in the world!