Grab a Box of Kleenex

Head over to Rachel's blog for a video gone viral that is sure to make you bawl, baby, bawl.

Rachel went on to relate a story that involved my son, Tim:

A few weeks ago, we had our last home games for Junior Varsity. There were two boys on the team who hadn’t scored yet (they hadn’t gotten tons of playing time this season, which is only nice in that it means we had a lot of close games that we actually won!). So this, our last home game, Paul put them in the game. 

You could tell the boys on the team were focused on getting the ball to those boys. A few minutes in, one of the point guards passed the ball to William. He shot that ball and…SCORED! I think it may have been a three. The gym went nuts. I looked across the court to see Paul (William’s dad) standing up with his arms raised in the air. I was standing next to my mom and we both had tears welling up in our eyes. His victory was his dad’s victory was the entire home team’s victory. 

The other boy, Tim, came in after that. The boys fed him the ball and he probably took about six or seven shots. He didn’t end up scoring, but I don’t really feel like that diminished all the love that was just pouring out of the stands for that kid. I know that sounds hokey but I don’t care. Everyone was chanting “Tim! Tim! Tim!” and I was proud to be a part of a school that knew exactly who that kid was and how badly they wanted him to score. 

Sports can be so awesome, y’all.

And in the comments, I wrote this:

Tim’s  Mom weighing in . . . 

The scene at our basketball game was something to watch, and several funny things happened after the game. 

First, Rachel’s oldest son, Ethan, was named MVP at the end of our tournament. He came up to Tim after the game, held out the trophy and said, “Really, Tim, this should go to you.” 

 “Yeah?” Tim asked. 

 “Uh . . . no,” Ethan said, shaking his head. 

And they both laughed. 

 A few days later I was asking Tim about the varsity team which, to put a positive spin on it, is in a building year. 

 “Why haven’t they won more games,” I asked Tim. 

 “Most of our best players are freshmen or sophomores,” he told me “But we are so good. In a year or two, we’re going to rock. We are, like, great athletes.” 

I was surprised by the reflexive way Tim used first person plural – we, and not third person plural – they. 

“Does it ever bother you that you’re not as good at sports as some of the other boys,” I asked. 

“Nah, I’m amazingly gifted in lots of other ways,” he informed me without the slightest trace of irony. 

“No self-esteem issues, huh, Tim?” 

“Uh . . . no.”

Since birthing my first child, I've thought long and hard about the maelstrom of motivations and emotions that comes with the job. Performance anxiety is one of them. Beginning with T-ball and ending with, well, I have absolutely no idea when it all ends and come to think about it, some of the struggles we moms face began l-o-n-g before T-ball when the mother sitting next to us at the park innocently said, "Janey slept seven hours last night," and we wondered why our kid had slept for just two.

It's walking and potty training, phonics and backyard soccer, the fourth grade play and the middle school honor roll.

For me, this game of compare and contrast pre-dates motherhood. I distinctly remember my niece's  first skating recital. Did I actually say or merely think: Hannah, you're the cutest one out there!

Whole volumes could be dedicated to The Pinewood Derby alone and its uncanny ability to sift the hearts of men (and mothers). The year Kolbe came in dead last in every single heat was a turning point for me and, honestly, I look at all this very differently today than I did then.

And I know this much is true: We love the children we're given. 

Never has this been clearer to me than this year when we've faced challenges of an entirely different nature. You can ring your hands and wonder Why, Why, Why or you can face them and get on with it.

I have a child in my atrium who faced a significant brain injury at birth. Today we sat around talking about the Pope's resignation, and I realized that most of my students are eight and under and have never known a different Pope. We went around the room, and I asked all their ages.

"How old are you, Elijah," I asked.

"Thirty-one," he informed us.

And we all laughed. He's hilarious and sweet and will likely never be able to do some of things other children do every day. 

We love the children we're given.

Last summer Rachel contributed a chapter to Style, Sex and Substance: 10 Catholic Women Consider the Things that Really Matter. I have a half-written book review on it and plan to give away a copy one day real soon, but here I'll highlight one simple but profound truth that Rachel learned from her mother and highlighted in her piece: Someone else's win is not your loss.

Behind that sentiment -- a sentiment that is simple to type but very challenging to live out -- is the knowledge that God is a loving, sovereign God. The physically challenged boy in the video, the brain-injured child in my atrium, the kid who tries but doesn't make a shot, the top player -- they are wholly loved by God and precious in His sight.

When I thought about Tim's exchange with Ethan and my exchange with Tim, I realized that Tim very much considers the school his school and the basketball team his basketball team. Ethan's win is not his loss. 

We need to be able to cheer someone else's success, to laugh at our own foibles, to shrug off some of our limitations.

I am heartened to live in an environment that encourages the One for All and All for One mentality, an environment in which friends can rib each other and share a laugh together.

Parents on the Edge

We left church yesterday with two thoughts in mind:

1. We need to begin frisking John on a regular basis.

2. John's probably going to join the Knights of Columbus one day.

What? My thoughts were supposed to be related to the Gospel or God or holiness? Such is life with young children in church.

Quick flashback to last Thursday -- I am running to the store to buy chocolate coins for Tim's play (a total bail out, violating every tenet of "Parenting with Love and Logic" -- but that's another story). I found the coins, snagged a few other items, and zipped through the check out line.

Only one bag of coins was in sight. I was about to start a quick perusal of the floor when I thought to ask John if he had seen the candy. He reached into the pocket of his blue jean shorts and -- lo and behold! -- there they were.

On Sunday morning I delivered Ainsley to the nursery and sent Kolbe and John ahead into the church. I found them on the front steps. Kolbe had confiscated a sword and an Easter egg. Blame it on inadequate caffeine. I can understand overlooking the Easter egg, but it's a mighty distracted Mom who misses the three foot long sword her four-year-old is hauling into church.

Aside from this, John was nothing short of angelic at church. I wish I could say it was for a good reason.

About ten minutes into Mass, a family of four quietly took the pew in front of us. There were two cute little boys -- about three and five. The parents -- what can I say about the parents? They looked rough, almost strung-out. I thought the father might be  sick or in some way disabled. The wife helped him get the hymnal, gently gave him the response cards.

About twenty minutes later, the father abruptly left. The mother started hissing at the kids. One of them climbed onto the kneeler. She grabbed his arm roughly and jerked him back. This both continued and escalated. She snarled; she grabbed; she elbowed. It was ugly.

First I prayed. Then I felt sick. Then I wanted to cry.

We've all seen this before -- in the grocery store, in the emergency room, in a parking lot. A few weeks ago I heard a woman drop the F bomb to a van load of pre-schoolers. When Tim had his anaphalactic reaction to the wasp sting, we ended up in the ER late in the evening. It was chock-full of sick, tired children and parents on the ragged edge. Not pretty to see.

And I get it. The kids are miserable and the parents are scared, stressed, exhausted, maybe worried about money, usually alone, wondering if they're going to be on that hard, plastic chair for two hours or six, thinking about work the next morning, maybe thinking about children they left unsupervised at home. I get it.

Fourteen days before I delivered Ainsley, I sat in a hard, wooden chair in the doctor's office holding John who had a 104 degree fever. When the doctor could find no source for the fever, he bagged John to get a urine sample. John was dehydrated, and it took him four hours to produce a sample. Four hours.

We all have limits, and parenting stretches them.

My kids have a universal reaction when they encounter mean parents. They hold on and don't let go. When Kolbe was about three, we were browsing through Sam's Club and encountered a mother with a nasty bite.

"She's mean," Kolbe said, his eyes wide. He grabbed my leg and wouldn't let go.

So it was yesterday with John. Though the scene in front of us wasn't loud, John assessed it all, no problem. He wrapped his arms around me, sat in my lap, kissed my arm.

I leaned over to Dave and said, "Let's pray for that woman after Mass."

I am not one to intervene. Mostly I think my involvement would only cause tensions to escalate. I wish I had said something to the women who dropped the F bomb. As mothers it might -- might -- be helpful to get a wake up call that says, "Hello! Lots of ears around here! Clean it up already!"

Maybe.

In Borders Bookstore one afternoon, I encountered an exchange between a mother and daughter that was so hideous, I expected to see John Quinones jumping out with a hidden camera. John and his crew stage a variety scenes (mean parents, racist customers, caretakers being unkind to elderly people) in restaurants and playgrounds trying to see who, if anyone, will intervene.

I remember one episode in which a fake mother verbally abused her daughter. Many, many people shook their heads and passed on by. One mother stepped in to say something along the lines of, "I know how hard parenting can be. We all lose it sometimes. What can I do to help you?"

That's what I had in mind yesterday morning. This woman was on. the. edge. I couldn't simply look away.

And then she got up and left. With another rough jerk and a hiss, off they went.

Please join me in praying this family.

The Hand That Rocks the Cradle

To moms everywhere:

Maybe you, like me, had a four-year-old come running with a grisly tale of an overflowing toilet. Upon investigating, you found that this boy with a flair for the dramatic wasn't exaggerating one little bit.

Maybe you, like me, sat in the backyard wondering why oh why your phone was ringing off the hook. When you finally answered it, you found that your assistant catechist, a mother, and your entire class were all waiting at the atrium for a session scheduled to start fifteen minutes earlier.

Maybe you, like me, let your adorable toddler try on her Easter dress for just a minute and then found that this darling frock -- lovely, smocked, purchased by Grandma -- had had an unfortunate encounter with an uncapped Sharpie.

Maybe you, like me, have been wringing your hands, questioning your purpose, pouring yourself glass of wine. If so, I suggest reading this article on the impact of nurturing mothers.

It seems the hand that rocks the cradle really does rule the world, or as the author puts it, "One generation full of deeply loving parents would change the brain of the next generation, and with that, the world."

Here's a summary of the study:

Researchers brought the kids and parents into a lab and videotaped them as the parents, almost always mothers, tried to help their children cope with a mildly stressful task that was designed to approximate the stress of daily parenting . . . Ratings of parental ability to nurture their children were done by study personnel who watched the videos. . .

Several years later, on average, the children had the size of a brain area called the hippocampus measured . . .  The researchers found that children with especially nurturing, caring mothers, based on their behavior during the laboratory stressor, had significantly larger hippocampi (plural of hippocampus - you’ve got one on each side of the brain) than kids with mothers who were average or poor nurturers.

Why is the hippocampus so crucial?

Because more than any place else in the brain, when it comes to the hippocampus, size matters. Other things being equal, having small hippocampi increases your risk for all sorts of troubles, from depression and post traumatic stress disorder to Alzheimer’s disease. 

In addition to protecting us against brain illnesses, we all need big hippocampi because this brain area, while not much bigger than your little finger, plays a disproportionately large role in how you will be able to handle the stresses and strains of your life, and how you will remember your life when it’s all said and done. (Emphasis mine).

Wow.

It's a rainy day today, and my van is in the shop. We enjoyed a slow, lazy morning full of coloring books and Legos. John grabbed a scrap of paper and wrote a bunch of random letters on it.

"I wrote a note to Auntie Kate," he told me, holding up his paper. "It says, 'Dear Auntie Kate, I love you.'"

With Valentine's Day still fresh in his mind, John colored a heart for her. I gave him little scissors and encouraged him to cut it out.

"I can't do it," he said. "I don't know how."

I demonstrated and told him to give it a try. He was thrilled to see that he could cut out a heart. This was very much the kind of mildly stressful task these researchers studied with children. These challenges arise a hundred times a day. A child struggles to tie a shoe or manage that last button or get that Transformer to transform. And there's Mom. Is she helpful or encouraging or comforting? Is she cranky or distracted or cheerful?  Is she blogging or texting or chatting on the phone?

I can be all of these things depending on the week, the day, the hour.

Today I folded John's note and the heart and put them in an envelope to mail to Auntie Kate. "Are you going to letter it," John asked. "How do you do that?"

I showed him how to "letter it." He carefully wrote J-O-H-N in brown crayon in the upper left hand corner. He put the envelope in the mail box and raised the red flag. Lettered!

I remember a day years and years ago when much  a younger Tim fell apart during piano practice. He hit a tricky measure and no amount of repetition or counting could help him get it straight. I had just plunked an enormous quantity of unfolded laundry onto the couch. I looked at Tim's obvious frustration and said, "You know, Tim, this laundry is overwhelming. I can't do it all, but I can fold one shirt."

We both persevered.

It is constant, this life-long gig we call motherhood. I find it helpful to keep my eyes on the prize, to read articles like this, not so that I can become undone by the enormity of it all, but so that I can once more be inspired by the greatness of this vocation.

No one has expressed this better than G.K. Chesterton who once said this about motherhood:

I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute.

That hand that rocks the cradle? It really does rule the world.

Boundaries

Ainsley comes charging in while I'm, ahem, in the bathroom.

"Close the door," I say. "Mama needs her privacy."

Ainsley immediately steps inside and closes the door. She runs to the map of the world shower curtain and asks, "Where I live, Mama?"

Instead of ordering her little caboose right out of the bathroom, I point to southeastern North America. She says, "That's my 'Gusta, Georgia. Where Timmy live?"

We go through Daddy, Kolbe, John, and Mama. She nods and says, "That's my 'Gusta, Georgia. Can I fwush the toilet?'

If you follow the Wall Street Journal, you may be aware that a year ago, Chinese mothers were declared superior. They set the bar high, demanding straight A's, excellence in music, and beautifully appointed homemade birthday cards. We sorry, western mothers hung our heads in collective shame. This year the Journal says top marks go to the French.

If I had to summarize the Chinese approach it would be high standards. The French approach seems to to rest on clear boundaries. The incident with Ainsley in the bathroom made me stop and ponder the issue of boundaries. What boundaries have we set for our children? Where, besides the restroom, do we lack clear boundaries?

The Journal article discussed the French tendency to have set meal times with little or no snacking in between. The author cited an example of a young child (maybe four?) who made pastries with his  mother but knew there was no tasting until it was snack time.

Where's the fun in that, I'd like to know. But, I have to say, reading this heightened my awareness of how much grazing we do as a family, of how few boundaries we have in the area of food. My older children attend school, so they have set meal times, but my younger ones seem to nibble all day long. They are hunter-gatherers of the highest order. Food, glorious food -- whatever, whenever, wherever! Yesterday, as I was visiting with a friend, John pushed a step stool across the kitchen, climbed on the counter, and helped himself to a few cookies. I intervened and was met with an epic fit.

John and the kitchen? Clear boundaries needed.

I delved into a little deep cleaning the other day and reflected on how so much of the mess in our house is related to boundaries. I should not need to clean up cereal in the living room. Popcorn after a movie night? Not a problem. But cereal, empty drink boxes, and Valentines candy? No.

I have a friend who is so diligent about enforcing a one toy at a time rule. The kids have free access to all their toys, but the key is that they clean up one item before moving to another. They have boundaries. The children have boundaries because the mom is self-disciplined.

Children are entitled to certain things without conditions or limitations -- love, protection, respect, clothing, adequate food. But in other areas -- principally in the material realm -- our generosity, our largess, can send a message we really never intended to send: You are entitled to this, we seem to say even when we don't intend to say that. Kids grow up thinking: I am entitled to a cell phone, a ticket to every new release, clothes at least as nice as the neighbor's, a college education, highlights, fill in the blank.

I love to buy books for my kids. Snacks, toys, anything electronic,  more plastic c-r-a-p that will all too soon be abandoned -- in these departments, my kids  know their mother is nothing but miserly. But bring home that Scholastic book order? I pull out the checkbook. Do they appreciate this or expect this? Can they both expect this and appreciate this?

At the moment Dave and I feel we have just run a marathon -- Dave's 50th birthday, my visit to Florida, demands at work, the Pinewood Derby, the Boy Scout camping trip, the diorama, and -- my personal favorite -- the Science Fair -- good gravy, we are ready to crack. Is it the stress or the lack of sleep that's making all us hack and ache and sneeze? In a few moments I'm heading to the doctor with high hopes of evicting the little man with the sledge hammer who has taken up residence in my left sinus cavity.

What does this have to do with entitlement? Oh yeah . . . I collapsed into bed late, late, late and woke up around 7:00 to find my sweet Ainsey curled up next to me, and John cozily ensconced in his favorite spot at the foot of our bed. I have a vague memory from about 4:00 a.m. of John telling me, "Mama, I'm wet."

He got out of his soggy clothes, and we found him a drier spot. As I settled him back in, He said, "Mama, your breath is on my face. Can you please move it?"

Okay, whose bed is this anyway, buster? Free free to mosey on back to your own bed and leave me and my morning breath alone!

A friend shared struggles she has with a particularly trying child. The child's father told her something, and the girl -- a ten-year-old -- told him to shut up. Shut up, Daddy! Truly I cannot conceive of telling my father to shut up when I was ten or sixteen or forty-seven. And it wasn't because my father was  mean. But we had boundaries. We were on one side of the boundaries and, believe me, the words Shut Up were clearly on the other side.

Few of us consciously choose to raise kids without boundaries. We don't shout, "Smorgasbord, kids! The fridge is all yours!" We don't suggest the pre-schoolers trash the house. We don't encourage our teenagers to set their father straight.

But we (or me) can be inconsistent or distracted or blind or just plain lazy. When I'm helping Tim and Kolbe get out the door for school, it's both easy and lazy to hand John and Ainsley something to nibble on and not insist that they eat at the table. When I find the remnants on the piano bench or in my bed or in the fish tank, should I really be surprised?


We will continue to bake lots of cookies around here, and we'll continue to gobble up lots of batter as we go. But I am taking a fresh look at some of the boundaries we have set . . . and some of the ones we clearly haven't.

Why Not Take All of Me

I am passionate about breastfeeding. I mean, really, in another era, I could have been a wet nurse. To me it's one of the easiest parts of those early months -- free, neat, portable, healthy!

Love it, love it, love it.

So when I do my morning perusal of the headlines and spot Does Breastfeeding Cause Divorce?, I, of course, feel compelled to stop. The provocative headline was written to lure readers like me, but I found the author's premise much deeper (and darker) than just another round of ammo in the Mommy Wars. Author Molly Baker begins with government statistics on the potential benefits of extended breastfeeding:

The recent study said that the lives of 900 babies could be saved, along with billions of dollars in lost employee wages, if 90% of American women breastfed their babies exclusively for the first six months. I am not sure which part of that goal stuns me more – the 90%, the six months or the “exclusively.”. . .

But what they haven’t looked at is what these “suboptimal” rates have prevented or gained for American women, children and families. Where are the statistics on how many marriages have been saved by limiting breastfeeding? Or simply what postpartum independence has meant for women’s mental health, and their confidence and trust in their relevance outside the domestic sphere? . . .

In a word, be careful what you wish for. Blue-ribbon breastfeeding goals could -- in the extreme -- lead to increased divorce, depression, and long-term damage to the delicate ecosystem of gender roles in our families, workplaces and society. At the very least, the effort sanctions the message to women that their children and domestic duties come first. For women and researchers for whom long-term breastfeeding is the answer, the question certainly needs to be asked: at what cost?

To any woman entering motherhood with such a cost-benefit analysis at the front on her mind, I say this: You are in for a rude awakening. The author is worried about the cost, and so she should be, because the cost is high, high indeed. Forget about the hours you will spend nursing and wiping poopy bottoms and laundering little sleepers. Forget about the figures news outlets publish citing the cost of raising a child to age eighteen.

Let's just cut to the chase: Motherhood will cost you everything. Yes, everything.

Let me cite the single best analogy I have heard for motherhood: It's a tattoo on your face.

Baker states, “I do resent the expectation that after carrying a baby for nine months, American women should surrender control for six more months.”

Why do I find that line so shocking, so completely out of step with my expectations of motherhood?

Fifteen years ago we announced the pending arrival of our first child, our son, Timothy. My mother-in-law sent me a breastfeeding manual. In it she had written: You’ve now given permission for your heart to reside outside your body. This may seem like a saccharine sweet endearment dreamt up by Hallmark. Mothers know how true to life it really is.

You don’t surrender control for nine months or another six months or eighteen years; it’s gone, baby, gone and gone for good.

When I began labeling my archived writing, I was a tad surprised that most of my writing falls into the category of Real Life. I talk about the struggles and the spilt milk, sibling rivalry and interrupted sleep. I have invested an inordinate amount of words discussing vomit (click here to read Gross) and potty training (colorful details here and here).

I have written fairly transparently about my own struggles ( Losing the bite) and about bad days (So many reasons to have kids). In that piece I wrote:

I wanted this life. I wanted these kids. I prayed and fasted for them. I took fertility drugs! In the face of all that, motherhood remains the hardest thing I've ever done.

By far.

Now, I don't have eight or ten kids, I have never had multiples, and we have not faced physical disabilities. I wake up every morning to the run-of-the-mill start the laundry, sling some hash, load up the van, off to the pool, umpire the shouting match, change the diaper, kiss the boo-boo, read the story, et cetera, et cetera. It is typically exhausting, sometimes mind-numbingly boring, always constant. 

Let me say unequivocally that motherhood is also teeming with moments of grace.

Cuddling a nursing baby. Placing my hand on Ainsley's cheek and feeling her tiny hand rest on mine.

Hearing my two-year-old come up to me and say, "I have a secret," and then lean into my ear and lisp, "I wove you!"

Opening my eight-year-old's writing journal and finding he has written "I love my Mom and Dad" on the inside cover.

Watching my twelve-year-old play with his baby brother and sister and then tell me he hopes we have another one.

My terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day ended. John came into our bed in the middle of the night. I rubbed his soft cheek and felt the warmth of a brewing fever. He cried and then said in his sweet toddler voice, "Dwy ma tears, Mama."

Yes, it can be exhausting, boring, and constant. In its own imperfect way, it is also joyful, enriching, and blessed.

I write this from the perspective of a woman with relatively young children. We deal with the trivial hurts that don't always seem so trivial: watching a son come in dead last in every heat in the Pinewod Derby, seeing another son being the only player who rode the bench for every minute of the soccer tournament, commiserating when a child has missed first honors by 0.3.

Yes, our oldest is just fourteen and to date our frustrations have been mere irritants in the grand scheme of things. But I was once a teenager and one of four teenagers in my home. As children begin to cut the apron strings and venture out into the wider world, the stakes are higher. Teenagers text and speed simultaneously. They spend 6.5 years working hard on that elusive bachelor's degree. They dump the nice girl and take up with the hot girl.

I have watched friends struggle as their adult child made poor choices. It's the unplanned pregnancy or the hint of casual drug use. It's watching a once fervent faith wane and materialism take hold. Other times, adult children face hurdles beyond their control -- cancer or depression or divorce.

You fervently love, but you cannot control. You desperately fear, but you can no longer protect. You persevere in hope and never cease to pray. You ship care packages full of chocolate chip cookies and socks and underwear.

Your heart resides outside your body.

If  we're going to count the cost, let's count the whole count. It will take all of you. It will take all of me.

Fight or Flight

Adrenaline assists the human body in mounting a response in times of trouble. Fight or flight -- that's what we're supposed to do when facing peril. But what if instead your innate response is pure paralysis?

I'm about twelve years old. I'm window shopping at the mall. I exit one store and stroll into the mall area to wander through a car show. A man walks up and starts reading a display out loud. He makes some kind of small talk -- I can't remember what he said exactly.

I move on. And so does he. He makes a joke or another comment. I glance at him and realize he's probably about thirty-five. He continues to chat. He's starting to give me the creeps.

I move on. Again he follows me.

I'm starting to seize up internally. I'm not sure what to do. He keeps talking. I continue to panic. Eventually, I move quickly away, cut through a drug store, and out into the parking lot.

He's standing right there.

He starts talking to me about going for a ride in his car. I say no. At some point he puts his arm around me. I ask him to leave me alone, and he does. I bolt through the parking lot back to my grandmother's apartment.

By the grace of God, the story ends there.

I just read this piece by Elizabeth Foss. Every word she wrote resonated with me. I was that nice, mostly polite, fairly compliant girl who didn't know what in the world to do when a thirty-five-year-old man stalked her.

Here's what I didn't do:

I didn't yell, "Get away from me!"

I didn't attract any attention from a shopper, a cashier, or a rent-a-cop.

I remember this event as clearly as if it happened yesterday. I was afraid, and my fear made me freeze. Part of my whole response to this was exactly what Elizabeth hits on -- girls who are polite and concerned about the feelings of others can make poor, poor choices.

Years later I was at a party with my best friend. Her curfew was fast approaching, so out the door we went. I realized she was in no condition to drive. This sort of dilemma is all too common. Do you get in the car and hope for the best, or do you confront the driver? I took her keys and drove to her house where quite a scene unfolded. I grabbed the phone and punched in my home number, anxious to have my dad pick me up asap.


It was late. Dad was tired. He was more than a bit put out by the whole affair. But I never hesitated to call him, not for one second. In the way my dad has, he groused and muttered and then said, "Well, now that we're up, we might as well get a hamburger."


A year or two after that, I was living England. At 1:00 in the morning, I left a friend's dorm room -- alone --and headed back to my room. As I moved through the double doors into the common room, I noticed someone behind me. Not thinking a thing of it, I continued on. I passed the phone booths and suddenly decided to call my parents. With the time difference, I would catch them around dinner time.


As I dialed, I noticed that the man who had been behind me was now sitting off at a table in a corner. My parents weren't home. I headed back through the common room and toward the doors. As I started out, I thought I should try my folks again. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that as I was leaving, the man had started to leave as well. I turned around and headed for the bank of phones. Still no answer. Then I noticed that the man was once again sitting at a corner table.

I'm imagining this, I thought. I'll pretend to go back out and see what he does.


I walked to the doors. He got up and followed me, now for the third time. The building had twenty-four hour security. Do I report this, or do I dash to my room? Feeling a bit ridiculous, a bit paranoid, I walked to the porter's office.


"You're going to think I'm crazy," I remember saying. "But I think a man is following me."


The porter looked for the man who by then was nowhere to be found. He walked me back to my room. The next night I answered a knock on my door to find the same porter standing there.

"Are you the woman I walked home," he asked. "A woman was assaulted last night. The police would like to interview you."

I was interviewed three times. To my knowledge, the rapist was not caught. I knew the victim slightly. She had taken my place as coxswain of a crew when I realized that rowing was not the sport for me. She dropped out of school.

Kindness, manners, obedience -- we work very hard on these virtues. We want daughters and sons who are friendly, polite, and giving. We need to balance this with wholeness, confidence, and boundaries. At twelve I was paralyzed by fear; by twenty-one, I managed to ask for help. I'm so glad that I did.

I look at my four children, still so young and innocent. I want them to grow up to be prudent and smart. I want them to have a healthy respect for their bodies. I want them to have the courage to say No! --forcefully and convincingly -- when No! is needed. I want them to heed that inner voice that shouts This is a bad situation.


I want them to know they can always, always, always call.

Hand Prints and Children's Art

Dear Miss Rebecca -

Thank you for making my Christmas. The Christmas doormat is great (but no one's allowed to wipe his feet on it). The reindeer ornament? Too cute. And John's gingerbread house? Well, you teachers must have the patience of Job and a one very washable work area. My friend Rachel and I were oohhing and aahhing over our sons' creations.

Yes, both John and Ainsley produced the mother-lode of Christmas crafts this year.  Wreaths and bookmarks and ornaments and a host of other items that came wrapped and ready for Christmas morning. I squealed when I saw the wreath that Ainsley made.

John made a Santa wall hanging that reads:

Look very closely and you will see
That Santa's beard was made by me
Hang this Santa on the wall
To remember when my hands were small.

I read it and cried. Yes, I cried. The hand print art gets me every time. Mother's Day, Christmas, Valentine's Day -- if it involves a hand print and some over-the-top cheesy sentiment typed by the teacher, I fairly swoon.

Christmas morning I opened a bag with yet another little ornament -- a tiny wrapped box with a tag that read:

I took an ordinary box
As empty as can be
I filled it with a special gift
And wrapped it carefully

But please don't ever open it
Just leave the ribbon tied
And hold it tightly near your heart
Because ... my love for you is inside!

I bawled my eyes out. We have it on video.

You captured a slice of four-year-old John, a slice I will save and treasure. Thank you!

- Kelly

I'm Too Pretty To Do Homework

More news of young girls and fashion ... This one falls more into the category of inane, unlike the situation involving The Learning Channel which was nothing short of reprehensible. JC Penney has been taken to task for marketing a t-shirt that reads, "I'm too pretty to do homework so my brother has to do it for me."

To make matters worse, the description of the shirt on the JC Penney website reads, "Who has time for homework when there’s a new Justin Bieber album out? She’ll love this tee that’s just as cute and sassy as she is."

My daughter is cute and sassy. We're not going out of our way to encourage the sassy part. It's coming along quite nicely on its own, thank you very much.  And we don't plan to tell her she's too pretty for homework.

Years ago, Mattel found itself in hot water after introducing "Teen Talk Barbie" who, among other canned phrases, would pout, "Math is tough!" I don't know how long she lasted, but Mattel had the good sense to delete one of the 270 sentences Barbie would randomly mutter and to apologize for offending the masses. (To be clear, Mattel apologized; Barbie did not).

Marketing is a fascinating field. I have pondered what goes through the minds of creatives sitting around a conference table trying to dream up the next Ferbie or Tickle Me Elmo, the next Trivial Pursuit or Twister. A while back I penned a post delving into those great minds that produced fake vomit, fart whistles, and alien test tube slime (all of which at least two of my children would flat out l-o-v-e).

Fashion is a world unto itself and teen fashion, well, I won't even go there. I gave up clothes shopping for nieces when they turned around nine and suddenly showed an aversion to Peter Pan collars and pinafores. I'd buy them jewelry or a t-shirt. They would thank me politely and, oddly enough, I would never see the item again. Can you say Goodwill? Even their mother began to strike out.

"You're clothes are cute," I remember my sister telling my oldest niece.

"I don't want to be cute," came the plaintive response. "I want to be cool."

I don't really do cool, lacking, as I have shared before, some genetic marker deemed fashionable. I strive for neat, and some days I pull it off nicely. With this wordy disclaimer, I still don't get some of what department stores throw the way of little kids. I get that increasingly younger kids are drawn to phrases that range from funny to mouthy, from edgy to lewd. But who buys these things? Presumably adults.  Parents, no less!

I took a few education courses at a local university. I was surprised at the level of angst and resentment many women felt about the opportunities they were discouraged from pursuing as elementary and high school students. They absolutely picked up a line of thought that said "Women can't do math" and "Women can't do science."

This was not my experience. Every math and science class I took in high school was taught by a woman; most were taught by nuns. Sister Helen O'Connel, Sister Evangeline Nestor, Sister Agnes Joseph Sun -- these women were smart, exacting, and every bit as formidable as their names. I came away from high school thinking that my only limitations were my own drive and initiative. Nobody told me I couldn't do math or science.

T-shirts shouldn't send this message either. And when they do, parents --drum roll, please -- shouldn't buy them. If anyone can do math, it's the accounting departments of huge retailers.

Boys' fashions are not immune to the trend. This piece on back to school t-shirts caught my eye as well. The author shares:

"I’m So Bored” spelled out the words, carefully crafted to look like the periodic table, on my son’s new t-shirt he received for his birthday. As a former chemistry teacher, I hated it —- excuse me, but a class where you have permission to light things on fire is not boring! —- but, of course, my son loved it. He giggled, “Yeah, mom, I hate school!”

For the record, he does not hate school. His teachers do an excellent job of keeping things fun and educational, yet here he was, playing into every lame stereotype. As I discovered when I went to return the t-shirt (mom’s veto privilege!), this shirt was hardly the worst example of boys t-shirts printed with obnoxious sayings. While a lot of attention has been paid to the slut-ification of little girls’ clothing, not much has been said about the dumbing down of boys' apparel.

“My brain hurts” reads one t-shirt with a picture of Bart Simpson and a math book. “Looking for trouble? You found it!” declares a shirt from Target. “If homework is work, then when do I get paid?” quips a boys t-shirt from Kohls. There's the ever popular “My favorite subjects are lunch and recess” shirt, and my personal least favorite reads “Let’s just skip school so I can start my rockstar training.” Yes, these shirts are funny, but I hate the message that t-shirts like these send to boys. School isn’t always a-laugh-a-minute, but it’s not supposed to be. It’s important that kids learn life skills, like reading and math, but equally as important that they learn they can deal with being bored sometimes and that hard things are worth doing, even if they aren’t super fun.

I agree with the writer on all but one point -- the t-shirts aren't funny; they're moronic. "My brain hurts"? Falls flat with me, anyway.

Around here we use apparel to send messages, too - "My Dad Rocks", "Daddy's Little Princess", "Michigan Wolverines".

"I'm So Bored"?  Been there, heard that, don't need the t-shirt.

Nothing Like a Sleeping Baby

As I was reading in bed the other night, I heard a Thunk! as Ainsley fell out of her bed. Thankfully her bed is very low to the ground. I soothed her bumped head and tucked her in with me. She was snugly and sweet -- patting my cheek, putting her head on chest, being, if only for a fleeting few moments, the baby she seems to have so suddenly and so completely left behind.

She's two in all its glory. While we still get hugs and kisses, she's go, go, go these days -- wholly invested in little girl activities.  Let's play dolls or build with blocks or play tea party. Being content simply being held? Not so much.

A few months back I tossed out my rocking chair -- the rocker my dad bought for me when I had my first child, the rocker in which I have spent a good chunk of my life reading Curious George and Winnie the Pooh, Mike Mulligan and The Hungry Caterpillar, the rocker that, I was forced to admit, was falling apart and beyond repair.

Some time after pitching the rocker, I realized I had all but quit reading to Ainsley. Her bed is just not conducive to a forty-seven-year-old woman reading a book, even if it's in large print and only eight pages long. I missed the reading, but I really missed the slow and snugly part of Ainsley's day. My friend Amy offered her glider rocker. We are reading and cuddling once more.

Last week Ainsley conked out in her car seat on the way to Mass. Typically this is not a good thing. A poorly timed twenty-minute snooze can leave her half-rested and cranky. On this day it worked out just fine. I carried her into church where she peacefully slumbered for forty-five minutes.

Tim was serving Mass. Kolbe and John didn't engage in any semi-overt guerrilla warfare in the pew. In the quiet presence of God, uninterrupted by phone or To Do List, I enjoyed the luxury of holding my sweet baby. I twirled her soft, blond hair and rubbed her fair, still-chubby cheeks. This was a welcome and unusual treat.

A while back it was John who went catatonic in church. During an extra-long homily, he put his head on my lap and out he went. The boy who is full-throttle from dawn to dusk, just lay there, chest rising and falling. I tousled his caramel blond hair. I noticed his shoes on the wrong feet. I rubbed his arms still bronzed from a summer at the pool and in the yard. John has a year round tan his Irish mother could only get from a bottle and then there would be an orange cast to it.  He blazes through the day with equal parts of action and mischief (with a whole lot of charm and affection thrown in). For this all-too-brief time, I enjoyed the weight of his slumbering form and drank in the cuteness that is age four.

Motherhood is a physical job from start to finish. Long before I gain my first ounce of pregnancy weight, I am overcome with fatigue and nausea. One of my babies had hiccups for hours and hours every single evening for months. With both Ainsley and John I had weeks of Braxton-Hicks contractions. With each pregnancy I had the distinct thought, "I can't get any bigger. I just can't." Somehow I did.

Infancy brings the joy and challenge of nursing. Mothers rock and hold and feed and burp, rock and hold and feed and burp. How many of us have found ourselves in a grocery line or Mass without the baby and noticed that we were doing a soothing, jiggly motion simply because it had become second nature?

Toddlers have shoes that need tying,capes that need fastening, boo boos that need kissing, hands and faces and backsides that need washing.

When I was thirty-eight weeks pregnant with Ainsley, I sat in a doctor's office with John. He had spiked a fever of over 104.5. With ears, throat, and nose clear, the doctor suspected a urinary tract infection. Getting a urine sample from a dehydrated two-year-old who was not yet potty trained proved to be a challenge. I spent hours -- hours -- sitting in a hard plastic chair with a feverish John draped over what really didn't qualify as a lap. I had little left to give.

This is motherhood. It's a physical job, a demanding job. I have sometimes felt touched-out. There wasn't enough of me to go around, or so it seemed.

But then these needy little people grow up just a bit. And a tiny part of your heart crumples. We so want them to grow and thrive and develop. We cheer their every milestone. This, of course, means they need us less or at least need us differently.

And I find myself mourning just a little bit.

We are currently at the beach enjoying bacation, as John likes to call it. Ainsley has picked up on this.

"We on 'cation," she asks me every night. "John John on 'cation? Timmy on 'cation? Daddy on 'cation?"

Yes, sweetie. We are on 'cation.

Her favorite part of 'cation is the king-sized bed that means she gets to sleep with mom and dad all night, every night (rather than clandestinely sneaking in as she likes to do at home). After our queen-sized bed, this king-sized baby feels positively cavernous. Or it would except that Ainsley has taken to pressing her squirmy little self right up to me. "Mama!" she says in her bossy voice, if I try to move an inch. She wants my arms around her and my cheek next to hers.

"She thinks she's in utero again," I commented to Dave.

For this week this suits me just fine. After all we're on 'cation, and there really is nothing like a sleeping baby.

A Not So Dry Run: Potty Training Edition

Friend me on Facebook and you can read riveting updates such as the following:

Three hours ago: Potty training! I'd rather be in the dentist's chair. We're going nowhere fast.

One hour ago: I quit. We'll call this a dry run (figuratively speaking; there was nothing dry about it). Ainsley just pooped in front of the Fed Ex man.

(All of this reminds me of Betty White's comment from a while back: "You know, I have so many people to thank for being here, but I really have to thank Facebook. When I first heard about the campaign to get me to host Saturday Night Live I didn't know what Facebook was, and now that I do know what it is I have to say it sounds like a huge waste of time."

Betty, you may have a point.)

But back to the fascinating topic of potty training . . .

I could rattle off a dozen reasons why this is Not The Time to potty train: I am dealing with a few  medical issues, we are going out of town shortly, Dave is under the gun at work, Ainsley just turned two, and the list goes on to include issues both trivial and quite serious.

I can think of just one reason to Seize The Day: I returned home from the atrium yesterday to find Ainsley standing in the dining room wearing black patent leather shoes. And nothing else.

This, sadly, was not an isolated event. The Lady Godiva number has been going on for quite some time now. I haven't resorted to the duct tape special, but I did briefly put Ainsley in a bathing suit hoping that would keep her dressed for the duration of dinner. She's connected all the dots, I think. She'll remove a yucky diaper, dump the contents, flush it, and resume play. She can clearly articulate, "I poopy. It's yucky. Where are the wipes?" All this seems to spell “Forge ahead!”

This morning I bravely put on my game face and enthusiastically presented the grand plan.

Me: Ainsley, if you go pee pee on the potty, I'll give you chocolate.

Ainsley: No way!

Yes, she's two and suddenly she's quite good at it. Articulate and decisive!

Well, it proved to be one damp and noxious day. Ainsley made two deposits in the potty: her Rosary case and a load of her brother's Legos. For good measure, John wet his pants.

Much has been written about “readiness”-- on the part of the child, that is. Well, I’m skeptical, if not cynical on this topic. The only person who needs to be ready is the one who will be disinfecting the house from one end to the other in the wake of non-stop accidents. This would be the same one who purchases a large supply of Bob the Builder underwear and chocolate, who rolls up all area rugs, who ensures that both washer and dryer are in excellent repair, and who somehow manages to press forward when all hints of progress have come to a screeching halt.

My previous three experiences have taught me that you can't be lukewarm about the whole affair. It's all or nothing. No retreat! Cheer every small success and try hard to ignore the setbacks. Try to smile. Try really hard.

All of this reminds me of why many people boycott “mommy blogs,” obsessed as they are with bodily functions.

A point well taken.

 P.S. Ainsley really did poop in front of the Fed Ex man.

Intentions Matter

Note to John: If you're going to abscond with a couple of cookies, don't hide them in your underwear.

I was going to start this off with It's been one of those days. By the end of the day, I had to conclude that we had had a great day with just a few of those moments nestled in. Ainsley dumped my coffee on the nice couch (which is looking increasingly like the ugly couch). I looked down at John's toes and saw Elmer's glue in between them. Yes, Elmer's glue. He fingered Ainsley for the crime, and, oddly enough, I believed him if only for a minute. I later heard some suspicious noises and saw John walking slowly and with an awkward gait. That's when I found the cache of cookies in his whitey tighties.


If you should drop by my house for a bite to eat, remember your mother's adage: You don't know where that thing's been!  Think: teapot.


Given all this and other issues that have brought minor bedlam, I decided an all out re-boot was necessary. Hit control alt delete on every element of family life, beginning with my beloved offspring.  I called my friend up the street for a pep talk. Laurie and I go way back. She's been my dear friend and marriage counsellor, my unpaid psych nurse and quilting instructor. She's talked me down off many a metaphorical ledge.

She listened; she comforted me; she assured me with a graphic anecdote or two that I am not alone. She brought me to the heart of the issue. They don't have bad hearts, she told me. The thirteen cups on the counter, the wet towel on the bed, the open bag of bread growing stale on the counter, the forgotten lunch -- they don't stem from bad hearts.

Yes, there is an aspect of obliviousness, a need for training and agreements, an element even of laziness. But Laurie is right: Their intentions are not bad. A cleaner floor and an empty dishwasher are not, as she gently pointed out, worth my sanity. They are certainly not worth my relationships with my children.

I read an anecdote about a mother going ape over cat vomit. Seems the family cat had upchucked at the top of the stairs. Every member of the family managed to hurdle the mess, but no one felt compelled to do anything about it. Sometimes it's hard being the mom. Sometimes it's hard being home most of the day. I would like one or two of my fellow residents to care about the glob of syrup on the table, to notice the twelve dirty socks under the bed, to consider pushing the piano bench back every once in a while.

It's easy to react over this or that.

I am in the middle of reading the Harry Potter books. My favorite characters are Mr. and Mrs.Weasley who, despite their oddities, are such quintessential parents. When their son Ron swipes the family car, flies it off to school,and then crashes it into a tree, Mum sends an exploding letter called a Howler:

Stealing the car, I wouldn't have been surprised if they'd expelled you, you wait till I get hold of you, I don't suppose you stopped to think what your father and I went through when we saw it was gone -- we didn't bring you up to behave like this -- it's entirely your fault and if you put another toe out of line we'll bring you straight back home.

If I find this more humorous than most, it's because I've dispatched a Howler or two over the past fourteen years of parenting. Like Mrs. Weasley's, mine tend to burst into flames at the end.

I loved Karen Edmisten's piece on what she's learned in seventeen years of motherhood. She starts off with a gem:

When something is really irritating you, ask yourself this: "When they are grown up and gone, am I going to care that they _____________? Or will I look back and wonder why I made such a big deal out of that?" Then decide if it's really a big deal or not. Answers will vary.

In ten years, will my children be thinking about the state of my baseboards or the status of the laundry hamper? Not likely. I hope they'll remember a mother who listened to Weird Al and laughed right along with them. I hope they'll remember a mom who encouraged their interests, including the messy ones. I hope they'll remember a mother who occasionally fed them frozen waffles for dinner, but also baked lots of chocolate chip cookies and let them eat a ton of batter. I hope they'll remember a mother who really, really wanted her house to look better, but worked very, very hard at lightening up so that the place was livable for both mom and kids.

(I hope they'll forget every Howler I ever sent. Barring that, I hope they'll remember that I always apologized and really meant it.)

Cleaning up the dining room one evening, I found a tidy pile of lima beans under a chair.

"Why didn't you just say, 'Mom, I don't like lima beans,'" I asked the stockpiling son.

"Well," he said, somewhat confused, "that would be bad manners."

In his own way, he was thinking of me. His heart was in the right place. His intentions were good. For right now, for this moment, that works for me.

Parenting While Distracted

The beginning of school brought with it the typical To Do List -- uniforms to pull together, shoes to try on, last appointments to schedule. We packed a ton of fun into the final weeks of summer -- trips to the zoo and to a state park, inviting friends for Settlers of Cattan and bowling. But duty eventually called. One morning I faced a host of  mundane and fairly tedious tasks. I promised the kids a trip to the pool once my phone calls were done, and their chores were completed.

And then I reached answering machine after answering machine. And a rather urgent doctor's visit couldn't be scheduled for months. So I tried another doctor and then another and then I called a friend for a second opinion. Suddenly the whole crew was quarreling. Ainsley got into a stack of post-it notes and was standing on the counter. Assigned chores were going nowhere fast.

The kids needed attention and redirection. This was the perfect time to set aside the phone, regroup, get the little people engaged into more productive play -- in short, to invest the few minutes required to get us back on track. Instead, I did just the opposite. I'll get this all done twice as fast! I pressed forward, phone glued to my ear.

I had hoped to get to the pool in the neighborhood of 10:00 - 11:00, but suddenly it was 12:30. The middle boys were going at it, the baby was crying, the chores were holding steady at half-done. My To Do List was progressing no faster than the chores.

I was parenting while distracted, and the results were predictable.

Life, of course, is full of distractions -- both those chosen and those unavoidable.  Sadly, I suspect I am a tad more prone to distraction than the average person. Sometimes I should be doing one thing, but freely choose to turn my attention toward a slew of items that only take a minute:

That splash park just opened. Wouldn't that be fun! Let me Google that ... It will only take a minute.

I meant to print out a few handwriting exercises ... It will only take a minute.

Where's that recipe for blueberry crisp? I'll look it up ... It will only take a minute.

I should upload those photos ... It will only take a minute.

Gosh, this drawer's a mess. I'll just give it a quick straighten ... It will only take minute.

There's not a thing wrong with any of this ... unless I'm doing it chronically and at the expense of more important things. We live in the Age of Distraction. It's a noisy, often blaring world full of  diversions that vie for our attention like Arnold Horshack in a re-run of Welcome Back, Kotter. Ooooh! Ooooh! Ooooh!

We also have both the blessing and the curse of living in the Age of Information. There is no tidbit too arcane to find. Want the transcripts of Joan of Arc's trial? They're just a few keystrokes away, and it will only take a minute. The ten-day weather forecast in Tripoli? Not a problem, and it will only take a minute. We live in the Age of Convenience. Except for the DMV, we don't wait for much. Rice, mashed potatoes, Ramen noodles? Only a minute!

I am reminded of comedian Steven Wright who once deadpanned, "I put my instant coffee into a microwave oven and went back in time."

In my life only a minute eventually takes a toll. Constant distraction exacts a heavy price. Parenting while distracted is netiher enjoyable nor efficient in the long run.


Should children learn to entertain themselves, complete assigned chores without a parent hovering, give Mom the space to make needed phone calls or -- now, this one's a stretch -- go to the bathroom uninterrupted? The answer is an unequivocal Yes! But I believe, just as wholeheartedly, that some of the issues with one child in particular crop up when he gets too little attention, not too much. I'm reminded of a line from Rachel Balducci's book How Do You Tuck in a Superhero?. "For our family," she writes, "doing nothing often leads to nothing good."

So true!

The morning I'm describing was chock full of items that truly were unavoidable. I've always loved La Leche League's expression "People before things." But these people really do require things. I hadn't spent the morning dithering on the Internet, alphabetizing my spice cabinet, or doing my nails. Mothers multi-task because we have to. The work is never done.


But you know what? The work is never done. Never done. So, really, why not go the pool?


I accomplished a few essentials and then dropped it all and to the pool we went.  We had a great time, easily the best trip to the pool we've enjoyed all summer. The older boys played games together with a minimal amount of arguing. They fetched John's torpedo again and again without complaint. John tried out his halting swim strokes and did his amazing flips off the side of the pool. Ainsley chortled with delight at the new float I pulled out. When we arrived home, John and Ainsley conked out for naps. I played Uno with the older boys.


No phone calls, no emails, no transcripts of the trial of Joan of Arc.


I eventually hit The Great To Do List once more -- refreshed by our swim, heartened by time fully invested in my favorite people.

Don't, ahem, Go in Your Sister's Teapot

If you want intelligent, pithy, and honest writing, head over to Betty Duffy's corner of the blogosphere. If I had the time, I'd link to a post or two or ten. Her take on the sheer craziness that is sometimes (oftentimes) motherhood leaves me saying again and again, "Yeah! What she said!"

Here she writes about discerning a motto, a motto that would capture life as a busy mom and inspire her in her vocation.

We are a week and a half into summer. The transition has been the smoothest one yet, this despite the fact that I'm up to eyeballs in various pursuits and that a fever/sore throat virus is slowly winding its way through the ranks.

But the weather has been blistering hot. And we've had a few memorable moments -- among them, Ainsley staring with delight as she squeezed every last drop of baby shampoo onto the good couch and an unidentified toddler peeing in Ainsley's teapot. Yes, that's right -- peeing in Ainsley's teapot.

If you haven't read Rachel Balducci's book How to Tuck in a Superhero, get yourself a copy. Among the many messages that are both funny and spot on is her list of Rules I can't believe I had to make. Rules 1, 2, and 7 are classics:

1. Boys, you must never crawl into the trunk of someone's car.

2. Never shut your brother in a refrigerator.

7. Do not hogtie your brother and drag him across the yard even if he claims he is having a blast.

Of all the rules I never imagined I would be forced to enact, Don't pee in your sister's teapot has to take the cake. Before I had kids, I never even said the word pee. I remember having fits with my high school students, especially the girls, when they'd use the P word. "'Mrs. Dolin, can I go to the restroom?' is perfectly acceptable," I'd tell them. "Nobody needs know what you're planning to do in there." Eventually this became something of a joke. A few of my favorite students adopted the English slang and would ask, "Mrs. Dolin, can I go to the loo?" We laugh about it to this day.

But then along came my four cherubic children. It's an earthy, earthy life with diapers and potty training and boys who just plain love potty talk. All the synonyms and euphemisms for, ahem, going to the bathroom suddenly seemed a bit cumbersome and just plain fussy. Go to the bathroom didn't quite cut it when a third of the family was in diapers and some nameless male members of the household found an inexplicable thrill in using the great outdoors. Half the things one customarily does in the bathroom didn't, in fact, get done anywhere in the vicinity of the bathroom.

So now I occasionally say pee. But I still never thought I'd be talking about it with regard to my sweet daughter's tin teapot with the painted pink flowers.

Don't pee in your sister's teapot. Oy vey. OY VEY! Reminds me of the day not so very long ago when I barked at one of the kids for using bad words and the word in question was mustard.

Oh, the depths to which we descend.

A month or two ago -- during those unendurable weeks when Catechesis was in high gear and soccer and baseball were overlapping -- I had a long conversation with my friend Amy. Our talk boiled down to one pivotal question: Why is it all so hard?

I'm not lazy, I shared. But I just wonder why it's all so hard.

In Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, we close each year by celebrating Pentecost. We review the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We light a candle and discuss each gift. The children choose which gift they want to receive. For the past several years I have asked for fortitude.

Our family in on day four of the Novena to the Holy Spirit. Today we read about fortitude:

By the gift of fortitude the soul is strengthened against natural fear and supported to the end in the performance of duty. Fortitude imparts to the will an impulse and energy which moves it to undertake without hesitancy the most arduous tasks, to face dangers, and to endure without complaint the slow martyrdom of even lifelong tribulation.

In Betty Duffy's search for a motto, she writes:

"We serve others especially if they didn't do it for us, because that is what Christ does."

And at first it troubles me, because Christ and his ways are not always on the tip of my tongue. Jazzy slogans are easily recalled and easily dismissed, but Christ, and his ways, are a challenge to recall, but impossible for me to dismiss.

At the same time, with a little reflection, I can see that, yes, years have passed, and I have been doing the service, because it's my duty, for people who don't really return the favor. And I have done it, at times well, at times poorly, for one reason alone: because I love Jesus. I really do ...

Betty describes a type of martyrdom, sometimes called white martyrdom. We don't die, but we die to ourselves again and again. That's motherhood. That's sanctification. That's fortitude.

Coming Soon ... Summer Vacation

The Day of the Black Sharpie demonstrated with stark clarity that I need a plan for the summer, and it needs to be a good one. I year ago I pondered ideas to get summer off to a positive start. Today I have been revisiting a few of those thoughts.

As a mother, I head into summer with a mix of feelings. First, there is the excitement of having vacation stretching before us with promises of swimming, trips to the zoo, long-awaited guitar lessons, Boy Scout camp, lazy afternoons playing cards, our annual trek to Michigan. All good, very good.

But second, there is the inevitable adjustment period wherein I assert with an unblinking resolve that would impress Joseph Stalin himself two basic premises: one, your brothers are fellow members of the human race and will be treated accordingly; and two, summer doesn't equate to a non-stop orgy of electronic overload.

This year, I am forced to add a third premise: I alone am Master of the Refrigerator. My friend Rachel has mentioned a refrigerator lock, and honestly, I'm intrigued. When I view the vast quantities of food flying out of my kitchen, I fear for both our budget and our collective body mass index.

In all my ruminations about summer, I have made a few significant resolutions:

1. Prayer - We will start and finish with it. Without God, we are sunk, sunk, sunk.

2. Water, the drink - We'll be consuming lots of it. Water that is free. Water that does not stain when it spills. Water that does not ensnare the newspaper nor the cover of my new book when it dries all over the dining room table. Water!

3. Water, the pool - We will spend as much time as possible in it and under it.

4. Consistency - We will eat in the dining room! We will put away what we use! We will do our little chores promptly and cheerfully! A mother can dream, can't she? Don't rain on my parade!

5. Variety - We will leave the house as often as possible. Leave the mess somewhere else - that's my new motto!

6. Order - In my latest attempt to wrest some order from this maelstrom of clutter, I am labeling everything that clear packing tape can adhere to. So, the tourist to the upper left is soon to be taped to the bin that will hold her, the flight attendants, the pilot, and the luggage.

And finally ...

7. Gratitude - Our days with all the Dolins under one roof are not limitless. Tim, Kolbe, John, and Ainsey Boo - precious, irreplaceable gifts from God, one and all. I get a brief season with the full complement, and for that I am grateful.

No doubt I will be tempted to waver on these points sometime around Tuesday morning at 10:00 a.m. when we are but 36 hours into this grand adventure we call summer. We will regroup and once again forge ahead.

Happy summer to you!

A Tattoo on Your Face

Over the past eighteen months or so, a number of alarming headlines have bounced around the blogosphere linking children and unhappiness. Childless couples report more contentment, these articles seem to conclude.

I’ve read a few and, frankly, I’m a bit skeptical. I wonder what exact questions were posed. I wonder where in the parenting spectrum these parents were exactly. I wonder if the writers queried empty-nesters or parents in the big, thick middle of it. I wonder what had transpired in the fifteen minutes prior to the interview.

I didn’t care for the popular book, Eat, Love, Pray. Short on commitment and long on navel-gazing, I found it to be one long essay on selfishness. The author did, however, offer a memorable and fitting metaphor for parenthood: Having a baby, she says, is like getting a tattoo on your face.

I’ve written before that parenting is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. No question about it. But what worthwhile endeavors don’t require hardship, perseverance, even suffering?

Medical school, law school, business school? Hard, hard, hard. Planning a wedding, remodeling a house? Hard and hard. Running a marathon, opening a business? Hard and harder. Finishing a PhD, writing a book? Both hard.

Is it surprising, then,  that raising an eternal soul to adulthood is trying at times? Does a mother admitting her struggles means she wishes she’d done things differently, that she would reverse course if she could?

 I think not.

While we were dealing with the emotional and physical upheaval of sub-fertility, I found myself growing distant and angry with God. I sat in a confessional with a very young priest and poured out my soul. After going through all my anguish over our repeat miscarriages, I went on to confess my perpetual sin -- the struggles I have with my kids. At this point, I began to lose Father.

“You’re upset about your miscarriages,” he began.

“Yes.”

“But you’re frustrated with the children you have,” he continued.

“Yes.”

“But you wanted to be pregnant …?” he went on, brows knit, clearly puzzled.

“Yes.”

Confusion began to morph into bewilderment. As I said, this was a very young priest. Fresh faced, he even had braces on his teeth. If it wouldn’t have been horribly patronizing, I would have patted him on the back and said, “Trust me, Father. You’re going to hear a lot of this.”

Mothers, of course, totally get this. Completely frustrated with you children? Check. Desperately hoping for another one? Check. No contradiction whatsoever. Friends of mine have laughed out loud when I’ve shared this little exchange with the priest. No mystery there.

So when I read that parents report unhappiness, I wonder if that is the whole picture.

We have had an exhausting year, a year that’s left me convinced I need to lighten the load so that next year isn’t déjà vu all over again. I’ll have to jettison activities I value. I don’t, however, plan to jettison the children. I don’t even plan to jettison the idea of another child.

Parenting demands heroic fortitude. Yesterday – on Mothers’ Day, no less! – a nameless member of my family decided to irritate his brother by yelling, “You’re mustard! “You’re mustard!” over and over and over again.

I mean, where do they get their material?

For my part, on a day that I’m supposed to be celebrating motherhood, I found myself saying, “Stop saying bad words!”

Yes, mustard is now a bad word. This, sadly, is the comical state to which we are sometimes reduced – censuring our children for calling each other the names of condiments.

Yesterday John – who may or may not be the very same child calling his brother mustard – shot a rocket into his cheek and then spray painted his forehead forest green. All this in the span of thirty minutes. While I was home. And supposedly supervising him.

While dealing with John’s mishaps, I was also simultaneously supervising the construction of a diorama (hence the spray paint) and helping a neighbor’s child with a research paper. In the midst of it all, I spotted Ainsley dashing down the hall carrying the keyboard. Finishing a research paper without a keyboard? That would make the hard list as well.

Only God could have anticipated these mind-numbing antics. Only God could have sweetened the whole deal with joys innumerable, joys as unexpected as spray paint on a toddler, joys more profound than any I’ve taken away from other human endeavors.

Jennifer Fulwiller writes that "Life doesn't have to be easy to be joyful." So true, so very true.

I just finished the morning shuffle. I close the van door and carry baby Ainsley into the house nuzzling her cheek and hugging her cuddly self clad in a flannel blanket sleeper that makes her even more irresistible than usual. I hear John's sweet laughter as he sits engrossed in The Brave Little Toaster.

These children of mine have, indeed, tattooed my face and my heart and my memory.