Kristen Laurence tagged me to do this. Here I am just trying to check bloglines on Bill’s laptop before we hit the road. Is it too much to ask for a little time on the computer? What do you mean we can’t get a wireless connection in the car? All right, I’m coming already.

Bill’s parting words this morning, on his last day, after we had just touched on a few of the things on our to-do list:

Humperdink: Tyrone, you know how much I love watching you work. But, I’ve got my country’s five hundredth anniversary to plan, my wedding to arrange, my wife to murder, and Guilder to frame for it. I’m swamped.

Rugen: Get some rest. If you haven’t got your health, you haven’t got anything.


Today is a beautiful day.

Danielle Bean’s raffle for St. Gianna’s Maternity Home ends on Monday, June 11th. There are lots of great prizes, and every $5 donated gets you a raffle ticket. Leave a comment at her original post telling her how many chances you get. You can send a check or use the Paypal button. What could be easier?

Danielle Bean has put together a tremendous fundraiser for St. Gianna’s Maternity Home in Warsaw, North Dakota. For every $5 donated, you get a chance to win one of the many prizes: from gift certificates to major retailers to autographed copies of books.

St. Gianna’s Home is a worthy cause. From the Director’s Message at their website:

We are here to help women who are pregnant and need a safe place to live.

Sometimes expecting a child can be overwhelming especially if the mother is not getting the support or help she needs from family members or from the father of the child. We believe every mother deserves to give birth with dignity and respect.

At Saint Gianna’s Home every mother will find love and support in a spiritual and family-type environment. The home offers safe shelter, clothing, assistance in finding a good doctor, educational opportunities including the chance to learn job skills and parenting skills. With God’s grace, good things can come from even the most difficult situations. The Gianna Home is here to stand by all mothers so that they can find the right solutions for themselves and their children.

So, you can be assured (as you cross your fingers and hope it’s your name that gets picked for a $100 gift certificate to Vera Bradley) that it’s all for a good charity, and any possibility of reward (like a handmade bracelet made from old rosaries or a handmade rug) does not negate that good deed.

Danielle, I can only imagine how much work this is for you (not saving your post is the least of your headaches, I’m sure). But, thank you. Your generosity surpasses that of any of your donors.

My midwife just called. She has the results of the ultrasound I had done this morning. Everything looks fine, except…

…except, they estimate my due date to be two weeks earlier than the date given based on the first day of my last period.

This might be because I, well, um, didn’t really tell them the real first day of my last period. After my first three pregnancies where the babies all came late and doctors were threatening inducing me (Katie, in fact, was induced, but there are other reasons for that), I was fed up with arguing, tired of going “against medical advice,” and pretty ticked off at doctors who basically said that they knew better because they were doctors and my own personal experience with my own body and pregnancies wasn’t worth as much as their degrees.

Fritz came 10 days “late” and my due date was moved later after an early ultrasound. Billy came 11 days “late” and this due date was moved later because I had had one negative pregnancy test. Based on the first day of my last period, these guys would have been about 2 1/2 weeks “late”. The doctor refused to push my due date later with Katie because the ultrasound only indicated a later date of 6 days, not 7. She was induced 10 days “late” – more like a week early based on my prior experience, but you can’t argue with those degrees.

Since I’m moving, this midwife is passing the buck to the midwife in Kansas. I’ll see what she wants to do about this “problem.” I’m insisting that my last cycle was normal, and my dates are right. My kids have all been healthy with no signs of being in the womb too long. I know my cycles are longer than “normal” and I know I ovulate later than most. I predicted Jenny’s due date exactly right, and I was 4 days off for Pete. I just don’t want a battle royale in October.

I need to buy a wedding present for a Spanish speaking newly married couple. I was thinking of a plaque that said “God Bless This Home” or something like that – in Spanish, of course. They have actually been married for a while and have two school-aged daughters, but just recently married in the Church – sacramentally. I’m checking out the usual Catholic retailers, but I’m not finding a plethora of choices for Spanish speakers.

Also, I’m looking for Marian items for another woman, from icons to rosary boxes, where Mary doesn’t have milk-white skin. Our Lady of Guadalupe is fine, but seems to be the only choice other than Black Madonnas which tend to be very Orthodox looking.

Both intended gift-recipients are from Central America and the second woman speaks about 5 words of English. I’m out of my league here in shopping for ladies with a very different cultural background. We share our faith, and although they admire my European Madonnas with fair skin, I would prefer to gift them with something that respects their heritage.

Jennifer F linked to this article: How Not to Talk to Your Kids: The Inverse Power of Praise. As I started to read it, I figured it would be another quick article with a single line of advice for parents, and whatever that advice was would surely just add more angst and guilt and concern over whether I was doing everything just right. Thank goodness, for once, I read an article that didn’t advise me to tiptoe around my children’s delicate self-esteem lest I bruise it permanently.

This article is long – 5 pages online and 8 if you print it to read later. It doesn’t take huge studies and pages of conclusions and boil it down into one single concept either. Every page offered more interesting observations and suggestions.

Now, I warn you that there is a certain element of “this is the right way to do it” and “that way is bad” which makes parents check their natural instincts and question their ability to parent properly. Frankly, I’m tired of being held responsible for my children’s personalities and behavior. It’s bad enough that they themselves blame me for their missing shoes; I’ll not have society tell me that their success in life hinges about the manner in which I praise them.

However, as the person who needs to live with them all the time and teach them every year (not just deal with them for a year and pass them off to someone else), it is to my personal benefit to have children motivated to learn, confident in their abilities, and eager to tackle new challenges. And if this leads them to fame and fortune as adults, well, perhaps they might remember poor, old mom who sacrificed so much for them. Perhaps they could spare a slice of that Nobel Prize for Medicine money to get mom a token of their affection…like a Mercedes convertible. You never know.

I’ll not condense that long article into a single concept, but I would like to throw out a few of their ideas. The most important idea seemed to be that simply telling kids they are smart is counter-productive. Kids then assume smartness is a natural ability that doesn’t need to be worked. “Smart” kids will shy away from difficult lessons because if they were really smart they would “get it” right away. Instead, kids (and adults) need to have their efforts praised. This concept applies to all ages of people and for all things from academics to sports. “You’re a great ball player” doesn’t cut it. “That was a great play you made in the 3rd inning at 2nd base” is good praise.

Some of this is probably obvious for experienced parents, especially, I think, homeschoolers who are forced to deal with their kids for long periods of time. But we can all fall into the easy praise mode when pressed for time or tired. “You can do math” is that quick encouragement we throw out as we get a snack for another child or head upstairs to put the baby down for a nap. Better is it to praise their efforts. Children (and adults) need to understand that intelligence is something obtainable by hard work. The harder you work, the smarter you are. Natural ability only gets you so far. Algebra, perhaps, come naturally (I think so, but I’m a math geek)…calculus, I promise you, is only understood through effort.

All the way on page 4, the article discusses the trait of persistence. If you’ve ever had a persistent child, you will know how trying it is. We want persistent adults – but, oh! – they are difficult children to raise. Nonetheless, persistence in adults does not generally develop overnight.

But it turns out that the ability to repeatedly respond to failure by exerting more effort—instead of simply giving up—is a trait well studied in psychology. People with this trait, persistence, rebound well and can sustain their motivation through long periods of delayed gratification. Delving into this research, I learned that persistence turns out to be more than a conscious act of will; it’s also an unconscious response, governed by a circuit in the brain. Dr. Robert Cloninger at Washington University in St. Louis located the circuit in a part of the brain called the orbital and medial prefrontal cortex. It monitors the reward center of the brain, and like a switch, it intervenes when there’s a lack of immediate reward. When it switches on, it’s telling the rest of the brain, “Don’t stop trying. There’s dopa [the brain’s chemical reward for success] on the horizon.” While putting people through MRI scans, Cloninger could see this switch lighting up regularly in some. In others, barely at all.

I can definitely see how overly praising children leads to a lack of persistence. The moment that reward is gone, the effort ceases. Of course, praise only works exclusively when children are young. As they get older, they need tangible rewards: candy, food, toys, money. “If you get straight As, I’ll get you that laptop.” Praise and rewards are often very useful to get through difficult periods or to focus on a particular behavior (potty training is a prime example). Even adults use self-rewards (no snacking today and I’ll let myself have dessert tonight). But we don’t give candy to 10 year olds when they use the toilet. In fact, we don’t give candy to 2 year olds either if high-fives seem successful. At some point, we need to do things just because. We need to persist, because we want to succeed. And we need to want to succeed for our own sakes, and not to please parents or impress peers.

Going to a parade this weekend?

There are no more fitting words than those of Abraham Lincoln:

“– that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — “

And as you put a lime in that Corona and wait for your burger to grill up, consider Jennie’s words, and perhaps offer up a prayer.

Bill (sighing): The problem with leaving this late is the traffic.

Time: 5:44 am.