Peter Damian arrived at 10:44 am on June 30th measuring 20″ long and 8 lbs. 1 oz. It was not the birth I should have had, but the bottom line is that he and I are healthy and thriving. Apparently, he has a tied tongue. But also, apparently, this is not causing any problems with nursing heartily. It might cause problems in the future with speech…and of course, he can’t stick out his tongue at his siblings (a necessary skill when you have 4 older brothers and sisters).
And I am tired…
I can’t believe I’ve posted nothing since February. Well, yes I can. After all, we moved in March! No time to post right now – Jenny just woke up. Can’t wait to post my birth story…when the baby finally gets here. Only a few more weeks…
After a miserable week of worrying about having to find an apartment in VA while waiting for base housing, we learned on Friday that a house will be available “next month”. Yippee. I was absolutely elated.
Now, the elation has somewhat subsided and I’m eager for something more specific than “next month”. I want to plan! Give me a date!!
Ah, the human mind grows so easily restless.
Yesterday, my 3 1/2 year old daughter seemed to react with a mixture of surprise and horror when she learned that she is not yet married. We had been talking about the legends of St. Valentine who supposedly married Roman soldiers against the emporer’s law and for this crime was imprisioned and killed. I asked her if Dad and I should run out and secure her a husband immediately. She said yes. So, note to daughter Katie in the future: you gave us permission. I’ve got a few ideas…
I promised her that in 20 years, she might have a different idea about who should be selecting her husband.
A few days ago she said that she would not be having any children. Fritz wants 100. My kids are so different.
Early in the morning, late at night, or while my children roam unsupervised throughout the neighborhood. Actually, I just plop them in front of the TV so I can get in some computer time.
Seriously, my computer is centrally located so I can keep my nose in what is going on around me at all times. I read and write in stops and starts, and although I try hard to make it look like my blog entries are one cohesive and coherent thought, frequently they are composed over the course of an entire day.
Why do you blog?
Life is an ongoing process and people change and grow by the day. I want to remember me, my kids and my fantastic home life. This is my main reason for blogging.
I don’t live near my family, and we are a military family on the move. Lots of family and friends use my blog to stay involved in my family’s life.
For these reasons, I try to have an upbeat, amusing blog. Except for occasional rants about general topics, I try to keep things light. I don’t mind remembering the struggles of motherhood, but I don’t want to remember petty annoyances, and I certainly am not interested in recording the transgressions of those around me. If I can truly laugh about something, then it’s okay. But if I’m laughing at someone or if I’m still really mad at someone, I’d rather not write it down. My blog is not intended to be a way to air my grievances or to garner support for my side of the story.
I also blog as a way to provide me a community of friends who can support me, especially as I move around the country or world. Unlike my physical neighborhood, I can choose the people who live in my virtual world. It’s nice to surround myself with like-minded, Catholic women, many of whom homeschool, many of whom are struggling with the same issues I do every day.
No. Saints are dead people who have made it to heaven. I’m still very much alive, although I may sleep, when I can, like the dead.
You must have a lot of patience.
Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t. I yell at my kids a lot. They don’t hear me, so I don’t feel too badly about it. I hug and kiss my kids a lot too, so it all evens out.
There are many times that my kids are driving me crazy. Over the years, I’ve learned that this happens when our agendas are at odds with one another. Sometimes, the kids are being overly demanding and need to be brought to a new level of independence or need to learn that other people’s issues, concerns or wishes must be considered as well. Sometimes it is I who is being overly demanding or overly selfish, and I need to reestablish my priorities.
Yes, it’s called being a glutton for punishment.
I spent all but two years in good public schools. The two years I went to a parochial school, second and third grade, were good ones too. My husband went to a public kindergarten, but his first through twelfth grades were parochial. We were absolutely committed to sending our children, no matter the cost, to our parish’s school. We even enrolled our oldest in the preschool program for two years as a first step to getting him in to the school since we had heard that preferential treatment was given to those children.
But…
The first issue that came up regarding this decision was the quality of the education and the orthodoxy of the religion program. I knew many mothers of children at that school. The reports weren’t good. The education was on par with the public schools (which was decent), but the spiritual aspect did nothing to increase the benefits of spending all that money. I taught CCD at the parish which used the school so I was in there every week. The final straw, education-wise, came when I saw all the posters celebrating Earth Day. Not a single mention of stewardship. It didn’t bother me one bit that children would learn to take care of the environment. But it really bugged me that parochial school children wouldn’t be taught why we should be doing so.
All of the women I know who had children in that school have ceased sending their children there over the years. Some turned to homeschooling. Some just sent their kids to the public schools, since there was little difference.
The second issue that influenced our decision to homeschool was my husband’s military career. He is in the National Guard and had been doing it part-time (one weekend a month, two weeks a year, plus all those other days and weeks they don’t advertise). For several years he had been trying to get a full-time job, called Active Guard and Reserve (AGR). And then, at the end of 2002, his unit found out that they would be deploying to Kosovo the next year. He would have his full-time military job, but not in the way we had expected!
He left to do training at Fort Stewart, Georgia at the beginning of March 2003. Fritz was in the preschool program at the time, but I knew I wouldn’t be applying for the kindergarten program. My fourth child was due in September. My other three were a bit traumatized by their father’s departure. We needed to hunker down. None of us could have tolerated the stress of getting out the door by a certain hour every day for school. And I had no intention of denying my children time with their dad when he came home on passes before he left for Kosovo or when he came home for good in 2004. That would have meant missed school days, and schools don’t really like that – especially not civilian ones.
Looking ahead to post-deployment, my husband still wanted to be full-time military. This deployment would just be the beginning of a series of disruptions in our children’s schooling. In fact, had Fritz gone to a traditional school, his current year, fifth grade, would be at his fourth school. Worst of all, his first grade year would have been split between two schools. We felt that it was better for our kids to have more consistency than that. Homeschooling affords us a consistent curriculum delivered by the same teacher with the same classmates.
And if we talk about Earth Day, we talk about stewardship too.
You betcha!
Don’t you know there are ways to prevent that?
Yes, I know plenty of ways, and none of them are moral.
Oh. You’re one of those Catholics who really believes all that stuff?
Yes. I despise hypocrisy. Don’t call yourself a Catholic if you aren’t one.
I don’t believe that God wants me to have as many children as is physically possible. I believe that I am expected to be prudent and wise. My husband and I use Natural Family Planning, a sympto-thermal method that requires a woman to pay attention her body and recognize the signs of fertility. Seldom have we failed to recognize these signs. Unfortunately, the way to avoid conception during the fertile days is to abstain from marital relations, and in this, more than once, we have “failed.” But I trust God, and when our “failure” results in a beautiful new life, my tears are only of joy and not regret.
Are you done yet?
Right now, I’m tired. Toddlers are a lot of work. And I haven’t yet forgotten the extreme discomfort of late pregnancy nor the pain of childbirth. Do I want to do this again? NO! Of course not. I felt the same way in those early days with my oldest, and yet I’ve gone on to have five more children.
But every year, I get older. So far, it’s been very easy for me to conceive. One day, I know it will not be. I am not ready or willing to state with certainty that I will never have another child. I trust that if I am meant to bear another child, I will, and if not, I won’t. I trust that if we were meant to adopt, then all the details would fall into place for that.
And if my husband goes and gets me all liquored up at the wrong time of the month, well, there’s not much I can do about that now, is there?
I often get asked this question as I’m fighting my way through grocery store aisles with kids hanging on to every side of the cart. The snide retort that immediately pops into my head is usually, “What kind of a crazy woman would collect random neighborhood children and take them all shopping?” But then I realize that such an action, being only a temporary situation, is actually less insane than assuming life-long responsibility for a brood of kids. And then I realize that, on more than one occasion, I have gone out in public with extra children. What’s one or two or three more, anyway?
So instead, I just smile broadly and say, “Yes, they are!”
We’re no Brady Bunch, no blended family. My husband and I married in 1995. Our children started coming in 1998 at the rate of about one every other year. The smallest gap is 18 months between Billy and Katie, and the largest space is between Peter and Mary – 27 months.
Better you than me.
I wouldn’t argue this comment with anyone. I love my kids. I love that they are close in age and can enjoy each other’s company. I love the constant dynamic state that defines my household – like a beehive which is always swarming and never still. Don’t get me wrong: I love peace and quiet, too. In fact, I think I can really appreciate a calm moment, or the silence of a pre-dawn morn, in a way I never could when those times were less rare.
But I don’t think I am any more suited for this life than any other person. I don’t think there is something about my personality or my upbringing or my philosophy that makes me a better mother or better capable of handling a large family, unless you count my strong survival instincts. I, too, once considered three or four or more kids to be overwhelming. Thank goodness, God gave them to me one at a time and gave me a chance to get a handle on one level of parenting before bringing on the next stage.
Children will take all of you that they can have. It doesn’t matter if you have one or two or ten, they will take all your energy. Sure, if I had stopped at two, I would be thinking that in ten years, my life might become my own again. Instead, my youngest child will be the age of my current oldest child, and I’ll have many more years to go. But that’s okay. I wouldn’t trade a single one of my kids for anything – not even a “real” life.
Raising a family – that is real life.
I’m just an ordinary woman trying to live a holy life.
I married my college sweetheart in 1995, and we have six beautiful children.
The military moves us around. But that’s okay; I like adventure. I wish they’d move us overseas, but so far that hasn’t been my lot. Maybe someday.
My favorite color is blue. My birthday is in April. If I could choose where we ate out, it would be Tex-Mex, but for home-dining, I prefer Italian.
I don’t prefer beer, but I’m always happy to imbibe a Chianti.
I drive a big white van we call Moby. One day, I plan to drive an itty bitty Mercedes.
I listen to country music. I rarely watch tv. I like to jog with my dog.
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