Open my calendar and you’ll see a mess of red-and-blue-inked outdoor obligations. It is baseball season. With three of our boys participating on three different teams, it looks like once again the local little league has invaded my month of May. I first recognized the insanity of little league baseball a few years ago when … Read more
Like many American Catholics who weren’t lucky enough to score tickets to a Papal Mass, I have been watching this week’s events unfold on my television screen. Viewing from my living room, with a gang of kids gathered around me on the couches, reminds me of the springtime three years ago when we watched the … Read more
“Do you think we’ll ever really be grown up?” I remember asking my next-door neighbor and best friend Krissy years ago. “Do you think we’ll ever talk about gas prices and health insurance and stuff?” We two ten-year-olds sat on our purple bicycles with sparkly tasseled handle bars and funky flowered banana seats as we … Read more
One recent evening just days before Easter found me sitting on the hardwood of our living room floor. My son had turned three, and this had been a long day of special breakfasts, paper-wrapped surprises, remote-control cars, and a Cookie Monster birthday cake. But now, as bedtime approached, I was sitting for a moment, watching … Read more
I pause in the supermarket aisle with an oversized cardboard box in my hand. I want to buy it — and yet something inside me recoils at the thought of placing this particular item in my shopping cart. My fingers clutch the cardboard as I study the label: 100% Real Potatoes. Mashed potatoes in minutes. … Read more
Four-year-old Gabrielle is teaching herself to read. Her eager little eyes peer over my shoulder as I sound out words with her older brother Stephen. I catch her later, mouthing the stories as she works her way through a stack of early readers. She is teaching herself to write, too. She sneaks bits of lined … Read more
Daniel says many things these days, but his first word is still his favorite: Mama. To a toddling 17-month-old, “Mama” means many things: When he falls and hurts himself, “Mama” means, “Comfort me.” When he can’t quite reach his ball that has rolled under the couch, “Mama” means, “Help me get what I want.” When … Read more
The other day, I had a couple of the girls with me in the car while we ran some errands. A familiar song came on the radio and, without pausing to think, I turned up the volume. “What is this music?” my 7-year-old asked, wrinkling her nose in disgust. Oops, I wasn’t alone. I turned … Read more
I don’t mind football, as long as it’s other mothers’ sons who are crashing their bodies around the field. When it comes to my own sons’ participation, however, I prefer gentler sports. Like chess. Thankfully, my oldest boys have thus far seemed content to play little league baseball, basketball, and various forms of amateur, no-holds-barred … Read more
Do you know what two straight days’ worth of candy cane breakfasts, cookie lunches, and cupcake dinners — all washed down with sippy cups of juice — does to a 2 year old’s digestive system? If you don’t, Merry Christmas! Enjoy the blissfulness of that ignorance. If you do, Merry Christmas! And join me in … Read more
I was talking with a friend recently about babies starting solids foods. We discussed when to start, first foods to offer, and different babies’ reactions and preferences. Suddenly, my eavesdropping children wanted to know: “How about me, Mama? What was my first food? Did I like it? How old was I when you first fed … Read more
In late November, the air is ripe with motherly anxiety as many of us brace ourselves to “do” Christmas one more time. We ready ourselves for more shopping, more decorating, more entertaining, and more baking. And year after year, despite our best-laid plans and intentions, many of us wind up feeling controlled by materialism, pressured … Read more
Catholic women who find themselves unexpectedly pregnant stand to benefit from others’ experience. This was the thought that motivated me to post some readers’ emails on my blog addressing the struggle to remain open to life in marriage and the difficulty of accepting an unexpected pregnancy. “Let’s encourage one another,” I wrote on the blog. … Read more
My husband is paranoid. The other day, I was about to leave for a quick run on our peaceful, tree-lined, country roads when he stopped me to ask, ”What are you bringing for protection?” Protection? What on earth was this man talking about? “I’ve got a couple of these,” I offered, holding up two of … Read more
Batman lives at my house. He’s about two-and-a-half feet tall with a tuft of blond-streaked, overgrown hair on his head. Besides the obligatory black rubber mask, he sports a red velvet cape that looks suspiciously like his older sister’s discarded Christmas dress, a pair of denim overalls, and — underneath it all — a diaper. … Read more
As a homeschooling mother of eight kids, I hear my share of “How do you do it?,” and I usually don’t know how to answer. My life is just my life. But here, as a means of appeasing the curious, I offer this humbling peek inside a “normal” day for me. 5:15 — Wake up … Read more