Lapsitters

Children are made readers in the laps of their parents.

And aunts.

And uncles.

And grandparents.

And various friends and neighbors.

Momma Michelle with Ella (L),

 Aunt Cathy with Daria and baby Claudia

Cousin Gavin with Ella

Sr. Antonia with Daria and Ella

Uncle William with Ella

Uncle Gabe with Ella and Evie

*NB: I had more photos of reading children and grandchildren, but my internet isn't cooperating. I may add more later! Just for the archives, mind you. This blog has been the best thing for us as a family for saving moments, and reading together has occupied many of our most precious moments.

Roots Like These, Maybe?

There are only two lasting bequests  

we can give our children - 

one is roots, and the other, wings.

 - Hodding S. Carter

Rain =  the shower of care that parents give their children, materially:  nutritious food, safe and comfortable lodgings, decent clothes to wear, access to real learning

Soil =  where the "nutrients" of a healthy emotional life come from: a stable and secure home life, responsible and loving mother and father, supportive extended family network, caring teachers and mentors, wholesome friends

Air = the atmosphere we're born into:  whether it's country, city, or suburbs; if the neighborhood is safe; if the country is in conflict or war;  the prevalent influence of violence and immorality via the media or surroundings, in general

Sun = the light of God: knowing His presence, loving Him, serving Him + all those things that go into creating a heart for faith, hope, and charity

Roots = the result of good healthy rain, soil, air, and sun. Good deep roots allow a child to weather well the winds and storms of life.  They reach down to deep wells of faith and self determination, when all other resources go dry.  Tapping the springs of eternal priorities, good roots allow children to reach toward the heavens --  guiding them safely into productive, contented adulthood, and, eventually, sainthood.

Which is where the wings come in.

Remember me in the family tree

My name, my days, my strife;

Then I'll ride upon the wings of time

And live an endless life.

~Linda Goetsch

"Root Juice" For Catholic Families

Balance discipline with fun

   -- pick and choose carefully where to draw lines in the sand when making family rules; few good rules followed are better than many rules ignored

   -- stick to the rules, firmly, but dispassionately, and with explanations so everyone understands why these rules are necessary

   -- laugh more than you hollar

   -- do something every single day to build a happy memory for each person in our family

        (and see how happy you become!)

 Nurture special family traditions that incorporate the Faith and nurture children individually

   -- Celebrate namedays and Holy Days with special attention whenever possible

   -- Find special family patrons and make big days out of their feast days

        (For instance, since our sir name is "Davis," the feast of King St. David of Wales is a big day at our house -- and we make very merry on the feast of St. Patrick due to our Irish roots.)

  Say "I love you" and show it through your example of little "services" to everyone

   -- Be an active member of your parish; encourage the children to join in whenever possible

   -- Be an example of charity in the world at large -- from letting someone into traffic to volunteering at a homeless shelter; actions speak louder than words.

   -- Be a symbol of charity in your home, working tirelessly and cheerfully -- but not without expecting gratitude.  Gratitude must be taught to children; thank them for their work and expect them to thank you for yours

  Pray

   -- Pray alone and allow the children to see you doing so

   -- Pray together as a couple and be glad that the children know you do

   -- Pray together every day as a family on your knees or standing before the crucifix

   -- Pray throughout the day: at meals; when passing a Catholic church where the Blessed Sacrament dwells; when passing a cemetery; when traveling; when an emergency vehicle passes; when any trial occurs; when any happiness requires a prayer of thanksgiving

Resolve to be a Happy Family
   -- Happiness is a choice -- one that we have to recommit to every single day
   --  The happy memories that our children carry through their lives dig deep roots of habit and priority:
    * If the majority of their happy memories surround football, for instance, their life's goal will be to recapture that happiness -- through sports
    *  If the majority of their happy memories surround faith and family, they will carry that priority into adulthood

15 Ticks of Multi-blessed Mommies

You can easily pick her out in a crowd, a mother of many children...  She:


1.  Cranes her neck around a lot, counting heads. If she's at a gathering without her children, she'll count everyone else's out of habit.

2.  Very often appears to have lost something.  Ducks under tables at the last moment before leaving restaurants -- looking for daughter's lost purses, sons lost action figures, babies lost pacifiers, etc.

3.  Repeats everything at least twice (sometimes three or four times) to make sure everyone has heard and understood.  Unfortunately, if the children aren't around, a multi-mom still does this, or has to bite her tongue to keep from doing it.

4.  Wears multi-colored prints to hide spots of spit up, stains from juice squeezed out of juice boxes, and waist-high, sticky, messy fingerprints.

5.  Carries a very large purse.  Or if she has a small one with her, you can bet she has a humongous one in the car.  May have one shoulder lower than the other from carrying this large purse.

6.  Often has one hip lower than the other from carrying toddlers around most of her adult life.

7.  Can do anything one-handed -- quickly and expertly -- from purchasing and paying for emergency animal crackers for the toddler on her hip -- to cooking, serving, and eating Thanksgiving dinner with an infant balanced on her shoulder.

8.  Navigates, with precision through the seats of restaurants, theaters, and church pews, rearranging her children (and sometimes other people's) so that no two trouble-makers are sitting together.

9.  Goes through a litany of names before hitting the right one -- and, while often (if not always) mistaking children's names, and even skipping generations (calling a daughter the name of her sister, for instance), she never jumps out of gender.  Anna is never mistakenly called Dominic; Jon is never called Theresa.  And this Mommy, at least, has never called anyone by the dogs' names.  Yet.

10.  Can occasionally be spotted batting children's prayerfully folded hands off the tops of pews during Mass, because she's just noticed that she missed checking little Hubert's fingernails before leaving home.

11.  Really does not hesitate to spit on Kleenex to clean her child's face in public -- even if it's at his college graduation.

12.  Backs out of driveways, hitting the brakes spastically, while darting furtive eyes out rear-view mirrors and swiveling to look repeatedly over her shoulder, because she fully expects that there's a bike, a, dog, a chicken, or a child behind her on the driveway somewhere -- even if she checked thoroughly before she got in the car.

13.  Buys storage containers compulsively.  There's always something that needs storing away -- for the next child, the next meal, the next season, the end of the world, whatever....

14.  Reads minds and sees out the back of her head.  QED: Knows instinctively when the children in the far back seat of the van are being sereptitiously rude and can, while keeping her eyes on the road, flick an empty baby bottle back-handed behind her over the heads of the passengers seats in-between, hitting her target, while delivering an equally well-aimed lecture on the virtue of charity.

15.  Knows who didn't come down to the computer just now to kiss her goodnight because they're up to something -- and who kissed her two times because they're stalling.  (I do know who you are, you know, kids....  Love ya' anyway.)

Family Week: Monday

There's no vocabulary

For love within a family, love that's lived in,

But not looked at, love within the light of which

All else is seen, the love within which

All other love finds speech.

This love is silent.

~ T.S. Eliot

Or maybe not so much.

Ten Favorite Things About September

1.  Brisk mornings, warm afternoons.
        * Heater on the way to school; a/c on the way home.

2.  Getting to wear favorite sweaters and flip flops on the same day.
       * Loving that we're seeing the cute little crocheted cape-lets in the stores again.  So cute and functional for this time of year, especially!

3.  The predictable schedule of school days

      * It was a fun, but crazy summer!  We're all relieved to have a routine again.

4.  Picking fun little snacks to put in school lunches.

     * fun and healthful ideas here,  and here,   and here...

5.  Spying around the neighborhood for the first golden leaves.

      *  Leaves are just barely turning here in the lower elevations...  but the mountains are getting their gold on!

6.  Pulling out and putting up our fall decorations.
     *  Was planning to go out in the barn and pull in the fall bins last week -- until Cathy came in with a three foot long shedded snake skin she found out there.  So, um -- needless to say, I'm at Dan's mercy to bring the bins in for me now...  Maybe that'll happen before All Saints' Day.

7.  Finding new recipes for zucchini, pumpkin, and corn.


*  Birthday boy on the 28th -- but also
now shares the 8th with the BVM,
as he entered Religion on her birthday.

     *  Planning to try this recipe for corn fritters this week -- and pumpkin muffins are on the breakfast menu for tomorrow morning.

8.  Feasts of our Lady

      *  Her birthday on the 8th, her holy name on the 12th, the seven sorrows on the 15th, Our Lady of Ransom on the 26th.

9.  My birthday and Brother Pio's within shouting distance of the Blessed Mother's

10. Drinking spiced chai with Cathy over GK Chesterton on quiet homeschool mornings.
      *  Doesn't get much better than that.  Grieving over the rest of the children missing out on these mornings -- and realizing more and more that we really are homeschoolers at heart...

Already!

It's a little less than a month now until Thanksgiving Day!  Can you believe it?  I love Thanksgiving.  Love everything about it, from the smell of turkey drifting through the house to the dirty socks my visiting grown-up children leave everywhere.   But, I especially love the theme of this holiday.  It's good to be thankful -- in the last week of November and throughout the year.  

In these difficult times, when the world seems upside-down and so many people are suffering from job loss and the bad economy, it can be easy to forget what a wonderful world God has given us.  But there's so much to be thankful for.  We're surrounded by wonders!  I've been thinking a lot about that lately.  Sure, Bank of America may fail, but the clouds coming up over Grand Mesa this morning looked like a pot of milk boiling over -- and the very fact of the humongous flat-topped mountain that fills my living room window is amazing.  And, yes, there may be a strange smell seeping out of the wall of my bathroom where I think a mouse must have died, but the frost on the clover outside my front door this morning perfectly outined every vein of every little clover leaf with the most spectacular minute detail -- amazing!  And those are just examples of the wonders of God's natural world.  There are so many other categories of amazing wonder; people, animals, literature, Faith, kitchen gadgets....  The list is never-ending!  

With this in mind, I thought it might be fun to take some time once a week to share a small handful of amazing things I've noticed in my world, to remember them myself and share them with my friends.  If you'd like to come along and share some, too, you are so welcome!  I'll post the category for the 3 Amazing Things for the week at the top of my sidebar over the weekend and post my list on Wednesday.  If you'd like to join in, grab the button for your post, leave a note in my combox on Wednesday with the link to your Amazing post, and link back here.  (If there is any traffic, I'll get a linky-device later...)

I know it's too late for this week, but I wanted to send out a little heads up for next week.  And here's a sneak peak at the subject matter:

*  The category this first time around is an easy one for us moms or anyone with children in their lives.... 

(You can grab the button and participate whenever you like this week and leave the link here on Wednesday). 

 The "Children" Edition

This first edition next Wednesday seems like a good time to list out 3 Amazing Things about each of our children -- our own, or some who are close to us. 

Since I have so many children, though, I'm going to give myself (and everyone else) a break and pick out only one amazing thing about each of my youngin's... It'll be as short and concise a version as I can manage, only a couple of lines per child. Stay tuned!

* Following, however, is sort of an extended version of Amazing Things, celebrating and thanking God for each of our ten blessings. 

 Amazing Things About My Children

(Some of the things those folks who sneer at my mega-family are missing.)

Paul (23) can find his way to a designated spot through an unknown forest in the middle of the night with no map.  He's one of the best Land Navigation Marines in his class at TBS, which is no surprise at all -- because Paul does this with life.  He sets a goal then, without hesitation or procrastination, sets out single-mindedly and intelligently to find his way to that goal. Whether it be a matter of education, long-term career goals, Faith, or personal relationships, Paul always finds his way to the middle of the target -- with a charming smile and a dashing demeanor.  He is amazing.


Nicole (22), our daughter-in-law, can juggle all umpteen dozen of her husband's family -- with one hand -- while cooking pasta with the other, flashing her dazzling smile the whole time and enjoying every minute of it.  Or at least making us feel like she's enjoying it.  Nicole is the prize of all prizes and our beloved daughter and sister.  Everyone loves her, even the most curmudgeonly among the troops, and we are blessed that Paul was wise enough to ask her to marry him and that she was crazy enough to say yes.  Nicole is the girl in a million. (And she's carrying our grandbaby, to boot!)  She is amazing.






Kevin (21) can take any group of people walking around in circles and get them facing the same direction.  And I have never known it to not be a good direction.  Without being loud, vulgar, or obnoxious and without seeking popularity, Kevvy's somehow the center of attention everywhere he goes.  He makes no effort to be popular -- and couldn't care less about it -- but if he walks into a room, everyone knows it immediately  and is glad he's there. A rare bird, indeed, he's a good-time-Charlie with his head screwed on perfectly straight.  He is amazing.   

 Jon (19), if he so desired, could drywall your kitchen and construct the mitred trim, choose the perfect colors for the wall, paint a realistic mural of the countryside over your sink, cook you a gourmet dinner, then play a musical accompaniment for you while you ate it.  He can do anything and make it original, pretty, and/or taste good.  His creativity is boundless.  He's a nurturing and loving (if sarcastic) big brother.  And another charmer.  He is amazing.

 Dominic (17) wins at everything he does, but has no idea he's even playing.  He could walk between St. Dominic and St. Francis of Assissi, quietly and earnestly joining in their discussion, make them laugh  and play pool with them, then be convinced there was nothing at all special going on.  He's a straight-A student, but thinks he's a bad student; he excels at every sport, but takes a back seat to the louder competitors.   His rock-solid dependability and humility make him everyone's favorite, yet he thinks he has no special gift.  And when you tell him these things, he respectfully begs to differ.  Then makes a silly face.  He is amazing.





Michelle (15) can tie a cherry stem with her tongue.  No kidding.  A natural sequal to her babyhood stunt of twirling her pacifier in her mouth without using her hands,  her cherry stem trick is a good figurative illustration of Shelly. There's a natural clear sweetness to my oldest daughter's character, but there's also a stem-tying capability and strength that pops out when you least expect it.  She giggles and smacks bubble gum while coldly womping her brothers in poker; she passes silly notes and twirls her hair around her fingers, but unflinchingly tells her classmates to shut up and have some respect when entering the chapel because they're entering the house of God.  Shelly is the human example of a Sweetart.  She is amazing.

Theresa (11) wears animals and small children like other girls wear jewelry.  She's the child that critters and little people instinctively run to for help and comfort. By the end of the first day at our new school, the kindergarteners and first graders already knew they had a champion in Theresa -- as our Littles have always known.  She notices others and cares about them, loving without the expectation of reward.  Though her quiet, studious ways may sometime hide her in the swagger of the bigger kids and the fracas of the little ones, anyone who values deep goodness can't help but notice Theresa.  She shines like a beacon.  She is amazing.




Cathy (10), without being told, knows to get me a wet rag for my eyes when I'm cutting onions. Not only that, but I don't have to tell her to wear shoes outdoors; I don't have to remind her to brush her teeth; her school books are tidier than mine, and she dresses better than I do.  She was preparing dishes from scratch and could make yeast bread by the time she was nine years old.  This child is 100% present and focused in the moment.  She doesn't miss a trick, is eminently practical, and there is not a lazy bone in her body.  If you want a job done well and quickly, Cathy's your girl.  She is amazing.   

Anna (7) is a one-woman Shakespeare company,  Lady MacBeth one moment, Puck the next... We never know what we're going to get with her, but one thing's for sure: we're never bored. One minute she's tossing eye-daggers at an offending sister, the next minute she's presenting her with a highly detailed and flowery note of affection.We never know what she's going to say or do and we have to be on our toes to know whether we should laugh at her zaniness or respect her seriousness.  She's only seven years old and she's already an omnibus.  She is amazing.



Gabriel (6) can whistle and snap his fingers.  And, not only that, but he's very concerned that his little classmate, MaryAnne, can't do it yet -- and how should he go about teaching her?  Gabey loves to learn, and loves to chase the leaders, but he doesn't want anyone to be back behind him.  Very few people in my experience have this combination of interests.  He's competitive, but compassionate.   And very sweet and huggable.  He is amazing.

William (4) is the horse of a different color you hear tell about.  Among other eclectic talents learned from living in a house filled to the brim with older people, William has the unique ability to memorize a tune the first time he hears it.  He stores it in his memory bank rolodex, then pulls it out when he needs it.  If he's playing with his dinosaurs, he hums the tune to Jurassic Park, if he's riding through the mountains alongside a railway, he sings I've Been Working on the Railroad.  You know he's in a particularly happy mood if  he's humming Beautiful Day (U2) or Bittersweet Symphony, his two favorite songs...  He also quotes lines from movies and cartoons at uncannily appropriate times.  After ten children, you'd think we'd have started spitting out duplicates by now, but, nope -- each child is completely different -- and this one is a humdinger. He is amazing. 

They're all amazing!  I think that fact gets lost sometimes in the numbers for some people.  But, seriously, after the first two or three children, we weren't worn down by the challenge or exhausted by the pressure of keeping up with so many personalities.  In my tongue-tied Momminess, I often call children by the wrong names, but I've never lost track of who they are, how unique and amazing each one of them is.  It's not hard to remember.  If each of my children is a unique color, our home is an auroraborealis, each luminous color sparkling and waving and mixing with the others, a constant variety, a never ending beautiful display. 

As the years have gone one and I've gotten to know each of my children better, I've been energized by this variety, awed by the wonder of it all.  All these amazing people, with all their gifts and faults -- they drive me crazy sometimes! But I love them to pieces.  And they're mine.  God saw fit to trust them to me and my husband.  It's amazing.  

How can we ever thank Him enough?