Author: Julie

Recovery Mondays

/ Julie / 5 Comments

Ah, Recovery Mondays, how I love you.

A little under a year ago, I was frustrated with how my weekly rhythm of activities seemed to always leave me stressed out and feeling behind. So I did what any good Type A personality would do: I made an extensive list of absolutely everything I wanted to be doing and then I set up an ambitious schedule to cram it all in. In order to make it all add up on paper, (1) I underestimated how long it would take to do my tasks and (2) I was overly-optimistic about how well my children would cooperate. Brilliant, right? I’m sure you can guess how that one worked out.

Well, when that exercise served to make me feel even worse about myself and my home- and schedule-management abilities, I had a blessed little epiphany: I needed to take the idea of realism to the extreme. I contemplated my daily responsibilities and how they made me feel. Bit-by-bit, I came to understand that I don’t actually dislike many of my tasks, I just don’t like to do them in a rush, or without sufficient preparation, or all-at-once. Also, I am slow. For the sake of my mental wellbeing, I need to account for my slowness in my scheduling.

So I started to formulate some general principles for managing my schedule and my home. Here are the former. Maybe later I’ll write about some of the householdy stuff too. If anyone cares. (By the way, this is the first time I’ve actually typed these things up. I’m not that Type A.)

  1. Mondays are for recovering from the weekend. They are for resting and getting the house back into good working order and sitting still to think about your calendar and your grocery list. They are not for play-dates or doctor’s appointments or errands. They are most definitely not for grocery shopping.
  2. Tuesdays seem like a nice day for grocery shopping. But only if you’ve written a list first.
  3. Whatever day you do go grocery shopping, do not plan to cook dinner. Either stick it in the crock-pot first thing in the morning, or pick up a rotisserie chicken while you’re at the store.
  4. Also don’t plan to cook dinner on days you’re running a lot of errands or spending all day at a play-date or outing. Make liberal use of the crock pot. Or ask your husband to bring home carry-out. (Though at our house we try to limit carry-out to once every two weeks or so.)
  5. If you have a long, busy day out of the house, plan to stay home the next day. The little guys will need quiet and rest. You will too.
  6. Do not plan to get anything accomplished after the boys go to bed at night. Despite your long to-do list and your best-laid plans, you will be too tired. Sit still and read your blogs and don’t feel guilty about it.
  7. Weekends are for quality time as a family, parties and other social stuff, sleeping in, and big household projects. They are not for everyday household chores, save the most basic of dish-washing duties.
  8. If you’re planning a party or getting ready to go on a trip, do as much of the preparation as possible a few days in advance. No matter what, the day-of will be very full and stressful. Limit the last-minute tasks so you have the wherewithal to enjoy your event.
  9. Try to limit your activity on Saturday evenings so you don’t resent getting up for mass on Sunday mornings.
  10. The weekend thing in #7 goes especially for Sundays. Be sure to make a concerted effort to enjoy and appreciate your loved ones on Sundays. Don’t do activities that feel like work to you. Rather, do activities that bring you joy, even if (like gardening or writing) they may seem like work to someone else.

Anway, these principles are mine, tailored to my personality and my circumstances. You can’t have them. (I say lovingly.) Or rather, you can have them if you want them, but you probably don’t, because they won’t fit you like they fit me. But, if you’re feeling anything like I was about a year ago, perhaps you could do something like I did back then: take a pause and evaluate your daily responsibilities and how they make you feel. And then be über-realistic about how you might approach your schedule to minimize your stress.

Just a thought from me, sitting at my kitchen table, on this rainy, quiet, lovely Recovery Monday.

Kitchen Table

Full Disclosure

/ Julie / 7 Comments

As I plan to write about some political and religious issues on this blog, I thought it would be useful to provide a little background on the evolution of my outlook in these areas. (I have all these country songs running through my head as I write this: “Where I Come From,” “God blessed the broken road that led me straight to you,” etc.)

I thought this little ‘disclosure of my biases,’ as I think of it, would be useful for a few reasons: (1) Political and religious subjects can be pretty touchy. (No surprise there.) (2) Our opinions on them usually have a strong basis in our own life experiences. (3) I aim to be as fair, open, and even-handed on this blog as I can be. And (4) I personally prefer news and commentary sources that either (a) represent both sides of an issue equally well or (b) openly disclose their opinions and make no pretense of impartiality. So I kind of thought I’d cover all my bases.

But before I go any further, let me say that this post makes me nervous and I had a hard time writing it. (Which is part of the reason I wrote so few posts this past week. I was trying to take this one in a different direction and it stumped me.) The words below represent my past and my thought processes and my faith, family, and friends, and it’s all very personal. It’s also probably a big ol’ case of TMI. But I felt like I needed to get all this out there before I proceed with a bunch of other posts I have lined up in my head.

So…

I was raised Catholic in that I regularly attended mass with my mother and I was provided with a religious education through our parish. But my father is not Catholic and there was little mention of faith in our (very happy) home. These days when I read blogs that mention a devotion to this saint, or a fondness for that novena, or a special attachment to such-and-such prayer, or a thousand little ways to live out the liturgical seasons, I feel kind of lost. Like I don’t fully fit into a community that should be my own. Yes, I’m Catholic. Yes, I love Christ, I am devoted to His Church, and faithful to its teachings. But no, I’m not familiar with all the trappings of my Faith.

While there wasn’t much discussion of religion in my family, there was a lot about politics. My grandfather was a local elected official, so I was exposed to campaigns and political chatter from a young age. Various family members worked on Granddad’s campaigns and we all helped on Election Day (which was just about my favorite day of the year when I was a child). My family was (and remains) very Republican in a very Democratic state, so I was instilled with a strong attachment to conservative ideals, but no illusion that these ideals were universal. (Rather, I understood that they were uncommon and needed to be defended.)

In my (public) high school I had a great group of smart, articulate, and religiously/politically diverse friends. And we liked a good debate. As the sole practicing Catholic and one of the only conservatives, I became the defender of all things Catholic and some things conservative. Just as my family’s experience as members of a minority party had prodded my attachment to conservatism, so my lunch-table debate experience bonded me to my Faith. Not that I understood it very well: eight years of Sunday school and one year of confirmation class do not a well-informed Catholic make. But my own little role as Defender of the Faith prompted me to research, ask questions, contemplate, and pray.

This all set the stage nicely for my next step: a political science major at a Catholic college. More lunch table discussions, this time with classmates and seminarians who had been raised in devoutly Catholic families, gave me glimpses of the depth and beauty awaiting me in the Church. Philosophy and theology classes helped me to better understand it. And my political science courses, not to mention informal discussions with friends and professors, gave me an appreciation for the broader context in which we live out our religious ideals. I had always been interested in the convergence of differing ideas; in college I became particularly interested in the convergence of politics and religion.

I wrote my senior thesis on “The American Catholic and the Two Political Parties,” which explored the poor fit between the Church’s teachings on matters of public policy and the ideological break-out of today’s American political parties. I also completed an internship with a Catholic organization that advocated on behalf of the Church’s public policy interests. Several years later, after a stint with the federal government, I returned to the organization to work as a lobbyist for the Church.

There, I was tasked with representing the Church’s positions on social justice matters, which included a wide range of issues related to poverty, housing, health care, and immigration. (Along with a few others.) Most of the positions were what Americans would call “liberal.” Which was a real challenge for me. Coming from a conservative background, I was comfortable with the Church’s teachings on abortion and marriage. I was comfortable promoting school choice. But the Church’s social justice teachings made me uncomfortable. I didn’t necessarily think they were wrong; it’s just that they challenged the political ideals under which I was raised and so they caused discomfort.

Oh, what a learning and growing experience it was for me. I read and I talked to people and I prayed.  I began to gain something of an understanding of people who faced challenges that I never had – people who struggled to feed their children and keep a roof over their heads, people who came to this country seeking a better life, people whose poor health or poor treatment by others or whose own poor decisions had stymied their chances of making it on their own – and even people who struggled to be able to function in society at all. I was changed and I was humbled.

I was grateful for the opportunity to give voice to these people’s concerns – and also for what I felt was an opportunity to bring people closer to Christ through this work of His Church. I feel like a cheesy ball of mush writing this, but I had so many moving experiences doing this work: I huddled in a group of elderly immigrant women and tried to convey to them (through our language barrier) that their Church was there for them. I spoke to crowds at parishes and pleaded with them to connect their own preferred cause for the “least of these” with another that was more challenging for them. I testified before lawmakers and told them, time and again, that all human life has value, regardless of its age or station.

Perhaps I have digressed. What I’m trying to explain is that, yes, I come from a particular place on the political spectrum. I get the conservative thing. But I have also been emerged in an unfamiliar (liberal) political territory, and I got to know it too. I feel richer for the experience.

When I was a lobbyist, I found that I could lobby more effectively when I put myself in the shoes of my opponents – imagining and even empathizing with their motivations. I think the same holds true when you’re discussing a difficult subject. All too often these days, people seem to regard consideration of and empathy with “the other side” as a sign of weakness, even foolishness. But it is such an asset. Sure, it helps you to build a solid case for your own cause. But more importantly, it helps you to explore your own opinions and motivations and be sure that you’re on the right course.

When you get together a group of people who all bring this kind of consideration to their conversation – well, that kind of discussion moves everyone forward in understanding. That is what I feel my background has prepared me for and that is what I hope to encourage with this blog.

7 Quick Takes Friday (Vol. 2)

/ Julie / 2 Comments

7 quick takes sm1 Your 7 Quick Takes Toolkit!

— 1 —

When I started this blog (a whole 12 days ago) to take the place of some fantasy of time-spent-in-a-bar-or-coffee-shop-talking-about-interesting-things, I knew that it was going to be challenging to find time to write. (Not as challenging as all that fantasy time away from the house, mind you.)

But, c’mon.

I think I did pretty darned well that first week (six posts!), but this week has been pathetic. And what’s really getting to me is that I haven’t even been overly busy. It would be one thing if I could chalk up my lack of writing opportunities to a bunch of outings or something. But I’ve (mostly) been home! Doing dishes and other boring stuff! It’s just that every time I sit down to write, somebody climbs up into my lap, or has to go pee-pee, or pelts me with questions, or hauls in his toys to play right next to me. Because I am never, ever so interesting as when I am looking at a computer.

(Yes, yes I know that it’s wonderful that they want to be near me, and little children need their mommies, and these years go so fast, and blah, blah, blah… But mommies need breaks, too. This one needs just a little bit of quiet every day, to think and refresh, and feel like I’ve done something productive that won’t be destroyed in the next few hours.)

— 2 —

On a more hopeful note, see this little set-up here? Water table, boys wearing nothing but t-shirts and diapers, BABY GATE to keep said boys out of the fish pond in the background… This is my Hope For The Summer. Really, I’m depending on it way more than I should be. My plan is to stick the boys in here (frequently) and enjoy all sorts of little luxuries while they’re occupied with the water fun: planning interesting new meals, cooking without someone sitting on my feet, folding laundry on the same day it’s washed, gardening, walking some laps around the house, blogging… It’s going to be wonderful. Right? RIGHT?!?

Boy at water table

— 3 —

Sorry if I’m sounding a tad desperate here. It’s just that (as indicated in #1), we’ve had one of those weeks. On Wednesday things were so rough that half-way through I gathered my boys into my lap, wrapped my arms around them, and said, “Let’s make this a better day, boys.” And my (big) little stinker answered that no, he wanted to make the day worse. As in, “Da worst day ever!”

And then he proceeded to give it a good shot. So when my husband came home that evening (blissfully, at an actually very decent hour), I told him I needed to get out of the house for a while. And I did something I hadn’t done in over a year: I went for a walk by myself. I won’t deny that I was inspired, in part, by this post from the marvelous Simcha Fisher.

Field at Evening

Beautiful view, isn’t it? This was the beginning of my walk. I love when I catch the evening light at just the right moment, when the fields and woods have a golden quality to them. And I particularly love it at this time of year, when the temperature is comfortable and the air smells like honeysuckle.

I love most things about a walk, really, it’s just that I almost never make time for them anymore. One summer when I was in college, I took an hour-long walk every evening when I got home from work. That one, simple activity helped me lose 20 pounds and get into the best shape of my life. It also helped to clear my mind and feed my soul. (I did a lot of praying while I walked.) I could use more than a little of all those things in my life right now. Weight loss? More strength? Better health? Clearer mind? Fruitful prayer? Yes, please!

But how am I supposed to fit this into my schedule of morning-to-night childcare responsibilities? My hubby usually doesn’t get home from work until dusk. And the double stroller thing is hard to do when you live in a place with super narrow sidewalks and some seriously steep, hilly streets. Can someone please send me a sweet neighbor girl to babysit a few times a week?

— 4 —

We seem to be in a season of entertaining and weddings. Last night we hosted a small dinner party (so I guess my assessment of our busy-ness this week was a tad understated in #1), two weeks ago we hosted a larger one, a week from now we’ll host the after-party for our weekend-long family reunion, and a couple of weeks after that we’ll host a teenage friend/distant relative from Germany for a few weeks. (More on that one later.) Last weekend we had my aunt’s wedding and two weeks from now we have my uncle’s. Oh, and we also have our little guy’s THIRD birthday party in the mix for June and a family trip to Minnesota in July. I’m not complaining. I enjoy being with people and I love that my husband and I are creating a hospitable home. All the activity delights me at the same time as it makes my head spin.

— 5 —

I would love to get to the point in my time-management skills (I actually have been improving in this area) where I have a few moments before guests arrive to take pictures of the set-up. I love beautiful dishes and linens and I usually make time to display everything nicely. But inevitably, I’m still preparing food (or, ahem, getting myself ready) as guests arrived. Someday I’ll get there.

— 6 —

Speaking of getting ready, lately I’ve been listening to a lovely radio show while I get ready for mass on Sunday mornings. It’s On Being, which, as its website describes, is envisioned as “a program that would draw out the intellectual and spiritual content of religion that should nourish our common life, but that is often obscured precisely when religion enters the news.”

[W]hat we cover as “conversation about religion, meaning, ethics, and ideas” drives towards ancient, animating questions at the heart of the great traditions and beyond them: What does it mean to be human? What matters in a life? What matters in a death? How to love? How to be of service to each other and to the world? We explore these questions in all the variety, richness, and complexity with which they find expression in contemporary lives. We pursue wisdom and moral imagination as much as knowledge; we esteem nuance and poetry as much as fact.

It’s really a beautiful program. I don’t always agree with their interview subjects, but that’s kind of the point of exposing oneself to new ideas, isn’t it? Learning about someone else’s perspective, taking to heart the parts that you recognize as truth, and using the rest to exercise, if you will, your own thought process on the subject.

The tone of the program, if not always the subject matter, reminds me of a Washington Post series of the same name. (Here’s a link, but there doesn’t seem to be any content on the site right now.) It was a series of short videos of individuals who talked about their lives and explored being… whoever they were. I recall a video of a stay-at-home dad and his baby boy, a mother and her son with Down’s Syndrome, a young nun, and oh, lots and lots more. After the interview you’d find out what quality the individuals were representing: On being joyful, On being special, etc. I loved almost every single segment I saw. They were powerful, moving, thought-provoking – all sorts of good things. I wish they were still up so you could see them too!

— 7 —

To close, let me bring it back to the domestic realities that dominated this post with the following beautiful shot:

Messy kitchen

Yes, the post-dinner party dishes. You know what I’ll be doing today! Oh, and I forgot to put the wine away last night. Sigh… While I’m dealing with all that (not to mention the two toddlers who woke up THREE to FOUR hours earlier than usual!), you go check out the other Quick Takes over at Jen’s. I promise you it will be waaaay more fun than what I’ve got going on.

Sunday Best

/ Julie / 4 Comments

Grace of the always-worth-visiting Camp Patton is trying a new link-up today called “Sunday Best.” The idea is to blog on your “Sunday Best” clothes and/or your children’s “Sunday Best” (or far from best) behavior at church. I’m in!

(By the way, to any mom friends who haven’t yet checked out Camp Patton – do! Go! Right now! Grace’s tales of life with her three under three are like a visit from a good friend who knows JUST what you’re going through. And who arrives at your house bearing your favorite cocktail.)

Anyway, I’m not going to post a photo of the outfit I wore to mass today. Because (1) I have a head of frizz in this humid summer weather, (2) I’m sunburned and exhausted-looking after the wedding we attended yesterday, and (3) I’m one of those self-conscious moms who (almost) never takes pictures of herself. Yep, that’s me. I admit it.

I will, however, get up the courage to (cringe) post a photo of the boys and me from yesterday’s wedding, because it’s such a good representation of the mass behavior I can typically expect from them:

Me and the boys at wedding
The almost-three-year-old is usually very well-behaved in mass. (At home? That can be a very different story. But in mass, thankfully, I can normally count on an ‘A’ performance.) The 20-month-old usually does pretty well through the homily, but around the consecration (perfectly timed, I know) he turns into something like the above and the hubby rushes him out.

Today everybody was tired from the wedding, so you can imagine how we did. Big brother kept up a constant stream of low-level noise – lots of whispering and climbing and sound effects and jiggling like a plastic bag filled with Jello – and he responded Not One Little Bit to my corrections. He gets a ‘C’ – saved only by virtue of keeping it all to “low-level.” Little brother pulled off a pretty typical performance, so I guess he gets a ‘C’ too. Even though he successfully brought out the giggles in the people sitting behind us by repeatedly dripping his milk onto the pew and then wiping it up with a napkin, saying “messsh, messsh.”

On a much nicer note, I have to mention that our parish held a Eucharistic procession through town directly after mass, in honor of Corpus Christi. It was the first such thing I’ve participated in. Years ago when I was studying in Germany, the little Bavarian town I was living in hosted a HUGE Corpus Christi procession, complete with hundreds of people wearing lederhosen and dirndls. And I MISSED it! I had signed up for a day trip to Neuschwanstein, not realizing that (1) it was scheduled for Corpus Christi and (2) that meant that the town would be overtaken by processing Catholics. A dear friend photographed it for me because she knew I’d love it, but missing the procession remains my greatest regret of what was otherwise a fantastic summer. Our participation in this morning’s (1000x much) smaller procession lifted my spirits and went a tiny way toward removing my regret at missing the Prien am Chiemsee version.

To end, let me just share a picture of my dapper little guy as ring bearer yesterday. (Congratulations, Tom and Aunt Grace!) The little sign he’s wearing (which you can see better in the first picture) reads “ring security.”

Ring Bearer

And here’s one of the littlest guy. We borrowed a friend’s toddler tuxedo so he could be just like his big brother, but, um… something got lost in the shuffle. Good thing he’s cute enough to pull off any look!

Funny Tuxedo

So head on over to Grace and check out the rest!

7 Quick Takes Friday (Vol. 1)

/ Julie / 4 Comments

7 quick takes sm1 Your 7 Quick Takes Toolkit!

Let’s call this the brand-spankin’-new-blog edition.

— 1 —

I am so excited to (finally!) be able to jump on the 7 Quick Takes bandwagon. Friday mornings are one of my favorite times of the week. Once I get the kiddos cleaned up after breakfast, I like to sit at the table with a cup of coffee and read through a bunch of the Takes. In peace. If the little noise-makers let me. If you’re a real-life friend (Hi, Mom!) coming here via Facebook and you’ve never heard of 7 Quick Takes, be sure to go visit Jen to see what it’s all about.

— 2 —

If you’re not a real-life friend and you came here via 7 Quick Takes – or some other internet route that I can’t fathom at the moment – my name is Julie and I’m a whole four days into blogging. You can read about my plans for the blog here. In a nutshell, I’m a stay-at-home mom to two toddler boys, a former lobbyist, and an avid consumer of Catholic mommy blogs and national/international news. I’d love to spend some significant time huddled up with interesting people in a coffee shop, discussing the world’s problems. But my two beautiful little boys actually need their mother to be here with them, so… blogging seemed like the natural alternative.

— 3 —

On a more technical matter, as a brand-new blogger, I expect to be experimenting with my blog’s layout, design, capabilities, etc. And I have to admit that I’m more intimidated by WordPress than I expected to be. So if you have any suggestions as to things I might want to incorporate into the blog or actions I can take to better familiarize myself with WordPress, I’m all ears. Or eyes. Whatever.

— 4 —

I took my boys to get haircuts (the little one’s very first!) this afternoon. So as to provide my (future, theoretical) readers with a little introduction to the boys, I thought I’d provide a picture and a short account of the experience. First, the cutie-pies, post-haircut:

Boys after haircut

The big one is almost three and the little one is 20 months old. Big brother is so sweet and happy and friendly that he is the most cooperative of toddler clients a hairdresser could ask for. And he’s so sure of himself that when I later said to him, “Let me look at you.” He replied, “I haaandsome!”

Little brother has a bit more attitude and a lot more fear, so I was worried about how this was going to go. Much to my surprise, he actually tolerated the haircut fairly well, but I kind of think his expression in the above photo is a pretty good representation of what he thought of the whole thing.

— 5 —

I’m already starting to miss those little blond curls:

Playing in the dirt

— 6 —

And the brown ones too:

Also playing in the dirt

By the way, kiddo gets to be a ring bearer this weekend! He has a little tux and everything. I’ll report on the experience next week; I think he’s going to love it.

— 7 —

To wrap up and pull back to my “brand-spankin’-new-blog” theme (which is funny that I’m even doing, given that I have this opinion that Quick Takes are supposed to be miscellaneous, not themed), I’ll just say that I’ve really enjoyed this first week of blogging. It feels so good to be doing something – however small – with my brain. And it’s been fun to watch the stats come in and see that people have actually been reading what I write. My first full day, I had views from Germany and Ghana, which I understood, because I have friends in both countries. But yesterday I had views from Egypt and Nigeria. What!? How interesting is that? So thank you – whoever (and wherever) you are – for visiting. I hope you’ll come back and I hope you’ll join in on my little conversations on some of the Big Questions.

The Best Gift A Parent Can Give

/ Julie / Leave a comment

I heard a really moving story this morning on the radio. “Beating The Odds: Making The Grades Without A Mother’s Help” told about a Washington, D.C. teenager named Jennifer Hightower. Jennifer has excelled in school (earning a 3.9 GPA!) without the help of her mother, who has struggled with drug addiction and illness.

I’ll write more on it later, but I have something of a left/right ideological tug-of-war going on in my mind on some subjects. (On others there are no struggles at all – my mind is firmly on one side of the ideological divide.) Poverty-related issues most definitely fall into the “tug-of-war” category. Jennifer’s story was interesting to me in part because it satisfied both sides of my ideological leanings in this area: The left-leaning side was gratified that the story shone some light on the daunting (and often ugly) challenges that so many Americans face in their efforts to succeed – or even just to function – in our society. The right-leaning side was proud of Jennifer and her commendable efforts to excel despite those challenges. (Not to mention her happy, positive outlook on life and her forgiving attitude toward her mother.)

The story also broke my mommy heart a little. The idea of a small child taking on the responsibilities of keeping her home clean, cooking, and excelling in school without a mother’s guidance – it’s hard to take in. But a simple image is what touched me most: “I had to teach myself how to tie my own shoes,” Jennifer said. “I didn’t have somebody to sit down and tell me this bunny tie that you do. All that stuff you see on TV, I didn’t have that.”

For the umpteenth time since I became a parent, a small image of trial and deprivation took the wind out of my sails. On a daily basis, I worry about keeping my home orderly, washing the dishes, cooking decent meals for my family, getting my boys enough run-around-outside time. And yes, all of those things matter. But at the base of it, what really matters is that my husband and I love our boys powerfully, unreservedly, consistently… in all the best ways one can love. And that we take care of them in the big and the little ways. Our boys don’t have to wonder whether they are loved or whether they will have their needs met. Those thoughts don’t have to cross their innocent little minds. At times like these (thinking of Jennifer’s story), that seems like such a luxury. Countless children don’t get to have that sense of security. I feel so humbled and so very grateful that I received that gift from my parents – and that my husband and I are able to give it to our boys.

Three Years In

/ Julie / Leave a comment

Three years ago this month, I was put on bedrest to wait out the last few weeks of my first pregnancy. One day I was at work, surrounded by boxes and stacks of papers that I needed to go through before the baby came, and the next I was making my third “oh, never mind” trip to Labor and Delivery, at which point my doctor said, “Enough. Get thee into bed.” (Or something like that.) At any rate, the experience was something of a shock to my system. I went, overnight, from life as a professional, (officially) working woman to a stay-at-home mother and homemaker.

And it was hard. Not that it was physically or even mentally hard at first – I mean, I was mostly laying low, swollen feet up and massive belly resting uncomfortably. But it was emotionally hard. In part because my exit came sooner than I expected: I felt guilty for leaving my successor with so many loose ends and I didn’t get to have that last day at work to walk through the office and say goodbye to the people and the place and know that that’s what I was doing – saying goodbye. The greater part of it, though, was coming to terms with the fact that my life was changing in a big way. I’d spent nearly a decade as an independent, professional woman. And suddenly I was facing a vastly different way of living my life.

I’m not saying that I had doubts about what I was doing – I didn’t at all. I had always, since I was a little girl, wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. I enjoyed my work and I was very grateful to have had the experiences that came along with it, but I had always hoped to be able to choose full-time motherhood over a career someday. And here it was: that opportunity, that blessing! But it was still hard to transition to that new way of living my life. I don’t know about you, but any change is a little difficult for me to accept and a big, life-defining change (wonderful as it might be) is a lot difficult. Transitioning from being single to being engaged? Hard to wrap my mind around. Becoming a wife? Harder. Becoming a mother and spending so much time within the four walls of my house and not seeing lots of other people on a daily basis and being fully dependent on someone else’s paycheck and having a tiny person rely on me every single moment of my day? Way harder.

Two days oldOf course, once the baby arrived, my day-to-day life (not just the idea of my life changing) was challenging in much more tangible ways. Life with a newborn is a special kind of difficult. It’s beautiful and full of wonder, but it’s also demanding and stressful and exhausting. Yes, before you know it, that short but intense period passes and you settle into to your new normal. But with that first baby, at the beginning of my “job” as mother and homemaker, I felt lost.

Which really shouldn’t have been all that surprising. I’d felt lost when I began my (other) two jobs, too. My first (well, my first grown-up, real-deal job) was straight out of college. I was working for the federal government, in a field I didn’t know, with people who spoke what sounded like an alphabet soup of a language. (Let me tell you, those Feds know how to do acronyms.) My second job was working as a lobbyist, in an environment I understood, but advocating on issues that were unfamiliar to me. Both times, I felt like I’d been thrown into a lake and told to swim – on a day so foggy I had no clue which direction I should head in, let alone any concept of what the coastline looked like or even how big the lake was.

But, of course, I figured it out. Soon enough that coastline emerged from the fog and I had a frame of reference. I began to develop an understanding of the issues with which I was tasked, and then I was able to discern the direction I needed to go in. With both jobs, I found that there was something special about the three-year mark: that point at which things fall into place and you suddenly just get it. You understand your environment, you know your role within it, and you have the tools to do the work that needs to be done.

That’s where I am right now, in my third and most important of jobs: mother/homemaker. Now, don’t hate me for saying that I suddenly get motherhood. I’m not claiming that the job is easy or that I have it all figured out. I’m just saying that it’s really nice not to feel lost anymore. There are plenty of things I mess up or I’m lazy about or that just plain ol’ throw me for a loop. But on the whole, I do get it now. My “job” makes sense to me and (on most days) I’m confident that I can do it well.

So, yes, this month I’m three years in, and I love that.

An Ideal Government

/ Julie / 1 Comment

There was an interesting discussion on the crisis (if you will) of democracy in the West this morning on The Diane Rehm Show. As per usual, I didn’t get to hear the program in its entirety because, you know – toddlers. But it brought forward some thoughts that have been swirling around in my head for some time.

P1140675It seems to me that in the United States, at least, a fundamental disagreement regarding the appropriate role of government is bubbling to the surface. Yes, it’s about “big” vs. “small” government, but aside from those terms being too broad, I think they’re also too subjective. (One person’s “small” is another person’s “big,” isn’t it?) Rather, I view the breakout as one of attitude. How do we think of our ideal government? The following is surely too broad and too rough, but for a quick get-us-thinking post, I hope it will do.

Many people (and most of the press) function under the idea that government, when it works properly, exists to solve problems and spur progress. Under this paradigm, some of the marks of good government are action, innovation, and cooperation.

Other people (including some of the most famous talk radio hosts) function under the idea that government exists simply to establish a basic framework of freedoms, security, and infrastructure. Under this paradigm, the primary mark of good government is restraint.

Like I said, it’s overly broad. “Basic framework,” in particular, is open to a wide range of interpretations. But still, I think it’s important for us each to consider our own inclinations. Do I respond more favorably to the idea of a government that makes my life better or to one that I hardly have cause to notice?

I wish more political pundits would start at this basic question. I’m so tired of hearing one guy say that Washington is “broken” because politicians won’t work together to solve the nation’s problems – and then changing the channel to hear another guy praise a Washington “outsider” who wants to get government out of the business of doing any such thing.

Perhaps Washington isn’t broken because politicians aren’t working together. Perhaps it’s broken because citizens (and therefore politicians) don’t have a common concept of what government should be. Let’s acknowledge this. Let’s examine our own personal desires for our government. Let’s encourage others to do so as well. Because whatever is broken in Washington, it’s not going to get fixed when we don’t even take into consideration that we’re working from entirely different pages.

What do you think? What would your ideal government look like?

These Walls

/ Julie / 9 Comments

Hello! I’m Julie Walsh, a stay-at-home mom to two toddler boys. I’m a former lobbyist, an all-day NPR listener, and an avid Catholic-mommy-blog reader. I love, love, love to get into a good conversation. About pretty much anything, but especially about my family, my faith, society, politics, current events… and how they all interact. I have this fantasy of sitting in a cozy coffee shop or a snug little bar and discussing the world’s problems with interesting people.

But I have these two adorable little responsibilities, you know? So the closest I get to my fantasy these days is the occasional play-date with a mommy friend, where we maybe fit in a five-minute visit to A Topic of Great Importance, in between our review of developmental milestones, childhood illnesses, and pregnancy experiences (interspersed with admonitions to share and play nicely and not-to-hit-your-brother). If we’re really lucky, we’re drinking a cup of coffee while we chat, sometimes daring to set it down on this lovely table:

Boys and train table

I’m approaching the three-year mark on my role as homemaker/stay-at-home mom, and in that time I’ve (1) spent entirely too much time on Facebook, (2) spoken lots of my political opinions aloud to the radio, and (3) developed wonderful one-sided friendships with a slew of excellent mommy bloggers who don’t even know who I am. I guess that’s the 21st-Century way of socializing a mother of young children, isn’t it? But still, I keep thinking to myself, I want to join that conversation! I want to say something more than what I can fit into a few lines on Facebook! So after almost three years of wanting to blog and thinking I don’t have time to blog and daydreaming topics for blogs and drafting/trashing blog themes, here I am, finally giving it a shot.

As indicated in the subtitle, I intend to blog about some of the goings-on within my own home. But I expect to focus more on the events and ideas and questions that sometimes seem so very far away from the daily tasks of a stay-at-home-mom. (Or this one, at least.) And aside from the physical walls referenced in the blog’s title, I can’t help but think of the figurative walls we so frequently put up between ourselves and others because of our opinions on any number of issues. I plan to explore these in the blog as well.

Overall, I’m stuck on that mental image of a cozy venue for deep conversation on those Topics of Great Importance (and also topics of regular importance). I hope this space becomes something like that. And I hope those who participate in the conversation will do so with respect and kindness, a sincere interest in growing in understanding… and maybe a tasty beverage in-hand.

Boys asleep wine on table