Lately {pretty, happy, funny, real} (Vol. 16)

April 16, 2015 / Julie / 10 Comments

Lately, we’ve been busy.

(That’s nothing new! Everyone seems to be busy these days! All the time!)

And it’s fine: I don’t even feel particularly stressed out right now. So this isn’t one of my cranky, complaining posts. This is simply me telling you a little of what I’ve been doing lately. (And yes, maybe it’s also me making some excuses for another couple weeks of not blogging.)

Lately, I’ve been taking my own advice: I’ve hired babysitters so I can “re-set” parts of my house that have been causing me anxiety for some time. I’ve tackled projects that haven’t been touched since we moved into this house 2.5 years ago. I’ve (LET ME SHOUT THIS ONE TO THE HEAVENS) arranged for a mother’s helper to come once a week this summer, to give me regular, focused time in which to write! (God-willing, maybe I’ll actually turn myself into a decent-ish blogger this summer. Stranger things have happened!)

We’ve hosted the baby’s first birthday party. (Our sunshine of a boy is already one! How can that be possible?)

We’ve celebrated Easter with friends and family and (terribly impractical, ostentatiously old-fashioned) matching get-ups.

We’ve celebrated my birthday and spent an out-of-town weekend at my parents’ house. (a.k.a. The best grandparents three little boys could wish for.) We’ve also celebrated my niece’s birthday.

We’ve painted the kitchen and put it back to rights. (My husband did the former, I did the latter.)

The two older boys have started swim lessons. And the oldest has made his second (very tentative!) visit to his soon-to-be-new-school. (Kindergarten is a much scarier prospect than I ever imagined.)

I’m preparing to host a small blogging conference in a couple of weeks. It’s the Catholic Women Blogging Network Mid-Atlantic Conference. (What a mouthful!) Registration has already closed, but if you fit that bill and you want to join us, contact me ASAP. I can probably fit you in. 😉

That’s a lot for two weeks, right?

It’s produced a lot of photos, that’s for sure. And since I feel like it’s been forever-and-a-half since I last participated in {pretty, happy, funny, real}, I thought I’d share the photos with you under those headings. Here we go:

{pretty}

We enjoyed a beautiful Easter.

But this isn’t Easter. This is a week earlier, at our neighbor’s egg hunt. (That’s our garage in the background.)

Grandpa and his boys.

Cousins (aren’t cousins the best?) all lined up for the egg hunt.

Sleepy little chub.

{happy}

I’ve never seen a baby so happy to celebrate his first birthday. Our boy crawled all over the place, crammed his cupcake into his mouth, and smiled, smiled, smiled.

I was so proud of myself for making the (buttercream) frosting the night before… until I realized I’d forgotten to soften it for the party. My mom said they were the ugliest cupcakes she’d ever frosted. I didn’t care, though — I thought it looked like grass. (Fitting for our wild animal theme.)

{funny}

There’s no doubt who the “class clown” of our family is:

{real}

Cleaning, organizing projects, and home improvement — oh my!

{more}

Post-birthday-cake energy burning.

Be sure to hop over to Like Mother, Like Daughter for more {pretty, happy, funny, real}. Enjoy!

The Unremarkable Worth Remembering

March 31, 2015 / Julie / 1 Comment

This afternoon I was one of those mothers at the grocery store. My boys were too loud. They were running all over the place, getting in other people’s way. Nothing I said – “Stop yelling! Don’t do that to your brother! Stay by the cart!” – produced any discernable results in them.

But honestly, I didn’t much care. Those boys – they were a joy to watch in the aisles of Safeway, 5pm-hyper and all.

One was a bandit. (A “fwendwy bandit,” said his brother.) He ran ahead of the cart on his galloping horse. He stopped to tell passersby “I’m a bandit!” and to ask, “Wanna see my bandit moves?”

(You do, by the way, want to see his bandit moves. They’re amazing.)

The other was a ninja. He spent most of the grocery trip holding onto the cart, which, according to him, was actually a bus. He’d step down, though, to display his ninja moves to our fellow shoppers whenever his brother was doing the same. And he’d come down to engage in the occasional (less occasional as the shopping trip wore on) tussle with his brother, the bandit.

They were loud, but they were loud with laughter and shouts of “Yaw, hawsie!” and “I’ll get you, you bandit!” They got in people’s way, but they also smiled and said hello. They spoke to people with openness and excitement. They danced and showed off their moves.

They made a friend in another ninja-minded little boy and told the boy’s mother, “Our baby ate a ladybug.”

It’s true.

When we got home and I’d unloaded the groceries, they called me outside with great excitement. They were having a moon party for me! (!!!) They squealed and jumped up and down and told me how they’d made a volcano that erupts in all different colors (“Watch it erupt, Mommy!”) because this was a moon party! They showed me the dance they’d been working so hard on, because this was a moon party! They clasped hands and bounced around the patio together and invited me to join in. As I left, they gave me pretend chocolate.

They came in a few minutes later, shrieking on and on and on that the moon had fallen from the sky. What a thrilling development! It was the perfect way to end what one boy described as “The best day ever!” though it most certainly was not.

Later, they told Daddy that next time they’d have a moon party for him.

Ours was such an unremarkable afternoon and evening – grocery shopping, playing outside for a few minutes, putting away food and putting it together.

Yet, they included so much I want to hold onto. The bright eyes, the squeals, the gallops, the excited faces – these are the moments worth remembering.

Honored

January 20, 2015 / Julie / 6 Comments

Would you believe that my blog has been nominated for an award?

I know. I can’t believe it either. Crazy stuff.

But it’s true! These Walls has been nominated for the 2015 Sheenazing Awards in the “Smartest Blog” category. (Smartest blog!) Bonnie of A Knotted Life is so generous and supportive to her fellow Catholic bloggers that she’s been hosting her “Sheenazing Awards” for the past few years. In Bonnie’s words:

The Sheenazing Blogger Awards get their name from Venerable Fulton J. Sheen, who was amazing at using the newest forms of media to communicate the beauty of the Catholic Church and his love of Christ to the world. They are a fun way to celebrate the excellence of the Catholic blogosphere and honor Venerable Sheen.

There will be a winner and a runner up in each category. The winners will earn a firm virtual handshake, the pride in knowing that they’ve been named the Best of something by a fairly obscure blog, and the right to display the following on their site:

Except it will say “Winner”

Obscure or not, I’m super honored to be part of it all. Thank you for your work in coordinating the effort, Bonnie, and thank you to the kind souls (whoever you are) who nominated me!

So.

If you’d like to – ahem – cast your vote in my direction, kindly click here. Or don’t vote for me. There are lots of other terrific blogs to check out while you’re there, which are probably more worthy of your vote. Besides Smartest Blog, Sheenazing Awards categories include Funniest Blog, Most Inspiring Blog, Best Under-Appreciated Blog, Coolest Blogger, Miss Congeniality, and Best Blog By A Non-Papist. (I’m not making that up.)

In case any of you need a refresher on what my particular shtick is here at These Walls – or if you’re visiting for the first time (Hello! Welcome!) – I thought I’d give you a little summary.

Things I love – and love to write about – include my husband, my three little boys, the rest of my amazing family, my old house, my faith, politics, and good, meaty debates on controversial subjects. Stoking fires just for the fun of it isn’t my thing, but here are some things that are:

Let’s just say I take a “holistic” approach to politics – I care about the morality of an issue – not whether it’s labeled Left or Right:

I think abortion is wrong.
I think immigration is good.
I think religious freedom is important.
I think our criminal justice system needs to be re-thought.

I write about big moments in my life:

Like my experience on September 11.
And the time I was mugged.

I tend to wax sentimental on motherhood:

Sometimes I can’t believe I’ve gotten to be a mother at all.
I’m amazed by how precious children are.
My kitchen floor makes me sappy.

And sometimes I keep it really real:

I don’t treasure every moment.
I don’t think breastfeeding is always best.
I was unprepared for the emotional strain of motherhood.
I am bothered by the suggestion that boys are easier than girls.
I can give up when things fall apart.
Sometimes laundry gives me epiphanies.

Also, my boys fall asleep – all the time, all over the place. I like to share that joy with you.

Thanks again to whoever nominated me! (And also, while I’m at it, to Jenny Uebbing of Mama Needs Coffee for calling me one of her “Political Muses” the other day. That was so cool!)

I’ve got a whole list of topics I’m itching to get into this year. And even though I still have Christmas decorations to put away and boxes of ten-year-old papers lurking in my corners and closets, I’m feeling energized about digging in.

See you here soon!

Under The Wire: Christmas 2014

January 11, 2015 / Julie / 5 Comments

Happy Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord! (Otherwise known as the last day of the Christmas season, technically speaking.) This morning at mass our pastor asked for a show of hands as to how many people had already taken down their Christmas trees. When half the congregation did just that, he shouted: “Go put them back up!”

Ours is still standing – a withered, crispy version of its former self – not because I’m an ace at following the liturgical calendar, but because I do nothing early and almost nothing on time. Last year I think it was (cough, cough) March before we got all our Christmas decorations down. (I’m hiding behind my hands here. Can you tell?)

Anyway, on Facebook I promised folks a little Christmas tour of our home and I hate to break my promises – I really do. So here are some poorly-executed pictures of my incomplete Christmas decorating, just under the wire.

Well, I did finish the tree. I think it sat for at least a week before I decorated it, but decorate it I did. Lovely. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed looking at the thing every time I go up and down the stairs – droopy, crunchy, and falling apart though it is.

I took so few Christmas tree pics this year that I’m resorting to showing you one with a shower curtain sticking out from below it. (Makes for a practical tree skirt!)

(Cheating here — this is a pic from last year. But I promise it looks pretty much the same!)

Unlike our previous two Christmases, I did actually get out all of our Christmas decorations this year, and I did actually arrange things on all (four) of our first-floor mantles. (Win, right?) What I didn’t do, though, is artfully arrange fresh greens among the décor and lace them with lights. Sigh… wouldn’t that have been beautiful?

(I know, I’m being trivial. But my mother always does a great job of decorating for Christmas and for me, that greens + lights thing is what makes it. Sit me in front of one of those softly-lit Christmas-scapes with a glass of eggnog and I’m one happy camper.)

Anyway, here are our mantles, sans lighted greenery.

As to how we celebrated the season(s) itself, I feel like we took a tiny little baby step forward from last year’s Christmas, but we were still nowhere near where I’d like to be. (To be clear, I don’t aspire to have the overachiever’s dream Christmas; I long for Advent and Christmas seasons in which all of our rooms are comfortably useable, nobody’s running around stressed out, and we get to take the time to sit and enjoy the specialness of the seasons.)

This year our dining room was out of commission for the holidays because it became the dumping ground for everything I couldn’t find time to deal with. (So sad, kind of stressful.) We didn’t do that cool open-a-book-for-every-day-of-Advent thing, we didn’t get to any Christmas baking, we didn’t do any crafts, we didn’t hit the Christmas parade, we didn’t even all head out to look at Christmas lights as a family. (Boo-hoo.) We sent out our cards late.

But we did send out cards.

We did an Advent calendar and we worked on teaching the boys the Hail Mary with a daily (er, we tried to do it daily) recitation while pulling a link off the Advent chain my son made at school. We made it to the Santa breakfast and also to see Santa at the mall. We watched Christmas movies and read Christmas books. On Christmas morning, we ate a “picnic” breakfast in front of the tree and the fire. (That was particularly lovely, but a little confusing to the boys: “Why are we eating on the floor?”)

We did Christmas gifts that were simpler than some, more excessive than others: Santa brought each boy a toy, a puzzle, and a book. The boys each gave one gift to each other and we gave them each a few more. Then of course the grandparents did what grandparents do.

My own favorite gifts are shown here: a beautiful art print from my sweet husband (I love livestock) and a framed series of baby photos of my great-grandmother, grandmother, mother, and me, given to me by my grandmother.

We had a little sickness, a little rushing, a little not-getting-to-everything, but it really was a lovely Christmas here in our family. I hope yours was just as nice!

14 From ‘14

December 30, 2014December 30, 2014 / Julie / 12 Comments

Merry Christmas to you! And a happy New Year too!

As we wrap up 2014, I thought I’d do a little recap o’ the blog to highlight some of my favorite posts from the year. (I’ll admit – it was pretty fun to scroll through them all.) And since I want to do you the favor of making it obvious as to why I chose these particular posts, I thought I’d include each in its own category. So… without further ado (since there’s plenty of it below)… here are 14 From ’14:

1. The most viewed post (and the closest to “viral” that I’ve ever gotten):

When Breast Isn’t Best

Wow. I knew this post in opposition (so to say) to Breastfeeding Awareness Week might attract a bit more attention than usual, but it went and blew “a bit more” out of the water. In the post’s first day, I received nearly ten times as many views as I usually do on post-publishing days and I more than doubled my best day ever. All told, the post has gotten more than a dozen times the views of my average post.

So let’s see… what element of the mommy wars should I tackle next?

(No, no – I’m kidding. Stoking fires just for the fun of it isn’t my thing – there are plenty of others you can go to for that.)

Doubly selfish: using formula and counting on the four-year-old to feed it to his brother.

2. The post that was hardest to write:

It Is The Same Evil

This thing was a bear to get through. (ISIS? Evil? Hmm… I wonder why?) I worked on it for weeks – weeks in which I felt like I was trudging through mud every time I sat down at the computer. It definitely felt like there was some Resistance at play. When I finished writing the post, I could barely look at the thing, I was so unhappy with it. But with a little more distance, I’ve come to think I did a decent job of it.

3. The post with the best discussion in the combox:

Yes, I Worry About Religious Freedom

This post makes me so happy. Not because I think the piece itself was any work of art, but because it generated such a great discussion in the comments section. This (despite all my mommy ramblings about exhaustion and vomit) is why I started the blog – to encourage discourse on touchy, divisive, important matters of politics and society. Polite discourse, open-minded discourse, respectful discourse. I know this one little post was just the tiniest of drops in the bucket, but it’s my drop and I’m glad to have let it fall.

4. The post with the strangest subject matter:

The Best Possible Mugging

I had a mugging story. I had to tell it!

Yet another incongruous photo. It’s not even Washington, it’s Germany. But it was taken around the same time as the events in this post.

5. The post that would make the best sitcom episode:

Epilogue (Please) To The Day Of The Snake And The Water

Snake slithering out of a basket of my sons’ toys? Jumping toilets? Brown water shooting out of a toilet’s tank and at my face? It’s my own brand of slapstick!

6. The post that most pulls on my heartstrings:

Single Lady Gets A Family

During my single twenties, I began to think I might never have a family of my own. I can’t begin to tell you how grateful I am that I was wrong.

7. The funniest (in a desperate sort of way) post:

Think Of Your Closets

“If I had to choose one piece of advice to offer young people at this very moment, it would be: Don’t be a pack-rat. And if you absolutely can’t resist the urge to be a pack-rat, make sure to be an organized one.”

8. The bossiest post:

Why You Should Vote – Even When It Feels Like It Doesn’t Make A Difference

In which I use guilt and just a little bit of elections expertise to strong-arm you into becoming a regular voter.

9. The post with the most (and maybe the best?) pictures:

Taking A Weekend For Us

Brennan and I went away for a weekend before the baby was born – without our boys. It was heavenly. I took lots of pictures.

10. The post that best showcases my boys’ narcoleptic tendencies:

Greetings From The Land Of Nod… Nod… Nodding Off

New here? My boys fall asleep all. the. time. At the table, in the car, on the sofa, in the highchair, on the floor, in the shopping cart… And when I’m pregnant, I’m almost as bad as they are.

11. The post that seems most pertinent to the events of this week:

Courtney’s Love

Courtney Lenaburg, the beloved daughter of Mary from Passionate Perseverance, passed away this past Saturday morning. Courtney’s wake will be held tonight and her funeral tomorrow. Please keep the entire Lenaburg family in prayer during this very difficult time.

12: The post written with most love for my oldest:

What Matters To Him

13: The post written with most love for my middle:

This Child

14: The most consequential post:

Announcing…

I had a baby this year! Few things are of greater consequence than that!

I’m linking this up with Dwija’s 12 Photos in 2012 link-up at House Unseen, Life Unscripted. (12? 14? Photos? Posts? Close enough, right?) Be sure to stop there for more 2014 recaps — and much more beautifully-shot photos than my own.

I hope 2014 was kind to you. The year brought me some great challenges, but even greater blessings. Thanks for coming along for the ride!

I Couldn’t Help But Cry

December 16, 2014 / Julie / 1 Comment

… this morning, when I heard this report:

Six heavily armed gunmen stormed a military school in Peshawar, Pakistan killing more than 130 people, mostly teenagers, and many the children of military officers. Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the deadly attack, possibly in retaliation for Pakistan’s military operations against it. The death toll makes this attack one of the worst in the region in decades and is a grim reminder of the ongoing political turmoil.

All those children, all those families. It’s overwhelming to think on what they must be going through right now.

Loving, of course, makes us vulnerable. And loving our children makes that vulnerability seem infinite. It’s hard to imagine a greater pain – a pain that will go on and on, perhaps overtaking us – than losing a child. To lose someone who is (in the case of a biological child) literally, physically part of you, to lose someone (in the case of any child, no matter how he or she came to be yours) into whom you have poured so much work and love, and in whom you have seen such beauty and promise… the magnitude of such a loss is difficult to comprehend.

Which is why the Taliban chose such a target. It’s why bitter, angry, attention-seeking, sometimes ill people choose, over and over again, to attack schools: They house the treasures we hold most dear – the treasures our minds and hearts go wild at the prospect of losing.

My own heart had a small scare last week as I sat in my eight-month-old’s room, listening to him wheeze, watching his torso heave as he struggled to breathe. But my fear was short-lived. Soon we were in the hospital where he was monitored and cared for; the assistance he needed was within easy reach and I was pacified. I felt badly for the discomfort he felt, but my fear was gone.

Fear rears up, though, from time to time. I love. I’m vulnerable. I fear when my children gag on their food. (They gag all the time.) I fear when I see them ride away in someone else’s car. I fear when I call for them in the back yard and they take too long to respond. Soon enough, I’ll fear when I send them off to school – real school, all-day school. I’ll fear when they’re the ones driving the cars, when they begin to claim their independence from us, when they leave home altogether.

It’s horrible, all that fear. It’s also enticing in a perverse sort of way. If I let myself, I could roll around in it, enfold myself in it. It would be in my nature: I remember convincing myself as a child, time and again, that something horrible would happen to my parents and they’d be taken from me. The fear was quick to take over. It was hard to see through.

Now, with a little more perspective, I’ve come to realize how difficult it can be to enjoy something you’re too afraid of losing. (And I’ve come to see how hard it can be to enjoy life while focusing on all that can be taken from it.)

So I try, these days, not to let the fears rule me. (I’m fortunate that I’m in a good position to do so, of course – my children are healthy and we live in a safe, stable part of the world.) I try to remember that fearing someone’s loss is a symptom of truly loving them. So there’s some beauty in the fear. It’s horrible and beautiful, all at once.

My friend Mary is currently losing her daughter Courtney. My friend Amanda continues, rightly, to mourn the stillbirth of her precious daughter Brianna, even as she has welcomed Brianna’s younger sister and brother into this world. My family remembers our little Leah, whom my aunt and uncle lost far too soon. I can’t begin to count the number of women I know who have suffered the loss of their babies through miscarriage.

Given the events in Peshawar, I can’t help but turn my mind today towards those who have lost their children. Those friends and family of mine, those parents of Peshawar, those of Sandy Hook and Beslan and Columbine, those of Syria, Iraq, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, those whose children have been taken by violence and disease.

All that grief, all that fear – the wild, the heavy, the sharp, the lingering kinds. They swirl in my mind today, they squeeze my heart.

Lord, be with these families. Bless them. Bring them your comfort.

Thanksgiving Eve

November 26, 2014 / Julie / 2 Comments

This morning I sit surrounded by unexpected, soft quiet. From the corner of my eye, I see our first snow of the season. It falls fast and thick. My boys are entranced, and so am I.

How soothing that this lovely blanket has come to fall upon us, covering our unraked leaves and the toys my boys leave scattered behind our house. It smoothes our roughness, disguises our messes. It insulates us. And when we glance at our windows and see only a mottled span of white and gray, somehow the space inside our home seems softer and smoother too.

Of course, we don’t have to drive in it. We’re snug indoors, ready to commence the prepping and the baking for tomorrow. Butternut squash, onions, cranberries, cherries, and chocolate – they all lie in wait.

But I have a few minutes to think and pray on the things and people for whom I am grateful – and I’ll take them. I know how blessed I’ve been.

I have a lively, loving, little family and a big, beautiful home. I have an extended family who support and love and even entertain. I have layer upon layer of good, smart, interesting friends: The few I’ve known since childhood; those I acquired in high school and college, in Washington and Annapolis; those I’ve worked with and prayed with; those alongside whom I’m raising my children. I even have some I’ve never met in person: lovely, kind women I know through blogging and long, thoughtful emails.

We have sufficient heating oil and plentiful food. We have electricity and too many clothes. We have peace in our home and our community.

Layer upon layer of goodness.

And I know, of course, that there are far too many people who do not have these particular blessings. Loneliness, hunger, cold, unrest and violence visit too, too many. So alongside my gratitude, I think of and pray for them. For those who long for families of their own, who struggle to provide for the families they have, who suffer violence, who live in fear.

If you’re among them, know that you’re in my prayers.

And whether you are among them or you’re not, I hope that you too get a few soft, quiet moments in which to sit. I hope that this Thanksgiving, you feel the weight of your own particular blessings. And I hope that your blessings do nothing but increase in the coming seasons of Advent and Christmas.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours, from me and mine.

Little Scientists And Cheerful Mischief: 7 Quick Takes Friday (Vol. 32)

October 10, 2014October 10, 2014 / Julie / 1 Comment

It’s a gray and gloomy day in these parts. (I wish I’d made it to the orchard for apples – talk about perfect baking weather.) And we’re closing out yet another week of gloomy news. See this piece if you’re in the mood for a cry. And don’t miss this one for a valuable lesson:

Every moment of your life has meaning, and your suffering is not in vain. You have a right to be here. Every moment of the life you have been given is a gift, and nobody has the right to take it from you.

Not even you.

So (sniff, sniff) I thought I’d wrap up the week with a bit of cheer, courtesy of my boys whom I love so very much, even when they spend half the day fussing and sobbing.

—1—

After our two failed attempts at celebrating our newly-minted three-year-old’s birthday last week, this past Saturday we went to the Maryland Science Center in Baltimore, where we succeeded! We’re falling into a little pattern of hosting a birthday party for our child one year, then doing a fun day trip as a family on the following birthday. And so on and so forth. This year our four-year-old got a party and our three-year-old got a day trip. Next year we’ll switch.

So anyway, last weekend we did the Science Center and it was perfect. My parents met us there, but very few other people seemed to have had the same idea, so we just about had the place to ourselves. The birthday boy’s favorite game to play these days is “mooseum,” so he was thrilled to get to go to one in real life. He kept talking about how excited he was to see the dinosaurs that came alive at night and the animals that stampede down the stairs.

Hm.

Lack of living exhibits notwithstanding, he and his big brother especially loved the dinosaurs. We had to visit that section of the Science Center twice. They also enjoyed the kids’ room, the weather exhibit (including an actual mini tornado you could stick your hand into!), and the electricity exhibit. (Which Grandpa, a DIY’er and electronics buff, probably enjoyed more than the average visitor.)

We saw an IMAX movie (Island Of Lemurs: Madagascar 3D) which I, personally, would have enjoyed much more if it had been in plain ol’ 2D. I think the boys would agree: they both took off their 3D glasses a few minutes in. The birthday boy then promptly fell asleep on Grandma’s lap. His big brother lasted almost all the way through the movie, until he needed to hit the can.

Birthday Boy was a little more antsy a few hours later when we attended the Planetarium presentation (Black Holes: Journey Into The Unknown). But his big brother enjoyed it and the baby, to everyone’s surprise, loved it. He laughed and squealed and had a grand old time. Who knows, maybe we have a future astronomer on our hands?

—2—

After a good six hours at the Science Center (I know – we were pushing it), we walked to the other side of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor so that Brennan, the boys, and I could grab some dinner. Mom and Dad headed home and left us to our own exhausted devices.

Aren’t they cute?

We really just barely made it through the meal: the baby screamed for the first few minutes (before falling asleep on my chest) and the four-year-old was teetering right on the edge of a meltdown the whole time. But we did it. We all ate and it was delicious.

T-Rex loves pizza.

We kept it together in no small part because of Brennan, who spent half the meal entertaining the boys with crayon drawings on their placemats. The birthday boy kept requesting pictures of dinosaurs eating one another. Perfect.

—3—

As we ate, and then later as we pulled out of the parking garage, we got a couple of quotes from the boys that wrapped up the day beautifully:

Brennan: “What was your favorite part of visiting the Science Center today?”
4yo: “Seeing Gwanpa.”
Brennan: “Seeing Grandpa?”
4yo: “Yeah, and Gwanma too.”

Brennan: “Boys, say bye to the science museum!”
3yo: “Bye science mooseum! I miss you!”
4yo: “Bye science museum! I hope we see you and your dinosaurs again soon!”

—4—

Moving on…

I feel like as our three-year-old becomes more verbal, we’re getting a clearer and clearer picture of his personality. And it is something else.

For one thing, he’s been using the word “baby” as an expletive. Any time he’s the least bit unhappy or feeling aggressive or confrontational, he spits out “Baby!” with a grimace on his little face. And because he’s figured out that it bothers his brother to no end, we keep hearing a little voice throwing out “Baby!” at random times, followed by his brother’s wail, “He said ‘baby’ to me!”

Sigh.

The other day while driving in the car, the little guy was mad at his older brother for having done something to him. What? I have no idea. But he made it very clear just how mad he was:

“Dat wee [that tree] is mad at you and dat wee is mad at you and dat wee is mad at you… And dat sign is mad at you and dat caw is mad at you and diss caw is mad at you and AW DA DINGS is mad at you!”

Yesterday while driving again, we were playing “I Spy.” Every time the boys found what I was spying, he claimed to eat it.

Me: “I spy a red sign…”
Him: (GULP) “I ate it!”
Me: “I spy a big, white truck…”
Him: (GULP) “I ate it!”

—5—

When we were waiting at the pediatrician’s office last week (because of my oldest son’s ear infection), I entertained the boys by reading one of the books provided in the office.

It was old and a little dirty and raggedy, but I quickly fell in love with it. The thing was hilarious. It (Our Animal Friends At Maple Hill Farm, by Alice and Martin Provensen) listed all the animals on a farm, with the funniest, most unexpected descriptions for a children’s book:

HORSEPLAY

IBN RAFFERTY is chasing Ichabod.

CHAOS is chasing Ichabod.

They don’t mean anything by it. It’s just that everybody chases ICHABOD.

Everybody except COMANCHE, who likes Ichabod, and LUCKY, who is fat, lazy, and good-natured and thinks only about eating.

Ibn is sly. Chaos is grumpy. Lucky eats too much. Comanche runs away and Ichabod chews up fences. Oh, well, no horse is perfect, but they are fun to know.

THE SHEEP are silly. They are so silly the geese can hardly be blamed for wanting to pinch them. Still, there’s something sweet about sheep even if they aren’t clever.

GOOD NEIGHBORS are valuable and well-loved. These dogs are good neighbors. They do valuable things…

Other dogs are foolish dogs who do useless, foolish things. These dogs aren’t around any more.

This dog chased cars and was run over. His name was CANNY.

This dog bit people. Now she lives in a kennel. Her name is BISCUIT.

This dog killed sheep and had to be put away (as the saying goes). His name was ARGOS.

This dog snapped at children and wet on beds. He is not around any more either. His name was SWEENEY.

This dog ran away from home and went to live with someone else. No one can remember his name.

HA! Having become a parent in 2010, I’ve become used to sickly-sweet, uber-PC children’s books. You might think ill of me for saying so, but what a breath of fresh air this one was!

I was nearly giddy about it, which made the pediatrician look at me a little warily. I thought of making the office an offer for the book on the spot, but I didn’t want to push my luck. So I emailed myself the book’s title and looked it up on Amazon when I got home.

Triumph! It’s still in print, and only something like $8 to boot. (Wait – right now it’s only $6.08! Get one for yourself!)

—6—

Guess who is already SIX MONTHS OLD? Isn’t that crazy? I think time flies faster with every child we have. It seems like he should still be a newborn.

—7—

I’ve got to close with the best grocery store pics I’ve snagged yet:

Wait. You need a close-up.

Isn’t that beautiful? And ridiculous? My boys do have an uncanny knack for falling asleep anywhere (and they have fallen asleep in the car cart before) but this… this was brilliant! Not only did it make for a peaceful shopping experience, but it elicited chuckles from shoppers throughout the store.

You never know how you can brighten someone’s day, do you?

Happy weekend, everyone! Be sure to stop over to Jen’s to check out all the other Quick Takers!

When Things Fall Apart

September 26, 2014September 26, 2014 / Julie / 4 Comments

(Sometimes it pays to just give up.)

Today was the only day this week when we didn’t have to be up and at ‘em, out and about, busy. And it was a lovely day to be inside: dark, cool, and drizzly. So I milked it.

Once the flurry of breakfast happenings had been gotten through, I cracked some windows in the kitchen, turned on the radio, and sat down at the table with my cup of coffee. I sorted through the near-avalanche of magazines and papers on my side table. I re-organized my stash of paper plates and plastic utensils, which had been strewn throughout my kitchen and dining room for most of the summer. I cleaned the disgusting top of my refrigerator. I took out the trash and the recycling. I put random things in their places.

The baby alternated between napping, sitting happily in his high chair with a few toys, and taking his bottles. His big brothers played (mostly) quietly and happily, and watched just a couple of their favorite shows. There weren’t many fights. There wasn’t much fuss. It was such a good sort of day: peaceful, quiet, and productive.

Until it wasn’t.

He said that they were going to a tool meeting, where they would be fixing stuff.

A little after 4pm, I pulled the carrots and celery out of the ‘fridge and put the chicken on the stove. I started the washing and the chopping that should have gotten me well on my way to some homemade chicken pot pies.

But then one boy peed all over the bathroom and I had to clean it up. I had to direct him upstairs to wash his hands while I cleaned the bathroom. I had to tell him that if he was too tired to walk upstairs, then he’d better just go to bed. I had to deal with the other boy, who was unhappy about not needing to wash his hands too.

I had to direct the first boy back upstairs to find clean shorts. “No, not those. Those are your brother’s. Yours are on the left. The left. This one is the left.” (He’s learning.)

The baby was fussing, so I had to make him a bottle and sit down to feed it to him.

I had to intervene upstairs when one boy hit the other with a (toy) hammer. I had to intervene again, when somebody did who-knows-what to somebody else. I had to send the first somebody to bed and then call him back out again to appease his brother/victim, who wanted his playmate back.

I had to check on the chicken, but I didn’t anticipate all the steam that would come from the pot once I removed its lid, so I burnt my arm. I ran cool water over it for a while, then I wrapped a towel around an ice pack and used it whenever I could. It sat there on the counter, next to the cutting board with fewer cut vegetables on it than there should have been.

I had to take at least three phone calls.

I had to change a couple of diapers.

I had to deal with the boys again: they were chasing and screeching underfoot, their faces right next to the baby’s. No longer able to deal with interruptions with anything like grace, I yelled at them for bringing their crazy into the kitchen when “I NEED TO MAKE DINNER!”

Finally – 1.5 hours, one pot of chicken, six carrots, four stalks of celery, one onion, and one burnt arm into dinner prep – I gave up.

“That’s it! I give up!” I actually said out-loud. I probably even threw my hands up in the air.

I put plastic wrap over the vegetables and chicken, stuffed them into the ‘fridge, and pulled out some leftovers. I made plates for the boys and sat them in front of “The Cat In The Hat (Knows A Lot About That)” to eat their dinners in the mesmerizing glow of the television. I heated up my own and sat down to eat in front of my laptop, my arm resting on its ice pack.

And you know what? It was absolutely the best thing I could have done.

There was a time when I would have pushed through, no matter what. I would have kept on yelling and rushing and complaining and working so hard to get it all done that I made everyone miserable. I would have put dinner on the table at 8:30 at night and felt a mixture of exasperation and guilt about little boys who fell asleep in their plates. I would have lost my appetite from the stress of it all and cried at the dishes left in the sink.

But tonight, I decided to cut my losses. Tonight’s thwarted dinner became tomorrow’s dinner prep. We each enjoyed our own separate, relaxing dinners rather than suffering through a family meal that would have been late and stressful.

“Giving up” is usually far from the ideal thing to do, but when you’re a perfectionist learning how to deal with the imperfections of family life, sometimes it can be just right.

All My Life, Preparing For This

July 22, 2014October 7, 2014 / Julie / 13 Comments

(Alternately titled: Ms. Smarty-Pants Becomes A Mother And Finally Realizes She Doesn’t Know Everything)

~~~

A little over four years ago I lay on a hospital delivery bed, reeling not only from the intensity of having birthed my first child, but also from the other-worldly experience of having prayed a continuous loop of Hail Mary’s, pleading for the child’s life.

He had been born with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck.

As soon as the baby emerged, the feeling of the room had changed. It became cool, focused, urgent. First my nurses tended to him, then the NICU staff rushed in. I felt as if I were in a tunnel, the sounds and activity muted, only the Hail Mary’s ringing loudly in my mind.

Soon enough, though, the activity abated and there at the end of the tunnel was a screaming baby boy. He was fine – completely, totally fine. Thank you, Lord.

I looked up to my left and saw him lying in a sterile plastic basinet in the corner of the room, screaming, panicking. He seemed so scared, so alone. I couldn’t reach him because I was being tugged and pressed and stitched up by my doctor. But my heart went out to him and I did what I could: “It’s okay, Baby. It’s okay, Baby.” I cooed to him, over and over, five feet from his side.

He stopped crying. He became still and he listened and my mother said, “He knows your voice.”

An incredible feeling washed over me: gratitude and joy, fear and wonder, all mixed together. An incredible realization, too: This is my baby. He knows my voice. I am his mother and I can calm him like no one else can.

I had spent years holding and loving and caring for other women’s babies. Now I finally had one of my own.

~~~

I come from a big extended family (including twenty-five first cousins younger than myself) and my parents had always surrounded our little, immediate-family unit with a large network of good friends, most of whom had children. So I knew my way around a baby. And a toddler. And a little kid.

I had been baby-crazy since I was a little girl, preferring to spend most barbecues and holiday parties “mothering” the little ones, rather than hanging out with kids my own age. I babysat – boy, did I babysit – more than any other teenager I knew. When I was a single young professional, I’d swing by my aunt’s house to take her kids on outings. One time I even cared for them for several days running while their parents were out of town. I told everyone I was “playing working mom.”

So I went into parenthood feeling pretty well prepared in the childcare department. I was an old-hand at diapering and bottle-feeding and bathing. I had kissed boo-boo’s and paced with screaming babies. I had a pretty good sense of which kinds of discipline worked and which didn’t.

I had also heard enough of my aunts’ and my mom’s friends’ chatter to know that parenting was hard. I had no illusions of serene domesticity.

Which all made me a pretty smug, smarty-pants kind of first-time mother. I felt like I had spent most of my 31 years watching, practicing, preparing for this opportunity. Why should I read parenting books? Why should I seek advice? I already had enough knowledge to get it right. On my own. (Or rather, with only my husband.) Pity the mother who tried to give me tips.

It probably sounds like I’m setting you up for a tale of complete and utter failure, doesn’t it? But that’s not quite what happened. In fact, if you’d asked me, a year or two into motherhood, whether it was what I expected, I would have told you (as I did, in fact, tell many people) that the only thing that surprised me about motherhood was how physical it was. (i.e. Having to wrestle toddlers into submission so that I could change their diapers.) Just call me Ms. Smarty-Pants.

But now, four years and three children into motherhood, I have more perspective. I now realize that those first couple of years were really hard on me. I realize that while I may have been prepared for the nuts and bolts of the work that goes into caring for children, I was woefully unprepared for dealing with the emotional strain of motherhood.

Just because I knew what I was doing, doesn’t mean I knew how to deal with the intensity of doing it all the time, without a break, for little people who relied almost entirely on me. It doesn’t mean I knew how to get through the baby blues or withstand the sound of my baby crying for hours on end or handle the heart-wrenching truth that I couldn’t produce enough milk to feed my own child.

Motherhood was so much harder than the “making dinner while trying to calm a screeching baby” kind of hard I expected. It was “feeling useless because my mother was making us pancakes” hard. And “crying on the kitchen floor because my toddler won’t leave me alone” hard. And “sobbing in the front passenger seat because my husband wasn’t being the right kind of supportive” hard.

It is less hard today.

It’s not less hard because it’s less work. (With three boys now, parenting necessarily involves much more work today than it did at first.) Motherhood is less hard simply because I’m more used to it. The idea of being constantly on-call has by now been absorbed so completely that I wouldn’t know what to do if I weren’t responsible for my boys. And now when I find myself emotional and despairing of whatever it is that seems so hard at the moment, I know enough to recognize that whatever it is is simply the next in a long line of real but passing hardships.

I know that I have more hardships ahead of me and I know that some of them will make their season of motherhood feel more difficult than the one I’m in now. But at least then I’ll have the benefit of even more perspective – that which I will have gained from my own experience and that which I will have gained from parents whom I’m not too much of a smarty-pants to listen to.

When I was Little Ms. Smug, Smarty-Pants, First-Time Mother, I offered lots of advice to newer moms than myself. I may have personally eschewed parenting books and advice from other mothers, but I wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to tell somebody else what she should be doing. These days, I try to bite my tongue. I don’t always succeed, but I try to remind myself of how much I wanted to find my own way when I was in those shoes.

These days, I try to offer words of comfort rather than advice. Because I think the best thing you can say to a first-time mother is, “It gets easier. It gets better.”

~~~

This post is part of a “blog hop” hosted by Amy of Go Forth And Mother. Amy has just kicked off a year-long life betterment project called “The Happy Wife Project.” To get things going, she’s asked ten bloggers to post about their expectations of motherhood… and how reality stacked up. In the coming days, please be sure to “hop” on over to the other participants too:

July 21 – Amy @ Go Forth and Mother
July 22 – Julie @ These Walls
July 23 – Kelly @ This Ain’t the Lyceum
July 24 – Sarah @ Fumbling Toward Grace
July 25 – Nichole @ Yackity Shmackity
July 26 – Colleen @ Martin Family Moments
July 27 – Lindsay @ Lindsay Sews
July 28 – Olivia @ To the Heights
July 29 – Ana @ Time Flies When You’re Having Babies
July 30 – Jamie Jo @ Make Me a Saint
July 31 – Michele @ My Domestic Monastery