Before the Storm

The first week of school is always like a whirlwind, especially with the typical introductory half-days of Catholic school. The children come and go so quickly that I do not even attempt to get anything done that will require too much time or attention. My husband, toddler, and I take the mornings slowly, eating a leisurely breakfast while reading the newspaper. I do some light housework in the main living area, before bidding my husband goodbye and taking my little one out in her red wagon to wait for the bus to return.

School supplies having been purchased long ago, each child has a very specific list of exactly which supplies and books are to be brought in on which day. This used to drive me absolutely crazy. Fortunately, they are now responsible enough to take their own lists in hand and pack their own bags. Our summer work was not due until the second day of school, and so the first afternoon was spent putting the final touches on book reports and math assignments.

The second day we were free to go to the beach; our timing could not have been better. (On Friday the beaches were all closed in anticipation of a middle-rate hurricane expected to hit on Saturday.) The high tides over the weekend from Hurricane Gustav had wiped out a third of the beach, which dropped off steeply into the ocean. By Thursday the beach was clean and clear and the tide had dropped. The haze was so incredible; it settled down on the water so that swimmers seemed to disappear into another world.

We took our red wagon and settled ourselves among three deep holes that others before us had dug. The youngest one was afraid of the waves, and rightly so. She was happy to slide into the holes and find her way back up, over and over again.

Our fellow patrons were mostly middle-aged and older, with the exception of a few mothers with pre-schoolers in tow. A small group of college-aged youngsters showed up and shook things up for about fifteen minutes, taking movies of everyone with their cell phones and annoying us with their cigarette smoke. But they were easily bored and we were soon left in peace once again.

I had planned on leftovers for dinner and had a little free time on my hands after everyone had showered. I decided to try my hand at home-baked bread. I used the recipe for "quick bread" in The New Joy of Cooking. I mixed together the dry ingredients and let my eleven-year-old finished up. She was so excited to see the dough rise. Now I know why unleavened bread was used at Passover. Even quick-rising bread takes all night! They were all in bed by the time the loaf was completed.

My toddler loves bread, and this loaf looked enough like cake that she thought she was getting a real treat for breakfast. My husband thought it was good but a little “doughy”; and opted for store-made rye bread for his lunch. But when the kids got home from school, they finished off that loaf and my two older girls decided to make two more for the weekend.

I do not usually watch prime-time television, but my computer time has been taken up by the Republican Convention this week. I am so excited about Palin, a pioneering woman we can all aspire to emulate. Seeing the families of Palin and McCain together - What a tribute to a Culture of Life! I also loved when McCain said, "I hate war". People thought he was a war-monger but his position is so much more understandable after his life story has been expounded upon this past week.

While I work on my post, the girls come into the study every few minutes asking me questions to clarify the cookbook’s directions. I am trying to catch up on all my computer work for the week. After I clear out my e-mail box I then will set about removing all loose objects from the yard.

Hurricanes on Long Island are always fodder for excitement and speculation. The weather experts have long predicted another “hundred year storm” to hit us directly. Most of the time we get away with a few downed trees and power lines. We love to watch the weather channel. The kids hope for an electric outage so we can put our candles and batteries to good use. It seems like we’ve been cheated if we just get a little downpour; yet we are thankful when we are spared a catastrophe yet again.

Photograph taken September 4, 2008 by Elizabeth Kathryn Miller.

Fighting a Caspian-like Battle on the Home Front

I took the children to see Prince Caspian this weekend. I thought the movie was incredibly well-done. One of the great things about movies based on classic literature is that you basically know what you will be getting. In fact, very rarely will I take the children to see any movie that is not based upon a book that I have read. Even if the movie is rated G, there may be materials I find objectionable because they run counter to our beliefs. Or, it might be so inane that I find it a waste of our time and mental energy.

Caspian was rated PG for violence, but it was not senseless violence. As scary as the battle scenes may be, you know the good side is going to beat the evil side. And good and evil are clearly defined. Children also need to know that there are battles worth fighting.

Just like many of our American men felt a strong urge to go fight for our country after the attacks on 9/11/01, I came out of the movie with a desire to fight for something worthwhile. After making dinner and cleaning up, I did a cross-stitch while the children watched a BBC version of Prince Caspian that we had on VHS.

How can I fight for something worthwhile? I thought, thinking that I was doing next-to-nothing. To paraphrase A.A. Milne in his Winnie-the-Pooh stories, Christopher Robin says that “nothing” is what you tell your parents you’re doing when you go outside to play. We all know the importance of childhood playtime. So, “Nothing” can actually be “something” worthwhile.

I pondered that for a while and realized that the “nothing” I was presently doing was really quite something. I was enjoying my children while they filled their minds with great stories. I was relaxing, taking delight in the wonderful family life God has granted us. I was making a handmade gift for someone, something the family in that household can take joy from for many years to come, rather than writing out a check or buying something off a registry.

We mothers are indeed fighting a holy war in our homes. We are fighting a culture that says things are more important than people, morals are relative, and God is a creation of our minds.

King Miraz feared the truth and brainwashed his people until they came to believe that the Narnians were extinct. The secular establishment fears the righteous, and brainwashes us through the media, textbooks, and schools to believe that really good people are extinct. Good politicians are considered oxymorons, brides are generally assumed to be unworthy of wearing white, men are believed to be incapable of remaining faithful in both mind and body, and religion is held to be something for the weak-minded.

In the book, Prince Caspian’s nurse (who was not mentioned in the movie) was sent away for disobeying the king. She and the tutor who takes her place, Doctor Cornelius, raise a righteous leader by defying the King and secretly telling the child all the stories of Narnia. Like them, we can do our part in bringing up righteous citizens by instilling God’s Word in our children’s hearts and rearing them in homes that live uprightly.

“Rather, the law of the Lord is their joy; God’s law they study day and night.”
Psalm 1:3

Half-Pint Valentine

I was up and out early this morning to catch up on my errands. It had been so cold and wet earlier this week that I had put off all my shopping until the sun was more promising.

As I opened up my jewelry box, my toddler said, “shee-shee”, and I knew was her attempt at saying, “Jesus”. My everyday-wear necklace is a crucifix on a strong gold chain, one that can withstand a little one’s loving tugs. Whenever she pulls on my cross, I say, “That’s Jesus”.

Her saying Jesus was a beautiful way to start the day!

We went to an electronics store for an item my husband and I had discussed earlier.

“Scary things,” he said, as the salesman almost tripped over the stroller.

“They call them kids, right?” he joked.

I told the young man that my purchase was to be a Valentine’s Day gift from me and my husband to each other.

Totally serious now, he confided that he and his wife had been married two years, and eventually they would get around to having a baby.

He was having some trouble finding the item. In the meantime, the baby was surprisingly patient. He kept making eyes at her. “She’s really cute,” he must have said a few times.

Did this twenty-minute transaction inspire this young man to discuss entering the world of parenthood with his wife on this St. Valentine’s Day?

I hope so.

This is the kind of everyday interaction that can touch individuals one-by-one and help to recultivate a Culture of Life in America.

Happy St. Valentine’s Day!

I got this nice e-mail in my inbox. It goes with the picture above...

'For God so loVed the world,
That He gAve
His onLy
BegottEn
SoN
That whosoever
Believeth In Him
Should Not perish,
But have Everlasting life.'
John 3:16

"Are Those All Yours?": A Social Commentary

When I was a child I distinctly remember my mother criticizing a driver for displaying a “Jesus” sticker on the car bumper. Sooner or later, she explained, that driver was bound to make a mistake on the road that would bear negative testimony on Christians.

Large families must recognize that they bear witness to the Culture of Life. Our very existence makes people stop and notice. Our public behavior will be the basis of others’ judgments about bearing children. Therefore I believe that we hold a huge responsibility in how we conduct ourselves.

(I include myself in the “large family” category not because I think of 4 as a large number of children – I know of several families with 5, 6, and 7 children – but because many other people here on Long Island seem to perceive us as such.)

Although I address myself here primarily to the larger family, my observations apply to those with one child or more. Misbehaving children cause strangers to point their proverbial finger and mutter to themselves or their neighbor, “That’s why I don’t want any kids,” or, “That’s why I’m not having any more.”

I recall a tired-looking father who was in front of me on the line at my local Wal-Mart with three lively, robust sons. I forget what the problem was – maybe his credit card wouldn’t go through – but he commented, “I’m such a loser.” Usually a silent onlooker, I felt the need to speak up. “Please don’t say that,” I said gently, “You have a beautiful family.” Hopefully my words encouraged him on some level.

We all have our moments of children’s misbehavior in the store or doctor’s office – some more than others. I am the last one to give you dirty looks if your child is acting up in church – my baby could be the next to cry. If you were in the optometrist’s office with me this week you might have shaken your head at my children playing with the glasses instead of sitting quietly in the separate waiting area. (Remember that even Jesus’ parents once lost him back in the Temple?) But for the most part, people come up to me and, after asking, “Are those all yours?” with wide eyes, comment very positively.

Typically it is the very senior citizen, who then reminisces about his or her five children, seventeen grandchildren, and ten great-grandchildren. “No one has large families any more,” they say. In church this Sunday a woman came up to me and said, “I just have to tell you that I’ve been seeing your family at Mass for years. You have such a beautiful family – and they are so well-behaved! I had three children and always wished I had a fourth.”

I hope our family helps to make a more positive attitude toward large families in our town. Our pediatrician loves us – “Everybody else just has two kids”, he recently said with an approving smile. When I first found a local optometrist and pediatric dentist, they would not book appointments for “so many” at once – they wanted the children to come on separate days. But, now that they have gotten to know us, we are favorites and they do not mind seeing us all at once.

I did have one negative comment made by a cashier at our local grocery store. When I was starting to “show” with my fourth, she looked at my belly and said, “That must have been a shocker.” I said, “Excuse me?” not because I hadn’t heard her – I couldn’t believe my ears. She repeated herself. “We wanted to have another,” I said (as if it was anybody’s business). “Most people would have stopped at three,” she commented with a shrug. “We enjoy our children,” I replied. There was a stony silence as I bagged my groceries and she continued her scanning.

“Most people view children as a burden,” my husband explained to me later.

How does your family come across in public? Is everyone well-rested, well-fed, and expected to behave? Or do you go out with children who are tired, hungry, and apt to misbehave? Do you appear to delight in your children – or to view them as a burden?

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.”
Matthew 5:14

Pictured above:

Photograph of the Von Trapp Family

Recommended reading:

"The Story of the Trapp Family Singers" by Maria Augusta Trapp,

1949, Harper Paperbacks, 320 pages, softcover, Catholic