An Explosion of Activity

In the dead of winter, when there is time to write, the ideas eventually start to peter out. I wonder if I will run out of things to write about. Then spring comes and – BOOM! – there is an explosion of activity, with ideas speeding around my head like a group of electrons threatening to collide, and there is no time to write!

Things have gotten worse in regards to my schedule. I am having very un-Christian thoughts about the people who decided it would be a good idea to have all the grades have their science fair on the same date this year. However, I am wishing I hadn’t gotten myself all stressed out by worrying in advance. Everything is getting done, although I am losing my cool more often than usual.

I keep having wrenches thrown in the works. Like a jury summons. In order to request an excusal, I had to write a letter explaining that I am the primary caregiver to four minors, enclosing copies of birth certificates as proof, and explaining why I could not get someone else to watch them. Just one more thing to add to the long list of things to do this week.

Things are coming together for my son’s First Communion. We got the hardest part of the banner done today. He picked out the symbols he wanted and I cut them out and glued them on. I may add some embellishments later, but the basics are done. Most of the food shopping has been done, and the order placed for heroes and salads. His hair was freshly cut and he looks adorable.

I spent the day cleaning his room. On a daily and weekly basis, this is his own responsibility, but once a year or so it becomes necessary to really get in there and do a thorough revamping. A glance behind a dresser reveals a wealth of socks, legos, and other small items that have fallen back there. All furniture must be moved, dusted, and vacuumed behind. As my husband left for work, I joked about being like the Holy Spirit who restored order to the Earth that was void.

Several hours later, my son arrived home to find all his toys sorted. Cars, legos, Lincoln logs, assorted figurines, blocks, marbles, baseball cards, and miscellaneous small items. He really does enjoy having things organized like this, but things do tend to get out of control when several creative children live in the house! (I also did this for my ten-year-old last month, while she was at a sleepover, but my almost-twelve-year-old has gotten the hang of it, and values her privacy, so I let her room be.)

Here is where you may think I am a little crazy. I spent a good part of the weekend out in the rain watching my girls try out for the summer travel softball team. Why, oh why, would you want to extend the season for several more weeks, you might ask. This is where I agree with my mother-in-law, who likes to cite a study in which people were asked to select a problem they would like to have in lieu of their own; most people chose their own problems.

I am not trying to boast here when I say my kids have athletic ability. All kids have some kind of God-given talent and it is up to us to nurture that. This travel team is professionally run by a group of soft-hearted guys who really teach the girls how to play ball, and display good sportswomanship. The girls they play with are really terrific kids, and I would love for my girls to get to bond with them before high school.

I am having a problem wrapping this up, so I’ll leave you with this helpful list.

Tips for coping in times of stress:
Don’t stress out if it’s not going to be helpful.
Remember to pray throughout the day.
Carry a pocket devotional with you – there are always periods of waiting when you can get two minutes of soul food in.
Carry nuts (if not allergic), granola bars, water, and baby wipes in the car.
Never rush in and out of the car even when in a hurry – this is when driveway accidents happen.
Close the day with prayer and time with God’s Word.

“The Creation” by Matthaeus Merian the Elder, 1625-30

A Comedy of Errors

Final Test, The (Restrike Etching)

I have written about all the pre-planning that goes into the spring sports season, with three children playing softball and baseball in three different divisions, at three different locations, and a husband that works late.

Certain things I can have control over: commitments outside of sports, meal-planning, and my attitude, to a certain degree. I don’t have control over: the weather, the game schedule, and school assignments.

I know some mothers of multiple children who don’t seem to plan ahead for anything. Their lives seem to be in constant chaos as they realize they are supposed to be somewhere and then run around like chickens without their heads, trying to get everyone together. I really don’t know how I could live like that. That kind of disorder would make my brain explode, but I do have a special admiration for those who can pull it all together at the last minute, on a daily basis.

I have a color-coded dry-erase board which I consult religiously, and refer all questions to the board. “Don’t ask me about the schedule,” I scold, “I can’t possibly keep it all in my head. That’s what the board is for.”

All day Monday I felt like something was gripping my heart. I was so nervous about how I was going to really handle this season, now that it really was upon me. We have a triple header every Saturday starting this weekend, I explained to my husband. “I can help out with that,” he said calmly. “Yeah, but what about the weeknight games? So far I only have our daughters’ schedules and already there are 3 conflicts. What if I have 3 in one night? I feel like I’m going to have a heart attack,” I whined.

“Do you ever hear about women your age having heart attacks? You probably just pulled a muscle. You’re over-thinking – and over-feeling,” my husband cautioned.

“No, I’m planning ahead,” I argued, “That is how I manage to get a nutritious meal on the table every night at 4:00 and keep a certain degree of order around here.” Really I was just trying to make him feel bad about his schedule, which he cannot completely control either.

“Maybe we should take them out of sports, so you don’t have to deal with it,” he said, with his poker face.

“You know that’s not an option. They get too much out of it to not do it.”

It’s too bad I hadn’t had my voice of reason around earlier in the day to calm me down, but at least he brought my blood pressure down before I lay myself down to sleep.

Last week went okay, with a few laughable errors on my part. None of them really mattered in the long run, although I did feel that I looked foolish. I was just glad to have everyone home in one piece at the end of each night.

It was cold and drizzly all week, and practices were (thankfully) spaced so that each child was playing on a different night. Monday morning I picked up the telephone when the manager of my eldest daughter’s softball team called. My throat was filled with flem, the way it is every morning during allergy season. “Ribbit?” I answered the phone. “Um, hello?” “Ahem, ribbit, I mean hello?” I felt like I had to explain myself when I met her. “I’m sorry I couldn’t talk the other morning, I had really bad allergies, you must have thought I was dumb or something,” I blurted out. (“Did I just say dumb? Now I feel even dumber,” I thought to myself.) “No, I didn’t think that at all,” she said, kindly. (“Oh yeah, she’s just being nice, now she really thinks it,” I thought, and ran off to the playground with the other kids.)

The next day it was my son’s turn to practice. There were about a dozen teams playing on the field, with first-come-first-take being the policy for obtaining a field. I asked my daughter to help her brother find his team, and brought my other two daughters to the playground. About ten minutes later, she was back. “Did he find the right team?” I asked. “Well, the coach said, ‘Hey big guy’, and he said it was his team,” she answered. A few minutes later I ran into another mother from the team, whom I had met on Saturday morning. I pointed to where the boys were playing, “No, they’re over there,” she said, pointing in another direction. Upon close inspection, I saw that she was right. So I hiked across the fields, found my son, and interrupted practice to explain to the coach that this was not his player. “You’ve been traded early,” the coach joked, good-naturedly. Then I brought him to the right team, late for the second time. (We’d also been late on Saturday morning because he couldn’t find his glove, and he wound up showing up with a t-ball glove, which the coach rightly explained to me was not safe to use in baseball.)

No mishaps in my middle daughter’s softball practice. I had been 0-for-3 last week and wound up batting a thousand this Thursday night, the first night with scheduling conflicts that I had been worrying about on Monday. I dropped one off at 5:55, the other two at 6:00, went to get the first one at 7:15, and was back at the second field at 7:20 for the other two, just as practice was closing out. And all with a sick toddler in tow. Phew! I was so glad to have them all together in one spot again! We all consumed massive quantities of chocolate bunnies and chocolate pudding pie that night, with extra whipped cream.

One Not-So-Fine Easter Monday

Just when I think my day couldn’t get any worse, I get splashed in the face with stagnant pool water.

It was one of those really awful Mondays when all of one’s responsibilities seem to crash down on her at once. We came home to a messy house last night, and my allergies caused me to crash in bed early. So I woke up to an even messier house, as the children had finished up their breakfast with an Easter grass fight in the dining room. Laundry from the weekend was piled up by the garage. The kitchen floor was filthy.

I ran out to the store to buy science fair boards and found they came in two different sizes. I didn’t know which size to buy for my son, so I got one of each. The girls will reuse their boards from last year. We stopped at the library for research report books. This week we will complete three science fair projects, two book reports, and a musical report on Beethoven. So much for Easter vacation.

I open up my email and find the softball schedule for my second daughter. I compare it to the schedule for my first daughter and have the heart attack I had been preparing myself for all winter. And I didn’t even get my son’s baseball schedule yet.

I go to the mailbox – there is an Easter egg waiting for me, which the kids hadn’t found on Easter morning. I put it in my pocket, look up, and suddenly smile. There are yellow-and-violet hybrid cold-resistant pansies on my porch, where I had left them on Saturday, and planting them will make me very happy.

Once the toddler is in for a nap, I plant my pansies in the deck planters. While up on the pool deck, I decide to get one-up on the pool season and remove some leaves from the pool. I locate the pool leaf rake and start scooping. It is really hard work, and I am happy to be burning off the calories from the post-lunch chocolate splurge I had allowed myself.

My son is taking a break from scooping up dog-poo, hitting baseballs towards the woods. One of them lands in the pool, a few feet away from me, and I am covered from head to toe in filthy pool water.

That fit in with my day very well. I head to the head for an emergency shower. I am not a super-clean freak, but don’t like the idea of strange organisms in stagnant pool water sitting in my hair.

Once clean, it is time to heat up some leftovers for a quick dinner before softball practice. The coach announces a practice for Thursday, the same time as the practices already schedule for my other daughter and my son. The scheduling nightmare begins.

It is more difficult to get the kids to bed when there is no school in the morning, and I finally have them in their rooms by 10:00. I open up my email and there is a reminder from my friend that there are 40 days of Easter, 40 days to celebrate, to match the 40 days of Lent. I’ve started it all wrong, but (as Scarlett O’Hara loved to say) tomorrow is another day.

“He that is of a merry heart heath a continual feast.”
Proverbs 15:15

Painting: Christ Appearing to the Virgin, c. 1475, by a follower of Rogier van der Weyden

How I Lost My Balance; and How I Found it Again

Dog balancing parakeets on a stick

Imagine you are a juggler in a circus act. You start out with one ball, then work your way to two, then three. You get so efficient that you are able to juggle twelve at once! Then someone ties one arm behind your back and you are expected to keep doing it. You wind up dropping half and struggle to keep up the other six. Then someone ties your other arm behind your back. In dismay, you look to the ground. How could they possibly expect the impossible? Then you realize you are just a side show that no one is really paying attention to, and you walk away unnoticed, kicking the balls to the side, and ask someone to help you untie your hands. Once your hands are free, you fail to resume the juggling. You go back and pick up your favorite ball and carry it home.

This is what I see when I think of my younger mommy self, circa five years ago. I was homeschooling three children, teaching religion at our church, teaching a Little Flowers group, leading a homeschooling field trip group of one hundred families, running an ebay store, notarizing and bookkeeping for my husband’s business, and bending over backwards to please my friends. I was NOT writing, or even reading. Every pocket of time was filled with activity. People told me I was doing too much, but I didn’t listen. I felt like if I COULD do it, I SHOULD do it.

Most days I was able to manage well, and was proud of all I was able to accomplish. I kept lists to show my husband all I had done around the house each day. I think I still felt like I had to prove I was doing my share, since we had mutually decided I should stay home with the children. This was all in my own head, having been employed for ten years before going cold turkey.

His response was, “What do you want, a medal?” He was not being unappreciative. He was trying to say I didn’t need to do all I was doing to impress him. All I had to DO was BE - Mommy and Wife and Me.

On my birthday, I always sit down and write resolutions, approximately ten, of what I want to accomplish in the next year. I remember when I turned thirty I wrote that I wanted to BE instead of DO. I changed my attitude toward activity in my life, but not my behavior. Soon thereafter I oversaw the installation of a dormer. I decreased the demands on my schedule so I could be home for the workers. When it was done, I painted the entire thing, inside and out.

The day I finished the painting, we conceived our fourth child, and everything changed. That January (she was born in July) I was so fatigued that I felt like I wasn’t fulfilling any of my roles properly. I was a terrible friend – or so I thought - I was too tired to even talk on the phone. I was a terrible teacher to my kids – I had a terrible cough, which was bringing on early contractions, and spent many days dictating from the couch. I wasn’t able to go on field trips because long drives would bring on contractions, and the group wound up folding. I was a terrible housekeeper – needless to say the cleaning was going by the wayside.

But I knew I was being the best mommy I could be to my children. I knew that by staying on the couch I was ensuring that I would not wind up in the hospital for an extended stay or go into early labor. I enrolled my children to help in whatever chores they could around the house.

I was able to put together my daughter’s First Communion, putting every last drop of energy into the preparations, and putting aside some money to hire someone to clean my house. I was able to finish off the year of religious education, giving notice that I would not be returning the next year. I was able to get the kids to all their ball games that spring, with their help carrying all their own stuff as well as my comfy chair across the fields so I could sit through them. I was able to finish off the school year, although it took me until August to complete our lesson plans; and they were enrolled into Catholic school.

The Little Flowers group folded because most of the families had to move away, due to the economic and social climate being hostile to larger families on Long Island. The homeschoolers founded another group to provide their field trip needs. The director of religious education found another teacher to fill my role for the next year. (As my Dad, a former businessman, says, “No one is irreplaceable, although they’d like to think they are.”) My kids were assigned great teachers at their new school. My true friends forgave me for having ignored them for a few months. My house got clean again.

I had my precious newborn baby, whom I had longed for, and I had the time to hold her, and nurse her, and stare at her for hours on end. She was colicky and had to be held and nursed nonstop. I really didn’t know how I would have been able to handle it if I still had all those other commitments. She got through that after the second month, and I felt like I could breathe again. When I cleaned, I could take the time to do the chore correctly, and actually relish it. When I cooked, I could put love and creativity into it.

I also found my new calling, in pro-life ministry. I kept bumping into people who were active in pro-life ministry, and making friends with them, not even knowing that is what they were involved in. It turned out they all knew each other, in different degrees. Little by little I kept doing more, as time allowed, and brought my daughters on board as well. I know I would not have found the time to fit this into my old life.

And I am writing now, more than ever! The time may come, when my youngest is in school, that I am able to take on more commitments. No more senseless juggling for me. Not that I regret a single activity that we partook in during those years – they were all valuable in their own ways. But I love my new life, and the new me, who is happy to actually be bored sometimes, because it is so very peaceful.

If you enjoyed this post, you might enjoy a series my friend Loren Christie is doing called Balance Revisited, in which she explores the ways to find balance in her busy and productive life while raising three young children.

Dinner for Three Nights: Chicken Legs with Paprika

In anticipation of the first three nights of ball practice for three kids in different divisions, last night I made twenty oven stuffer chicken legs. We only ate seven, which means we can have leftovers on both Wed. and Thurs., with freshly made sides of pasta and vegetables.

Sprinkle chicken legs with salt, pepper, and Hungarian Sweet Paprika. Bake at 400 degrees for one hour.

Shown here with Barilla tri-color rotini, tossed with olive oil; and steamed string beans, also tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Menu Planning for After-School Sports

Seventh Inning Stretch

Baseball/softball season starts April 1, and with it comes a very rigid and simplified dinner schedule. I am fortunate to be home during the day, so if I am making a new dinner I start preparing it between 2:00 and 3:00. The kids get home at 3:00 and have to do their homework right away and then get dressed for the ball field. During the rest of the year, I make them go outside right away and do their homework later. But now they will have a few hours of fresh air and exercise to look forward to after dinner.

We eat at 4:00. My husband’s dish gets wrapped up for later. Those who are done with their homework can practice the piano in shifts. Practices and games are always at 6:00, but we have to be there at 5:30, and there usually is no bathroom available – which means we have to have thoroughly digested everything by 5:00!

Today I did my food shopping and planned out the rest of the week’s meals in my head. I got several packages of chicken legs, and will make as many today as I can fit in my oven! That means we can have leftovers on Wed. I also got a family pack of sausages, which are an easy entrée to make for Thurs., leaving enough leftovers for Sat. For Friday I got flounder fillets for the kids and stuffed flounder for me and Kevin.

We generally don’t get home until after 8:00, which during the rest of the year is the children’s official bedtime. They have a quick dessert and make the next day’s lunches while everyone takes turns in the showers – luckily I have two of those. I have everyone in bed by 9:00.

Even though there might be housework, such as a dirty floor and laundry, to do after 9:00, I leave it until the morning. Otherwise I will get all revved up and be unable to sleep. Evening hours are mine for writing, reading, and watching television with my husband.

Other self-imposed rules that keep me sane during this season:
* Big school projects MUST be completed on the weekend – I have no patience for last-minute rushes to meet deadlines.
* Social commitments are kept to a minimum.
* I try to get all errands done in the morning so the baby can get a good nap in.
* Sunday is an absolute day of rest and relaxation. After Church, the only plans we make are with extended family for afternoon dinners.

My Son's Eighth Birthday Party

Around Christmas, I posted about the “gingerbread houses” we made for my daughter’s tenth birthday.

That went so well that I decided to do it again for my son’s eighth birthday.

The party program:

2:00 arrive

2:05 start building Boboli pizzas

2:10 blow bubbles outside with Mr. Miller (it was a pleasant 52 degrees) while Mrs. Miller cooks the pizzas

2:30 pizza time

2:45 build Easter bunny houses (composed of graham crackers, royal icing, and lots of Easter candy)

My 8-year-old son's:



My 10-year-old daughter's:



My 11 1/2-year old daughter's:



3:00 build birthday cupcakes



3:15 eat cupcakes



3:25 open presents

3:30 whiffleball outside with Mr. Miller

4:00 good-bye

We only had two boys as party guests, but add that to my four and there are enough kids to have a good time. I was exhausted at the end of the day, and could not believe the quantity of candy consumed! For our dinner, we reheated the leftover pizza and then had another cake. My son was very happy.

The Ink on the Calendar

Best Buddies

I grant myself two slow months in the year to catch my breath. During January and February, I was able to read two lengthy novels: Anna Karenina and Les Miserables. I was also able to write every day. In the coming months there will be days when I cannot even switch the computer on.

While friends suggest I purchase a laptop to write on the baseball field, I would rather not do that. I want to fully participate in the action of being present there. I see moms spending the whole game on the cell phone and wonder how their children must feel, that she is physically there but mentally absent?

Just when this slower schedule was starting to get boring, and I thought I might run out of things to write about, I wiped February off the dry-erase calendar and started putting up the schedule for March. My dry-erase marker quickly ran dry. I realized with dismay that my mini-break was over. Science fair projects for three kids (all due the same week), baseball games, softball games, practices, birthdays, and my son’s First Communion are all in my near future.

I both look forward to, and dread, the receipt of the game calendars for the spring season. This year the three children will be in different leagues, playing on different fields at the same time. When games fall on the same day, I sometimes feel like I am going to have a heart attack getting everyone where they have to be, hoping my husband can get to the second field on time before the game ends, leaving other parents to believe I’m the “absent parent” as I drop and run. And run and drop.

Just when I will have lots to write about, I won’t have the time! Now all of these are good things – I just wish they could be spread out a little more throughout the year.

And so, while the household chores pile up, I am allowing myself this half hour to write before the children get home from school. The dirt isn’t going anywhere, but ideas don’t sit in your head forever, and kids grow up even faster when you’re busy.

“In all wisdom and insight,
He has made known to us the mystery of his will
in accord with his favor that he set forth in him
As a plan for the fullness of times,
to sum up all things in Christ,
in heaven and on earth.”
Ephesians 1:8b-10

Playdate Overload

Blue Dancers

Winter vacation has been overscheduled, much to my chagrin. When we were homeschooling, we could spread things out much better, staggering quiet at-home days with social outings. Having to rely on the school calendar compresses too much into too small a time frame.

Another big change is the way playdates are handled. It used to be that a mom with four kids could get together with another mom with four kids. There was a whole mix of ages and everyone got along together. I still do this with an old homeschooling friend, but for the school friends it doesn’t work this way.

For the five days of winter vacation, I had to give each child a day on which he or she could schedule a playdate with one friend. That left one day for us to do a library program and one day to get together with the aforesaid homeschooling friend. (I fondly call that our “family playdate”.)

Today’s plans were canceled, leaving us with time to climb trees, read, write, and bake. Noone else is scheduled to come over, and I can relax about the cleanliness and orderliness of the house. We finally got to the doctor to see about a sinus problem one of the children was having.

Yesterday was an exciting day for my oldest one. Most of her school friends live several towns away, and it is a rare occasion when they can come over. So she got to have her two best friends over at once. The girls were so sweet. They went for a walk, had a valentine-themed luncheon, did makeovers, and played games.

But the self-imposed pressure to keep the house looking presentable until they arrived was awful. Together we polished furniture, cleaned bathrooms, cleaned and swept floors, and vacuumed. At noon I had a lovely lunch spread out on the table. They called and said they were going to be late.

That gave me two choices: I could wrap everything up and set it out again later, or I could sit watch over the table to make sure the dog didn’t jump up and eat it all. I chose the latter, busying myself in the kitchen until they arrived.

It turned out the mom dropping off and picking up did not have time to come in, so all my fears of judgment on my house were in vain. The girls had a lovely time and I enjoyed the knowledge that my daughter knows how to pick good friends.

“We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company.”
Psalms 55:14

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.

Spontaneity – Part II

I wasn’t born this spontaneous. No, I come from a long line of planners. The Hungarian-Italian side plans meals six months in advance. As for the French-German-English side – well, even a smile is something that must be thought out carefully before allowing it to show.

Remember type A and type B that was all the rage in the 1980’s? Well, I was type AA, driven and organized. I wound up marrying a type BB and we eventually rubbed off on each other until he became an AB and I became a BA.

This is how a typical interview might go if a reporter came to my house to see what the typical daily routine of a self-employed process server is like:

Q: What time do you wake up?
A: Whatever time I’m awake.

Q: What time do you eat breakfast?
A: After I read the morning paper.

Q: What time do you go to work?
A: Whenever I’m ready.

Q: What time do you eat lunch?
A: When I get hungry.

Q: What time do you eat dinner?
A: Right after I get home.

Q: And what time might that be?
A: Whenever my work is done.

Q: And what time do you go to bed?
A: When I get tired.

You can probably see how this might grate the nerves of a woman who needs to be in complete control of her day. It took me years before I finally figured out the best time to make dinner was whenever my babies and I were hungry – which I eventually decided was 5:00 – and thankfully he has no aversion to reheating his dish whenever he might roll in.

Adjusting to being a stay-at-home mom after 10 years of a rigid schedule of working and studying took some time. That seems like another lifetime now. I remember keeping detailed records of my firstborn’s feedings, naps, and diaper changes. I suppose that was my way of making sense of my day.

It was the second child that brought me full circle and changed my life completely. Having two in diapers was a juggling act that gave my personality a new rhythm. No longer did I have to compete with that younger, career-minded self I could still remember. I was a mom through and through, and that was more than enough.

No longer did I mop my floor every day – or keep the screws sorted in my garage – or file my papers as they came in – or keep checklists of my daily accomplishments. The way I see it, the ability to overlook the crumbs on the floor or the dust on the piano is a learned talent and one necessary to enjoying the divine gift of motherhood.

And by the way, when a window broke today as the result of my children’s love of baseball (which they inherited from their father) we both had to stifle our laughter in order to meter out the necessary punishment of several months of menial chores to work off the bill.

Spontaneity – Part I

“So, are the kids looking forward to going back to school?” I was asked a few times this week.

“No, not at all,” is my honest answer.

True, there was some excitement today as a letter arrived from school today. Classmates called my eldest daughter asking what homeroom teacher she was assigned to. Her dearest friend was in her class again.

My son’s little life has become one of utmost misery as he mopes through two whole pages of summer work per day. I must keep watchful vigil over him lest I find him outside playing baseball with only one section of a page complete. A broken pencil tip, a misunderstood phrase, or not being able to find the right color crayon to follow the directions are all excellent excuses to wander off.

“Why would they be looking forward to school?” responded one of my recent houseguests to me, “Summer is bliss at your house.”

Ahh, bliss is the perfect word to describe the past week. I have had the most blissful week of reading. Truth be told, if you look at the cup as half full, I was stuck home last week because the transmission finally went on my husband’s car, which had about 270,000 miles on it. He was looking for a replacement as work allowed. A few times we had to get somewhere and he managed to get home to give us a ride.

When we went to pick up the “newer” car yesterday, I thought of all the places I could go. I was definitely due for food shopping. The baby fell asleep in the back seat and had to be put in for her nap. So I decided to go home and finish reading the Anne of Green Gables series. We had eggs and blueberry pancakes for supper and the kids were delighted! (I had a terrific time shopping by myself later, after my husband had gotten home; I had almost every aisle to myself!)

This morning we woke up close to the afternoon. I looked at the newspaper and saw that it was going to be one of the last nice days before school started. One final opportunity to get to the beach. I put my eleven-year-old in charge of packing up lunches, towels, and sunscreen while I got my toddler and myself ready to go.

I have to admit that this was not the best time we have had at the beach. It was on the cool side, the water was full of seaweeds, and the kids had forgotten to pack the sunscreen. They had also conveniently forgotten to pack their little brother’s water bottle – but that came back to bite them, as he couldn’t be left parched and they had to share theirs with him. We put the baby in a hat and one of the kids’ t-shirts, which covered almost all of her skin from neck to ground, and stayed for just a little over an hour. But, just like they say about pizza, even a “bad” day at the beach is better than none.

We had a chicken for dinner and went for a walk afterwards. This is the kind of spontaneous life we live during vacations. Soon we will be marching to the rhythm of the school schedule, and that is okay too. But these days are ours, to do – or not do – with them whatever we like. What a wonderful feeling!

Painting by V. Ovchinnikov, "Girl and waves", 1958.

Why Big Families Tend To Be Late!

I never used to understand why large families seemed to always be late. Why didn’t they just aim for an earlier time as a cushion for little set-backs? How could they be so inconsiderate of other people’s time? Why were we just supposed to be patient and “understanding”?

Before I had my fourth child, I tended to be fifteen minutes early for everything. Now, we average two minutes late for Sunday Mass and mandatory school meetings, and a half-hour late for parties and family get-togethers. Why might this be?

Let us take the typical after-school activity. I have done all I could to make the evening flow smoothly. I have dinner on the table at 4:00; I have worked out with my husband when and where he is going to meet up with us so my children can be at different places at once; I have all the uniforms freshly laundered and laid out; the checks and order forms for team pictures have been prepared ahead of time. Yet we cannot seem to make it out the door and down the street on time.

This is a 62-minute play-by-play of my children getting ready to go to their ball games.

5:00 I warn the children we are leaving in 20 minutes. I get the baby ready and make sure everything we need is in the car.

5:20 I announce: Time to go! All three older kids still need to use the bathroom and put on their shoes.

5:22 My son runs out to the shed to get his baseball bag, which is already in the car.

5:24 The phone rings. It is the classmate of my almost-eleven-year-old. I tell her we are on our way out. Is it a homework-related emergency? Yes, she says. My daughter picks up. It turns out she just wanted to know what my daughter had written in her journal entry for tomorrow. I am quite annoyed.

5:26 Everyone is in the car. I back out and drive halfway down the street. In the rearview mirror, I notice my eldest does not have her softball hat. I turn around.

5:27 We dash through the house, looking for the hat. I remember she was not wearing it during the last inning last night, and probably left it on the field.

5:28 We are driving again.

5:32 We arrive at the field for Minors softball pictures. The coach has the hat. My eleven-year-old has been asked to fill in during a Majors game at 6:00. My nine-year-old wants to watch. I have already asked another trusted parent to keep them until my husband can get there.

5:37 I drive my son and toddler away from the field and realize I have left my pocketbook at home. I need my cell phone to keep in touch with my daughters and husband. We drive back home.

5:41 I pull into the driveway, run in, lock up, and run back out.

5:42 We are back on the road. I take back roads to avoid rush hour traffic but we still are late. I had already let the coach know we would be a few minutes late.

6:02 We arrive at my son’s baseball game. They are just getting started and he runs to join them.

Phew! Everybody has been gotten safely to their locations and I am just a little hot and bothered by my children’s inability to be ready on time. The evening goes smoothly from here.

Did you follow all that? THIS is why families with several children tend to always be a few minutes late!

Last Minute’s Notice

The phone rang at 8:20 on Monday morning.

I looked at the caller ID and my heart jumped a beat. When the children’s school is calling, the text might as well read, “EMERGENCY: YOUR CHILD”. I don’t know if this happens to other mothers. Being used to having my children ever in my care during my homeschooling years, I am still not completely at ease with entrusting them to others for an entire school day.

I picked up the phone. It was my daughter. “I have cross-country practice after school today,” she informed me. “The teacher said there was an email.”

“Okay honey,” I said, “I’ll be there after school. Have a nice day.”

I hung up the phone and sighed. I had looked for a notice from the team on Friday afternoon and, there being none, assumed I had another week before the season started.

Sundays during track season are very busy, and I often take a day off from the computer. We wake up early for a big pancake breakfast, go to church, drop Baby and Daddy home, and then head to the track for a four-hour meet. We end the afternoon with a backyard barbecue and the usual bedtime routine.

Nothing drives me crazier than last-minute schedule changes. I try not to schedule too much in one day, and then I work my way backwards from the day’s big event to sort out the rest of the day. Now my day’s plans had to be completely rearranged.

In order to be at the school at dismissal, I would have to put the baby down for a nap an hour earlier. That meant she would have to get some outdoor activity and a good breakfast in order to be tired-out enough to sleep. We also would have to fit in a morning trip to the drug store to pick up shock-absorbing athletic inserts for my long-distance runner’s sneakers.

For me, naptime would be taken up by getting together things needed for the other children: a change of clothes, snacks, and pencils to complete their homework. I also had to fetch the cross-country email from my computer, download the attached athletic permission form, and fax it to the school.

I always used to think that things like this only happened to mothers who failed to plan ahead. Mothers had to be on top of things. Those school notices buried on the bottom of the child’s school bag would never happen to me; or so I thought. No sooner than they walk in the door than I am looking in their folders. I even messed that up once this year.

Two Fridays ago, I neglected to look in my son’s folder when he walked in the door. I was on the telephone, and he had a headache. I hung up to tend to his headache, and completely forgot to check for homework. I would discover it at exactly 8:00 Sunday evening, as he kissed me goodnight and I looked in his backpack for his lunch bag. There were some other unpleasantries awaiting me there, including an apple core and empty juice box.

Most of our days our filled with little mundane details such as these. Whenever a wrench is thrown in the works, I have to offer it up to God. Although it is important to plan ahead, the unforeseeables still have to be dealt with. Every time this happens, I have to remember that He is in control.

“The sum of a man’s days is great
If it reaches a hundred years:
Like a drop of sea water,
Like a grain of sand,
So are these few years
Among the days of eternity.
That is why the Lord is patient with men
And showers upon them his mercy.”

Sirach 18:7-9

Pictured above: Haystacks at Giverny, Claude Monet, 1891
This painting is supposedly an impressionistic view of Time.