“Doing-it-all”: the Bare Minimum Approach

House Sparrows (Restrike Etching)

Today I am baking for my Christmas baby: a cake to celebrate at home, and cupcakes to bring to batting practice and school. With my four-year-old helping, I started pouring the first batch into the pans before realizing I had forgotten to put the eggs in. I went through a dozen eggs trying to make three batches of my egg white cake without getting any yolk in.

I didn’t make my Christmas houses this year – or my gingerbread – or my banana bread. And it’s okay. We finished our Nutcracker story ornaments and have been working on our Jesse tree symbols. Even that is touch-and-go. With sports after school, sometimes I can’t get the whole family together to do that, so on other days we will catch up by doing one scripture and symbol per child.

They also wrote their letters to St. Nicholas, which they put in their stockings on the eve of the Feast of St. Nicholas on December 6. Finally, we have our advent bead boxes. There are different colors to represent different types of good deeds; the children tell us what they did and they get beads to put in their boxes, which they offer to Jesus by placing them under the tree on Christmas Eve.

The older the kids and I get, the more I realize that you can leave a lot of stuff out – it is in the way that you do things that really matters. I can’t bake for every class party, but if I do I do it out of love. I can’t be at every one of their sporting events – now that they are all at different places doing different things – but they know I do my best to see each of them do their thing, and when I am there I am completely “present”, eating up every pitch, play, or move they make.

It’s also tricky toeing the line on how visible they want me to be, although they all want me there. My four-year-old wants me at the door of her ballet class watching every step, often photographing and videotaping. My nine-year-old is okay if I’m not there, but he prefers knowing that either his dad or I saw it if he had a good hit or pitched a great game. My twelve-year-old won’t admit that she cares if we are there or not, but she does. My fourteen-year-old can now go to sporting events on the school bus, but she begs me to go see her if I can. She smiles when she sees me show up, but then shoos me away, signaling for me to keep my distance.

“Doing it all” suddenly becomes a lot more doable when you aren’t really doing it all – just doing the really essential things right (or as close to right as you can make it).

Luke 12: 25-26
Can any of you by worrying add a moment to your lifespan?
If even the smallest things are beyond your control, why are you anxious about the rest?

Review of Sarah Palin’s “Going Rogue: An American Life”

As one would expect, Sarah Palin’s book “Going Rogue: An American Life” is political in nature – and yet, regardless of your politics, I think any woman with American Judeo-Christian morals would enjoy this book immensely, especially if she is a mom. Men will also enjoy her messages of ethics over politics; dealing with the political machine; and balancing family with work.

Sarah Palin wrote this book to clear the air on a number of issues. She writes about how the media turned around her actions and words to portray her badly; the GOP campaign advisors did nearly as much damage; and the people of Alaska and her own family wound up suffering as a result. This book clears her family name where it was smeared; outlines the non-basis of ethical charges leveled at her and her office; and explains why she felt it was in the public’s best interest for her to step down from her position as Governor of Alaska.

The book tells quite a great deal about Sarah Palin’s life and character. She is driven to serve the public. She is amazingly balanced. She is a mom first at heart and loves America.

Sarah’s description of her family life is awe-inspiring. As a mom who is busy with her own volunteer work as well as children in travel sports, reading about all she does makes me think, “If Sarah can do all this and also serve in public office, surely I can do this!” She has a great relationship with her husband; although his work keeps him away from home for weeks at a time, they are able to coordinate their complicated schedules so that the children are always taken care of. She is very involved with all aspects of her kids’ lives, acting as a high school girls’ basketball coach and traveling the wide reaches of Alaska to get her children to their various sporting events.

As a public servant, her ethics are unaffected by party affiliation. She personally keeps down her living and travel expenses that are paid by the public. She is not afraid to stand up to the establishment to get her job done properly. Her honesty in answering questions during the McCain campaign is what inspired the title of the book: her “handlers” were complaining that in going off-script she was “going rogue”.

Early in the book, Sarah bares to all her feelings as she discovered she was pregnant with her fifth child; then again, as she received the news that he would be born with Down syndrome. Not wanting the news to affect her job in any way, she kept the pregnancy quiet until her seventh month; she never got the chance to prepare her family properly for the special challenges they would face. Later in the book, she will talk about her “grizzly bear mama” feelings as her children, including the youngest and most innocent, are unfairly attacked by the media.

As a person, Sarah is very “real”. She does not care about high fashion; she hunts; she runs; she personally handles fish guts. Sarah pays due respect to mothers everywhere, whether they are full-time stay-at-home moms, working moms, work-at-home moms, or professional volunteer moms. Whatever your call in life, she believes you should listen to your conscience and follow it.

Some notes on where Sarah stands on some issues, which will affect how some read her book. Sarah was baptized Catholic but is a practicing Evangelical Christian. She is pro-life in all circumstances. She believes in contraception, which has put her at odds with some pro-life groups. She believes in free competition, small government, and stream-lined budgets. She admires the Republican Party of the Reagan years but does not align herself completely with either political party.

I have heard people say that they thought this book was “ghost-written”, but I could hear Sarah’s voice telling her story throughout. In the Acknowledgements section she thanks Lynn Vincent and a number of assistants for helping to get her words on paper. While she evidently did not personally write every word, it is apparent that the meanings of the words are hers and that she was involved in the book process from beginning to end.

Sarah loves Facebook, which puts information in the hands of the people. You can find her fan page here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

Find her website "Sarah Palin for America" here.

High Demand

As the kids continue to grow older and more independent, I have had more time to spend on other projects. While I avoided volunteer work during the newborn stage, I started last year to start saying “yes” to more things, and to sometimes even throw my hat in the ring just because I knew my kind of talent was needed. I always make sure I am putting my time into an interest that will also benefit my children – teaching their religion class, coaching their sport, or putting my organizational skills to work in their sports organization.

For the first time, I allowed my children to take part in winter sports this year, and I am still wondering if that was a good idea. I always liked to take a little time off from all that running around; to enjoy Advent, and my daughter’s birthday, which falls around Christmas. I usually read a nice long book in January, and then do some serious writing. This year I have not had the leisure to either read or write at any great length.

Although we have quite a busy schedule, when we are all together in the house sometimes it feels like I am no longer needed by them in a direct manner. Then suddenly one of them comes to me for help and I am very pleased. The only problem is that this always seems to happen to all the kids at the very same time.

Today my eldest daughter, who practically taught herself while we were homeschooling and catches on to math skills quite easily, came to me for help with her algebraic inequalities. It took about an hour to explain things to her. During this hour, my three-year old daughter continually came asking for me to play a game for her; my eight-year-old son kept asking for advice on a picture he was working on; and my eleven-year-old started crying for no apparent reason.

Done with the primary task at hand, I went on to my second daughter, asking yes or no questions to try to get at the cause of her crying. I finally got at it – she had come home with a C on a test about primes and composites and was afraid to tell me. Note that this is the same teacher who had not properly explained things to my older daughter. So I explained to her that if she didn’t get the math concept it wasn’t her fault, and we worked on understanding the test together.

My son didn’t really need my help; he was just responding to the high needs of everyone else around him and demanding his own piece of me. My three-year-old gets more than her fair share of my attention and needs to learn to wait her turn.

During this time, somebody ate all of my husband’s oatmeal cookies and all of the apples that were supposed to go with the lunches for tomorrow. My husband arrived home, ate the dinner plate I had prepared for him, and asked how I could allow that to happen!

“I don’t know. It’s my writing night,” I replied, and took my laptop upstairs to write this little piece.

Psalms
Chapter 131
1
A song of ascents. Of David. LORD, my heart is not proud; nor are my eyes haughty. I do not busy myself with great matters, with things too sublime for me.
2
Rather, I have stilled my soul, hushed it like a weaned child. Like a weaned child on its mother's lap, so is my soul within me.
3
Israel, hope in the LORD, now and forever.

Painting above: “Lotte (Werther’s Leiden)” by Wilhelm Von Kaulbach

When Mommies Make Mistakes

The school yard

Things could be worse. Suppose your errors were counted and published every day, like those of a baseball player. ~Author Unknown

I thought I was having a really great Mommy weekend. I managed to spend individual one-on-one time with each of my children. My 3-year-old and I planted some bulbs. I took my 8- and 10-year olds on separate library trips. I played a full-court, no-foul, no-boundaries, no-time-outs, one-on-one basketball game with my twelve-year-old and let her beat me 22-0. We all went out to Friendly’s for dinner and ice cream.

Sunday night I took my two older girls out to buy Thanksgiving outfits. We aren’t big clothes hogs in this house, but for special holidays I like to make sure everyone has something beautiful to wear. They each picked out something gorgeous and I was trying on a flattering red blouse with scarf.

“Maybe I’ll wear this to my son’s Thanksgiving play,” I thought to myself, “When is that again? Friday? Wait, we have off this Friday, which means..it..must..have..been..this..past..Friday…OMG…OMG…OMG…”

I got home and ran to my son before my daughters could open their big mouths. He was playing Battleship with my husband. “Did you already have your Thanksgiving play?” I burst out. “Yeah,” he said, nonchalantly. The look of horror on my face told all to my husband. I ran upstairs to have a good cry.

I pride myself on keeping our complicated schedules in order. I have my little book in my pocketbook, which gets written on a large dry erase calendar in the laundry room. Around that are corkboards where the important flyers hang. But something went wrong with my system in this one particular case, and I was never going get back the chance to attend my son’s Thanksgiving play.

I emailed an apology to the teacher, asking if she knew of any parents who had videotaped the play. She wrote me back a nice note saying not to beat myself up over it and gave me a name. I emailed the person, who sent me a nice picture and promised to copy the video for me. So I will eventually get the chance to sit and watch the play with my son. In the meantime, I will be taking him out for lots and lots of ice cream.

I woke up still feeling bad, and was glad to find this quote by Henry David Thoreau : “One cannot too soon forget his errors and misdemeanors; for to dwell upon them is to add to the offense.”

I also liked Sophia Loren’s “Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life.” And how about F. Wikzek’s “If you don't make mistakes, you're not working on hard enough problems. And that's a big mistake.”

I was thinking that I couldn’t go on writing this blog when I couldn’t do something really basic like attend a school play. Then I read Niels Bohr’s quote, “An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field.”

And finally, from Alexander Pope, in Swift, Miscellanies, “A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying... that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.”

We are responsible for so much as mothers, and when we mess up the best thing to do is say “I’m sorry”, take a look at our priority list, and move forward.

Passion: Softball Fever

St Cecelia

I feel like I must be boring everyone now because all I can think about is softball. Not only do we play it every day. Everywhere we go we bump into people from one of the teams: at the beach, Wal-mart, King Kullen. I often forget which team they are from. We just call them softball people.

When friends and family call and ask me what is new, my mind is a blank. Life seems to be just one continuous softball game, abbreviated by meals, sleeping, and swimming. When I get on the computer, the first thing I do is my daily updates for the team website, before any writing or personal emailing.

I think it is important for people to be passionate about something. All my life I have been drawn to people who threw their energy into one particular cause or activity, even if it was something I was not interested in. One of my friends in college was a horsewoman. I am not at all interested in horses, but my first conversation with her (on the plane to Budapest, where I spent a semester) she spoke with such brilliance in her eyes about her love of horseback riding. We became fierce friends from then on.

As an adult I am naturally drawn to people with similar interests, and my closest friends tend to be dedicated to the pro-life cause or writing. When you spend a great deal of time with people watching softball games or cross-country meets, you develop a comraderie of sorts. In softball, you are all dedicated to the success of your children in the sport. In running, many parents simply want to keep their children in good physical condition, and the goal is always simply to “do your best”.

I want my children to be well-rounded; so we participate in a great variety of activities, but all is scheduled around their first love. Meals are scheduled at 9, 12, and 4, so we can be well-nourished before the evening’s practice(s) or game(s). All friends are on notice that we are only available between 10 and 3. These summer nights they are permitted to go to bed late and sleep late, so they can be well-rested for the next day of activity.

Made in God’s image, we are called to build and maintain strength of mind, body, and spirit. This is just one way of going about it.

Sirach
Chapter 17
1
The LORD from the earth created man, and in his own image he made him.
2
Limited days of life he gives him and makes him return to earth again.
3
He endows man with a strength of his own, and with power over all things else on earth.
4
He puts the fear of him in all flesh, and gives him rule over beasts and birds.
5
He forms men's tongues and eyes and ears, and imparts to them an understanding heart.
6
With wisdom and knowledge he fills them; good and evil he shows them.
7
He looks with favor upon their hearts, and shows them his glorious works,
8
That they may describe the wonders of his deeds and praise his holy name.
9
He has set before them knowledge, a law of life as their inheritance;

Back onto the Volunteer Path

If you’ve been following my blog you might think I am down on volunteerism. I think if you have the calling, and you have enough time and energy AFTER fulfilling your duties to your family, it is a natural fulfillment of the “works” part of our faith. What I am down on is exhausting oneself in too many avenues so that there is not enough left for the family at home, as well as one’s own spiritual development.

Sometimes it is necessary to pull back in some of these areas. Maybe a child needs some extra attention, or you or a family member are ill. In the past, I have had the tendency to accept too many commitments, and I had to go cold turkey when my fourth child was born. It’s kind of like my obsession with books. I have way too many, and know I am incapable of walking into a book store without buying more – so I try to stay away from book sales of any kind, unless I have a real need for a specific book. For three years I have avoided any kind of sign-up sheet, knowing just one more thing could put me over the edge. (Read about the bake sale that almost broke this camel’s back.)

After the birth of each child, it takes me a bit longer to get used to all the extra responsibilities, before I feel like I’ve gotten into the swing of things and can take on more. Almost three years later, I am finally ready to take on the commitment of catechist once again. I really feel great about this, mostly because I get to be my own child’s teacher in preparation for her Confirmation.

When I taught the sixth grade religious education class, I found that I learned as much from the experience as my students did. I loved to hear what questions they had, even if I didn’t know the answer yet. I would write them down and eagerly research a response. In the preparation of my classes I would dig deep into scripture, the Church documents, and the lives of the saints, and found myself developing spiritually as well as in my knowledge of the Church.

The religious education director at my parish sees me quite often in a variety of capacities, especially now that I have a son ready to make his First Communion. She answered the bell today, asking how she could help me. Usually I have some kind of request for the pro-life group or a question about the Communion. I was here to help her, I replied. Relief washed over her face. I had thought I might have trouble with my request to teach my daughter’s eighth grade class, but she happily gave it to me.

It was with great excitement that I walked out of the religious education office with my hefty teacher’s manual, food for thought over the summer. I’m ready to order myself an official copy of The Catechism of the Catholic Church and give myself a good education. And I will be tuning in to EWTN as often as possible to see what those great teachers have to offer my soul.

Painting above: The Calling of St. Peter, Hans Suss von Kulmbach, 1514-16

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.

The Bake Sale that Almost Broke the Camel’s Back

I love to bake. I love to bake from scratch. Most of all, I love it when I bake something from scratch and it comes out perfectly.

I love to know that I lovingly prepared something delicious and special for my family, from the best ingredients I could afford. I love that they appreciate the time it took, and that it tastes better just because I made it.

I love to learn new recipes from my beloved cookbooks, and to teach the skills to my children so they can do the same for their own families.

There used to be a Holly Hobby plaque hanging in the kitchen of my childhood home. It said the “secret ingredient” was love. Scientific studies have actually shown that, given all the same ingredients, positive emotion put into baking actually has a healthy effect on the receiver!

I love to bring cakes for family birthday parties. I am known among my in-laws as the cake baker, and they love both my Hershey’s Cocoa Chocolate Cake and my white angel cake. I make the same ones for every occasion, with a variation on the decorative icing, and they never tire of them.

I enjoy sending my children in to school with cupcakes on their birthdays. I usually make these from a mix, for a number of reasons. First of all, I have to make several batches of cupcakes, and it just is not feasible time-wise for me to do these all from scratch. I will save that time for making the cake we will eat together as a family. Second of all, most children really cannot differentiate between a baked-from-scratch cake and one purchased from a store. So, while I know they are receiving superior ingredients, they do not, and so part of the pleasure is lost.

Several times a year, I am called upon to bake something for a bake sale. If I have the time, I really do not mind doing this. However, very often it happens to be at the very worst time for me. I just know that it will be something I will regret having committed to. They also expect you to write down what you will be making, and I really do not bake that way. I do not have the time to select a recipe and go shopping for the specific ingredients required. I keep a well-stocked pantry and bake according to what ingredients I have available. What if I say I will make chocolate-chip cookies and someone eats the chocolate chips the night before? And if I happen to have enough frozen bananas I might feel like making a huge batch of banana bread – if I do not have enough, I am not going to go buy over-ripe bananas for the occasion. So I really dislike having to commit to making a specific item.

There was one time when I signed up and had such a busy day that I was still whipping it up at midnight. Then, after I had carefully wrapped up the box of goods, my child forgot to bring it to school! I received a telephone call from the bake sale coordinator, asking if I could bring it in. I really did not have the time to drive to the school that day, and had to apologize. From that day on, I decided never to sign up for a bake sale. If I had the time, I would make something and they would be pleasantly surprised. If not, no harm done.

A few weeks ago, I was asked to bake for the track bake sale. It happened to be on a Sunday, right after we had planned on giving out baby bottles after church for the Pro-Life cause. We were going to have to rush home, do a quick change, and rush back out to the track meet. I just knew it was not a reasonable thing to expect of myself to (1) bake something and (2) remember to bring it.

After I explained all this, the lady told me that if I did not have time to bake I could just go to the store and pick up some cans of soda. I said I would keep that in mind, but what I was thinking was: “Is she crazy? I just told her how busy I am. Does she think I have time to make another trip to the store with four kids in tow? It would take me less time to bake something! And what makes her think I can afford to buy even more food when I have six mouths to feed?” I wound up avoiding her and the whole bake sale table on the selected day.

After track practice on Saturday, I went home, made dinner, put the baby to bed, and went food shopping. After all this, I had a varicose vein that was bothering me. This tends to happen when I am under a great deal of stress and do not take extra vitamin E (which helps keep the circulatory system healthy). I put my legs up and asked my husband to put the food away. “Thank God I said no to that bake sale!” I exclaimed. It was really the bake sale that would have broken this camel’s back.

This was really what set into motion my series – which I shall continue – on hearing God’s call and staying true to your specific call. There are so many good causes, and only so much of you to go around. Your number one priority is your own family, and you are doing them a disservice if you exhaust yourself doing too much. Remember the basics of decision-making. Every “yes” is a “no” to something else.

I was called again to bake something for a meeting, this time by a lady who was very understanding as to how busy I was. I also explained that I would be hard-pressed to even get to the meeting on time, given my husband’s work schedule, so the promised goods would not even be there for the pre-meeting social time.

After I said no to that, I hung up and my husband walked in the door.

“I was just asked to bake something for the meeting tomorrow night,” I said.

“You don’t even bake for us any more,” my husband complained.

(This, by the way, was not true. I supervised the baking of chocolate-chip and blueberry muffins two nights previous, but they disappeared in one night. I also promised to bring a cake to the next family birthday party, coming up soon. It is true that I have not baked much lately, and probably will not pick up the pace until winter.)

“That is precisely why I said no,” I said, matter-of-factly, making a mental note to make something yummy just-for-us as soon as possible.

In the picture above are the cakes I made for the double celebration party we had in August. On the left is a white angel cake with white frosting, topped by our original wedding cake topper, to celebrate our fifteenth wedding anniversary. On the right is a Hershey’s Cocoa Chocolate Cake (see recipe on the container of Hershey’s Cocoa, in the baking aisle), to celebrate our baby’s second birthday. In the middle is a flower centerpiece that I was given to take home from our friends’ wedding, which we had all attended the day before the party. In the background is a line of white chocolate heart-shaped lollipops, which I gave out as favors.