Education Alternatives: Unschooling.

What with burying my life in alternatives to traditional education (hybrid academies! distance learning assistance programs! dig a hole in the dirt and sit in it! take a nap!), I've come across several families in which "alternative education" means "unschooling." It's always a little scary to address educational decisions--talk about tapping our deepest passions as parents--but it is also vital that parents working in alternative education face and discuss the implications behind our educational choices. What we do speaks to our children and they will ponder what we did for them (or to them!) all their lives.

Unschoolers tend to be as separate from home educators as they are from traditional educators. While "unschooling" suggests a negative--what it is not--there are actually a number of shared, positive principles in the unschooling community. Most parents believe that their children are natural learners, that a child driven by his own interests will learn more efficiently than a child driven by testing standards, and that a parent's role is to help the child set goals so he can reach goals he sets for himself. (Of course, within the unschooling community, these beliefs manifest in many different ways.)

Unschooling families choose to learn free from a set curriculum--unlike in many homeschool homes, there is no attempt to recreate the traditional school syllabus or scope and sequence.

The biggest question is, of course, Does it work? The maddening answer is, of course, yes and no.

First, the yes. Unschooling can work very well in particular situations. I've found that it can be fun and fruitful for a mother (or father) who enjoys hands-on work, long walks through muddy fields, and doesn't feel much need to "check" her kids' progress against the rest of the world. Unschooling is generally what does happen (by default) for small children in a large homeshcooling family. The 3-year-old doesn't need a curriculum, but does need lots of time to absorb herself in play, a little guidance in getting started (or finishing) on a project. Even a 5-year-old can flourish with a pile of books, a sketchbook, and lots of time.

Again by default, we naturally find ourselves in "unschooling" periods of life. Mom is pregnant and sick, or postpartum and tired, so the syllabus just doesn't happen in full. She can get everyone to the library (maybe) and order art supplies online, but that's about it. Great things can happen.

But then there's the no.

There does come a time when the parents must answer this question: What is the goal of education? Clearly, the goal of everything we do as parents must eventually redound to eternal salvation. There are many ways of bringing our children up in the Faith. But if education at eternal salvation, it does so in a more specific way. Education both helps the individual to flourish as an individual and as a social animal.

The basic philosophy of unschooling presupposes a sort of Rousseauian "voluntarism"--or, the assumption that all a child's activities should voluntary, as far as is possible. The problem is that, in the Catholic worldview, a child's capacity to choose the good is not yet fully formed. A child is not a "noble savage." He's just a savage.

Once the children reach a certain age, there are certain skills that become necessary for her to pursue her passions. There are virtues and strengths that she has not yet encountered and which she will need in order to--later in life--be both a strong individual and a "servant of all." Not all children will become the next Pascal, but all children need an ordered and sequential introduction to the beautiful numbers Pascal saw. Not all children will become teachers, but all children need to learn how to communicate effectively--not just in lengthy opinion pieces on a blog--but also in the specific situations in which their world and culture place them.

In a sense "unschooling" is a wonderful way to introduce children into the world of a more formal course of study. It's also a perfectly normal and acceptable break from the formal lesson plans over which most moms slave. For a few children, unschooling may indeed be the only way they will ever learn--think of Mozart. But parents must make the decision to abandon all structure in the full awareness of what unschooling implies about human nature, human society, and the reasons we exist.

Pillars of Salt.

"Just the place to bury a crock of gold," said Sebastian. "I should like to bury something precious in every place where I've been happy and then, when I was old and ugly and miserable, I could come back and dig it up and remember."

Sebastian is Evelyn Waugh's tragic bright young thing in the brilliant Brideshead Revisited. His remembering becomes worship, and he clings to his irrecoverable childhood (famously in the form of his teddy bear, Aloysius). I thought of him after a conversation about remembering. We were remembering the places where we were happy: particularly college, when the world was ours and what we did with our freedom was do things that felt holy.

For 4 years, I belonged to that small sub-population at the Catholic University of America that exists mostly in the Top 5 Catholic colleges: Thomas Aquinas, Christendom, Steubenville, the University of Dallas, and... well, praise be to God, there are more than 5 now. Here is a taste:

It's just so true.

It is possible to go to Confession weekly, attend Adoration every day, say the entire Liturgy of the Hours with your dearest friends, study the Great Books and the Doctors of the Church, and be so wrapped in a world that feels comfortingly sanctified all the time.

Get this: There is nothing wrong with that. Those college years are years of intense formation. Looking back at my habits of being, I'm starting to think that I was such a cute little puppy. Have you ever watched little puppies playing? There's a reason they play. If they don't play at being big dogs (and even sometimes think that they already are big dogs), they will never get to become big dogs. If little monkeys don't get to imitate their parents, they do not survive in the wild to become the parents of new little monkeys. My Ana Therese--now 21-months old--plays intensely at dancing, mothering, and praying. I don't grudge her this time of formation, because I know it's crucial to her growth into a young woman who knows she is loved and is capable of loving. The mother delights in her children's play. Our Father delights in our play at pleasing Him.

However. We grow up.

Eventually, the Catholic girls have to leave that bubble. We graduate (sometimes only after several degrees), we enter the workforce, we marry and have children, or we enter a religious order. We grow, and even if our daily lives continue to include the Sacraments and the prayers of the Church, that comforting feeling they once gave us will leave.

I remember when I was first married and jumped out of that puppy life. I was disoriented. Where was my structure? Where was that control? Had it all been pretend? I went into mourning, because I had become so attached to that formation period. I didn't want to take my final vows and move into adulthood. Several years into childbearing, I felt like I had completely lost myself--that Catholic girl who constantly read the Fathers and prayed for hours in the chapel was gone.

She was not gone, but she was invisible. The visible reality of my sanctity, it seemed to me, collapsed under the demands of my adult vocation. Graduates of that formation period have several reactions to the change: Some old friends have declared that all of our prayers and sacrifices were a farce. Because the farce was exposed, it had nothing enduring to offer. It was fun, but now we are beyond all that. This is not true.

It mistakes the path for the summit. It mistakes the stream for the source.

When a seed is buried in the earth and watered, it cracks wide open. It grows pale and the shell rots. The root slowly reaches down for stability, and the shoot pierces that barren earth. The years of playing at sanctity were the seed, and they have fallen away. The girl who lived as a seed is no longer a seed, but is broken and growing up. I reach for the Sun because I died.

My days do not look now like they did when I was 22, or 24, or 27. It does not mean that I'm starting all over again every time a new child is given or a new crisis strikes. When I am able to sit in a church for an hour in silence, it is water to my soul. When I can get to the Sacrament of Confession, I am complete and whole and healed.

I can no longer brag that I say the entire Rosary every day (the 3-year-old cries), wear a mantilla to Mass (the babies tear it off), fast every day of Lent (angry mommies are a near occaision of sin for children), and have read all of Benedict XVI's encyclicals. Instead, I boast in the strength of Christ, because soon He will be all I have.

It is easy to mourn the "glory days." I still hear old men exclaim, "College! The best years of my life!" They were beautiful years, but not the best. This is better, because it is closer to home. I'm not a puppy any more (more like a juvenile!), and I want to be a big dog.

Time for a laugh!

This is for the Mothers of Many. I feel your pain.

Thanks to the Modest Mama!

The Chicken and the Egg.

Sunday evening, the Philosophical Family sat down to a simple meal of pasta, salad, and hard-boiled eggs.

Bella (age 3) observed matter-of-factly, as she peeled her egg, "We arwe eating the baby chickens!"

To which Ana (age 1) replied, "BAAAYY-BEE!"

Miriam, the prescient 6-year-old, however, was not so sanguine.

"Dad, are we really eating baby chickens?"

"No, there are no babies in these eggs. They are unfertilized." Scientist Dad replied. "Do you know what 'unfertilized' means, Miriam?"

"Uh. No." She took a bite, refusing to pursue the definition of "unfertilized."

I could see it coming, and--after a prolonged but thoughtful munch on the not-baby-chicken--The Question came.

"Dad, why are there no babies in these eggs, but there are babies in other eggs?"

I did what you should never do: I giggled.

Scientist Dad did what you should do: "Well, what do you think, Miriam?"

"I have no idea!" She really didn't.

I stopped giggling and, as penance for my sin, stepped in.

"Well, Miriam, who lays the egg--the girl chicken or the boy chicken?" I asked.

Now she was back on familiar ground, "The girl chicken!"

"Who has babies--girls or boys?"

"Girls!"

"And if there isn't a daddy, can a girl be a mommy?" (Chickens don't deliberately use IVF, to my knowledge. Scientist Dad confirms this to be so.)

"No, she can't. There has to be a boy chicken, too."

"It's like that with these eggs: the mommy has the eggs ready for the babies. But if there's no rooster nearby, there will be no babies in the egg."

"Oh!" she saw. "I see! If the Daddy Chicken doesn't live near the Mommy Chicken, then there are no babies in the chicken's eggs!"

And that, my friends, is how it is.

I repented my giggle, Miriam got her answer, and the Scientist Dad enjoyed a good meal. Be ready the next time you boil an egg for your child. You never know where the dinner conversation will go...

All gifts that are given.

The most prevalent mantras I've encountered in the "parenting magazine" world have to do with "gifts."

"Gifted children."

"We need to discover our gifts."

"Moms need to have their own time to use their own gifts."

"Time! Talent! Treasure!" (That's from my "Catholic pew" world.)

"Everyone is special."

"Allow the child to explore her talents."

The idea is that your happiness in life is predicated on the identification of your YOU and then your freedom to explore and exploit these gifts to their utmost. This will result in a life "with no regrets," a "full life."

This is well and good, but the Philosopher Mom can't shake the question, "What about after the life fully lived?" It's a conversation stopper in most playgroups: "What about when the child dies?"

If all those talents are somehow financed and honed so that the child can excel enough to make a living from them, or even leave behind a "classic" for future generations of gifted children, what becomes of the gifted child when her skills grow dull, her mind weakens, and her body fails?

As a mother, I wonder, is there a danger that I am encouraging my child to place her hopes in a false promise? When the glory and energy of life have faded, how will my daughter find herself?

I do not believe that children should be taught to identify themselves solely in their gifts (anymore than we should tell them they are only their faults). The gifts are not an end in themselves; they are not the end-all and be-all of our selves. They are a means to an end and a tool given freely in order that the child might discover her true dignity and worth.

So, if talents and gifts are tools--beautiful tools, but still merely tools--then what is their purpose? Why do we work so hard to leave time for a child to enjoy herself and become good at a certain habit or skill? Why do we train them to do good works, to pray, to give?

The end purpose of all skills, talents, and gifts is quite simple, but almost impossible to find:

It is love.

All gifts will vanish. They are given and they are taken away. Only love and its free reward remains: "Prophecies will end, languages cease and knowledge fail, but love will never cease." (I Cor. 13.8) A child's talents and beauty are given for a time for the sole purpose of cleansing her heart and training the eyes of her heart: They exist for a brief moment so that she may behold God forever.

As we parents train our children up in the ways they should go, we must also teach them (and ourselves) that all that we do right now is a means. It is only a looking-forward to the things to come, which will never fail. If I am investing in my child so that she will have a brilliant career, a good living, and a vast array of skills, then my goals for her are short-sighted and beneath her true dignity.

Noticing that gifts--dancing, music, languages, teaching--are for a purpose beyond themselves is not to refuse to enjoy them. When the joy of dancing transforms into the joy of dancing for our Creator, when our dance joins the dance of the stars and all Creation, then the enjoyment of our gift is complete. There is nothing so thrilling for a physicist as the moment--and there may be only one--when his research breaks through time and space and touches the Other Side of the universe. There is nothing so lovely as the artist who has painted the face of a child only to find that her heart has become that Child.

If I help my daughter to grow in goodness and truth and beauty for no other purpose than that she might one day see her Creator and love Him, pure and without stain, then I am truly helping her to realize her gifts and surpass them.

Lord, have mercy. I think I need a glass of Merlot.

That bare minimum mode.

Jen over at Conversion Diary is asking about those seasons of life called "Bare Minimum Mode." And, oh, do I love to dish on the intimate details of those darkest days.

For our family, Bare Minimum Mode can be very, very long (I'm thinking the entire first year of Ana Therese's life), more to middling (those first three months of pregnancy), or a few days (flu season!). The longer stretches share several characteristics:

1. We ask for help. We have never, ever had the funds to hire a nanny or even a mother's helper. We beg. I have begged my parents to adopt my small children for three months and take me in as a patient. I have begged my deacon to find older couples to come cook, clean, and entertain kids. I have begged college students to donate hours of their time to change diapers or just take the kids away and return only for bedtime.

2. People come out of everywhere to help. Seriously, we have made the most wonderful friends during our Bare Minimum Time. Men from the Knights of Columbus have cooked amazing quantities of food. Their wives have played with babies. Students have taught my children how to read and paint and knit. Without exception, every person among them has thanked us profusely for asking for help. And we, of course, just gape and thank the good Lord for the communion of saints, for bringing us to our knees, and providing such company in the vale of tears.

3. Nap time becomes sacred. This echoes Jen, but ain't it the truth? Nothing touches the 1-4pm. No one. Nothing.

4. Post-dinner, too, is sacred. No one comes near the Philosopher Home after 8pm. This is time for nursing the baby down, catching a nap while Scientist Dad holds the baby, doing physical therapy, a just winding down and encouraging each other.

5. Laundry is not folded. Now we get to the knitty-gritty: I put two laundry baskets on th living room floor. One is for clean Grown-Up Clothing. The other is for clean Childrens Clothing. I don't care if the 6-year-old puts on the 3-year-old's underwear every day for a month. It's clean, the kids are warm, and I didn't spend my sleeping hours folding laundry.

6. The kids' routine is simplified, but not abandoned. They eat sitting together three times per day. They have snack. They may watch more movies, but also have play time (usually in the happy, morning hours). They have nap (or quiet-time). When their lives are sane, it's easier for the parents to stay sane.

7. Confession and Mass. Both mom and dad must cling to the sacraments. This is the hour. Whatever else goes away--homeschool, ballet class, recreational reading, exercise--these two sacraments must never go away. Monthly Confession and weekly Sunday Mass. It's hard, but these indeed are the Bare Minimum.

It sounds cliche, but it's so true: These times are passing. They come and they go. We always emerge from them blinking a little in the glare of day. Did that really happen? During the dark times, life becomes so physical but also so pure. Our focus is narrowed, but single-minded. We escape the distractions and flurry of ordinary life, and even in the suffering we find a certain peace.

Parenting advice from the brink.

The Gray Lady ran an opinion column this weekend by Emily Rapp, mother to 18-month-old Ronan. Ronan has Tay-Sachs disease and, by all medical estimates, will die in a particularly gruesome manner before he is three.

The subject is chilling, but I was particularly struck by her critical analysis--wisdom gained in suffering--of our parenting culture. Today's parenting advice, she writes, is entirely future-oriented:

"All parents want their children to prosper, to matter. We enroll our children in music class or take them to Mommy and Me swim class because we hope they will manifest some fabulous talent that will set them — and therefore us, the proud parents — apart. Traditional parenting naturally presumes a future where the child outlives the parent and ideally becomes successful, perhaps even achieves something spectacular. Amy Chua’s “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” is only the latest handbook for parents hoping to guide their children along this path. It’s animated by the idea that good, careful investments in your children will pay off in the form of happy endings, rich futures."

Then she throws the punch.

"But I have abandoned the future..."

Emily, I know you say that no one ever asks advice from the parents of a terminally ill infant. But I have learned so much from you, and from reading and knowing the mothers of children who have died. Your particular wisdom is this:

"But the day-to-day is often peaceful, even blissful. This was my day with my son: cuddling, feedings, naps. He can watch television if he wants to; he can have pudding and cheesecake for every meal. We are a very permissive household. We do our best for our kid, feed him fresh food, brush his teeth, make sure he’s clean and warm and well rested and ... healthy? Well, no. The only task here is to love, and we tell him we love him, not caring that he doesn’t understand the words. We encourage him to do what he can, though unlike us he is without ego or ambition."

While parents of dying children didn't ask to be signposts, they have in fact become reminders of a truth all parents forget at their own peril: Our children are not ours first. Their lives are not directed to an imagined future, a blank slate on which we get to draw what we would see. Children themselves are not future-oriented. They live now and today.

Miriam loves ballet class today, in this moment. She dreams of getting bigger and making stronger leaps and more powerful turns, but those dreams do not yet diminish the drills and little jumps she can make right now. Belly loves to work out puzzles and build towers, regardless of the future I imagine for her of mathematical prowess or craftsmanship.

For these little people, their lives are already a whole. If Miriam were to die tomorrow (and who knows what the hour is for any one of us?), Todd and I would be devastated and the world would wonder, "What could have been?"

But she would not.

The one who dies has made a complete life. The end and the beginning are known to her and to God.

So, before we parents of the healthy, strong children leave Emily Rapp and Ronan to the mercy of God, perhaps we can admire her wisdom and learn from her how to prepare our children for the only future we know: that moment when the veil between this world and the next lifts. Are they ready to step peacefully from God's hidden presence into his unhidden presence? Have we reassured them that death is not the end or the destruction of dreams? Is our confidence in the victory of life over death the guiding principle of our parenting style and our parenting advice (which we so freely dish when it comes to sleep schedules, slings, and breastfeeding)?

If first things are first, then in our homes, too, "the day-to-day is peaceful, even bliss." And the end will be awful, but it will not be the end.

Image: Antonietta Meo.

Feminine Genius: We know D.R.A.M.A.

Dorothy Day and Mother Teresa: Girls are OK.

(First, a note! Some commenters on "Abstinence in Marriage: Que Pasa?" were unceremoniusly dumped into my spam folder. Sorry! Now you're published, as you should have been long ago. Y'all are brilliant.)

After confirming that I "really have three girls," the next insight offered me by most strangers is, "Oh, your poor husband."

The third apothegm runs along the lines of consolation to the downtrodden, "Oh, well, don't worry. Girls are so much easier than boys."

If I have allowed the conversation to get this far, I am obviously too weary to deflect their advances with humor. Either that, or I have become so accustomed to the inane babblings of the pre-schooler mind that two or three more idiocies aren't likely to bother me.

But, really, people. Girls are easier than boys? Have you spent much time with a 12-year-old girl? Have you spent much time with any woman between, say, the ages of 10 1/2 and 51? I hear echoing in my head, "The days are coming, sayeth the Lord, when I shall strike the land with doom."

We are sugar and spice for about 5 years, then fade into a sweet sort of lemon-zest dessert, and then. Just plain lemon juice.

Poor Miriam. She's had a brilliant 5 weeks (almost) of homeschool. She's had a brilliant childhood, in general, to be honest. She's smart. She's gorgeous. She's good at almost anything (except opening doors or jars). She is sweet and eager to please.

But oh, the drama.

Today the world fell apart. I asked her to narrate for me (just me! her mother!) the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. She knows this story (we've been reading it since she could talk!), she loves to narrate (she's been talking since she was 10 months!), and she has memory like glue (when she was four, she memorized an entire Dr. Seuss book!).

But today, she froze. She couldn't even begin. Because I was asking her to do something different: "Just tell me the story."

"Mommy, I can only think if you're writing it down!"

"Miriam, I'm not going to write this one down. I'm helping Belly build her Lego house, and this is also an important way of telling for you to learn. Just tell me."

Tears. A full-out fit. Neither of us backed down. But what struck me was her (ir)rationale: "Mommy, it's too embarrassing!"

Embarrassing is her code word for: I might mess up. I'm going to make a mistake. It's not worth trying, because I can't do it perfectly.

It's the same reason she won't try her new bike: I might mess up. I might get hurt. It's not worth trying.

It's the same reason she won't play the new piano song: I might mess up. It's not worth trying.

Embarrassing.

This runs deep in the family: It's too hard. Our over-achiever front belies a deep insecurity: What if I mess up? It's better not to try.

I remember piano pieces I refused to learn, races I refused to run, classes I quit, and professors I never went to for help. All because of this fear, paralyzing and ugly. The woman hates to be wrong, but even more so to be caught being wrong. I don't mind a mistake that no one can see, that I can fix on my own (Spanx, anyone?), but oh! to be seen in my imperfection. That makes me throw a fit.

So, today's drama was less about my daughter than about me: I can see with a magnifying glass into her soul, even at the moment she feels most alone.

And that, too, is a mark of a woman. We hate to be caught in the fault (as do men), and all those hormones and intensity of feelings can make us cry and fight and throw ourselves to the floor in despair. But that intensity also gives us--poor children of Eve--the possibility of that deeply personal bridge: I know you. I have been where you are. I will be there with you again.

I want to try to teach my daughter, poor little daughter of me, to take that drama all locked up inside herself and let it out. Let her recognize that her struggle goes on in the hearts of so many others. Let the drama breed, not more drama, but womanly compassion and a fierce devotion to the weakest souls still in the grip of that struggle. Let her drama and fear of embarrassment translate into understanding and gentleness.

The feminine genius, without which the world could not be saved.

Image source: Dorothy Day and Mother Teresa.

Image source: The Repentant.

The Difficult Lesson.

We read whole chapters of the Gospels aloud. I let the girls color and play, and I just sit and read the words. I don't ask them to narrate the stories or sayings, but just to listen as they can while they play. Today we read Matthew 10. I didn't think Miriam was listening (she was coloring the Hagia Sophia and singing about the "barbarians who stole your tabernacle").

But she was.

Miriam: "Mommy, why does Jesus say he comes to bring a sword and not peace? Because, he is the Prince of Peace. I am confused."

That is confusing. So, here's what I tried for a little exegesis.

"Well, it is confusing. Let's think about Jesus' commandments. If we love Him, He says, we will follow His commandments."

"Yes," she said, still coloring and humming.

"So, people have to make a choice: they can either walk to Jesus in the light or turn around and walk the other way into the dark."

"Yes," she stopped coloring.

"I think that is the sword he might mean: If some people choose to walk to Jesus and other people choose to walk away from Jesus, then who has the Peace of Christ?"

"The people walking to the light," she nodded.

"Yes. But what happens if you choose something dark?"

"Then you don't have the Peace of Christ!" she was very happy now.

"And not having peace is like a sword?"

And we were both happy. This is why she's at home this year.

Miriam the Dominican.

Four little girls in pink and white, seated on the hardwood floor at the feet of their ballet teacher, listening with rapt attention to Angelina in the Palace.

"... and Angelina said, 'I won't make a mistake! I will be perfect!'" reads the lovely lady. "But, girls! No one is perfect, isn't that right?"

Noooo, three little heads shake.

Noooo, all the watching parents shake their heads.

Noooo, the ballet teacher approvingly shakes her head.

"That's not true!" says one little girl named Miriam, offended.

Everyone looks at her, the tallest girl dressed all in white.

"Well, I wonder..." begins the teacher.

"Jesus never makes mistakes. He is perfect." Miriam's eyes are anxious, but firm. Her cheeks and neck are flushed. I wince. I've been right there in her seat.

"Well, I wonder," says the teacher, "I really wonder..." She continues the story and it all brushes past.

Miriam sits stolidly in her rightness and in the immutable rightness of God. I am in the corner of the room, hugging my toddler, throwing graham crackers to placate the baby, and wondering... "I wonder.... I wonder." I wonder at the perfect Word made flesh. I wonder at the spine of steel in my little girl, and I wonder how it will all be for her.

Image source.

Don't lose your groove.

This is just phenomenal from Like Mother, Like Daughter. It is enough.

A Hiding Place.

The holding pattern has broken, and the Ahern clan is living... all over New England for the next month. Our worldly possessions (the least important part) are holed up in North Haven, CT. The Scientist Dad will be living and working in Amherst, MA. And the girls and I are up in the wilds of NH, enjoying the finer things in life at my parents' home.

I have always told my mom that, even long after her last child left for college, that she is still a stay-at-home mother. She chose not to pursue a career outside the home with her free time. She finished a Master's degree in theology and makes beautiful art on commission. She creates a home. And she has remained available to her grown children.

Together, she and my father have made for us a hiding place: a place, or sometimes a phone conversation, to which we can withdraw with our burdens and cares and fears. They are a place, a home, a conversation of love where we can enter without fear of any sort of rejection. They are there. And as my father is working and bringing home the bacon, as it were, mom's frying it in the kitchen.

Ah. Metaphors are not my strong suite.

How beautiful, though. We have relied on them for many material gifts over the years of grad school, illness, and sundry. There is no greater gift, however, I could have asked than this home. All my mother's years of daily grind for her are, for me, a joy and rest. I realize when I am with her that all the days that are, for me, grind and stress in my own home will be, for my own children, an unsurpassable gift.

Nothing was wasted. All was grace and love. In my hiding place with them, I have hope.

Blog is not dead, nor doth she sleep!

"The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on earth, good will to men."

That little jingle keeps going through my head whenever I wail, "But the BLAAWWG!" (That's "blog," in wailing parlance.) Things have just been busy around here, what with editing work (Yes, I have a side business! Let me edit your next book.), attempts to homeschool (now well-devolved into unschool), and continued physical therapy on the ever-improving back.

These are all very little things, punctuated every five minutes by even littler things: diapers, a spilled drink, a toothache, a phone call.

Before the demands of these littlest things, writing swells in my mind into some Great and Wonderful Work. If only I could sweep aside all these little, insignificant tasks, and Really Do Something. If only I could read that book I've been eying for three weeks, then surely Something Great would transpire in my soul!

I note my desperation. I recognize the frustration.

And then I can say, "Get thee behind me, Satan. There are no little things. Every task is different in kind, but not in greatness."

St. Josemaria Escriva writes,

"Do everything for love. In that way, there will be no little things: everything will be big. Perseverance in the little things for love is heroism." (~no. 813, The Way)

Amen. And now I must break up a fight over whether Daddy's birthday comes every year or every week.

With love.

Happy Birthday, Ana Therese!

Dear Ana Therese,

One year ago, I was induced at 39 weeks.

We chose to induce in the hopes that you would be smaller than your sisters at birth.

You weighed 10 lbs. and 10 oz.

Our biggest yet. And our happiest Cinco de Mayo ever.

But next time (Lord willing), I think we'll induce at 38 weeks.

Happy birthday, Big Girl!

The infant king.

~ from Chapter 4: Fix your gaze on Christ ~

I can't tell you how beautiful this chapter is. Her description here of the way an infant changes us articulates perfectly the radical change that motherhood (and fatherhood) bring: and all this from a woman who never married! Sometimes those outside can best see. The description is meant to show us how our openness to the gift of life and willingness to serve our children brings us a real experience of Christ, who came as the Infant King.

"The first giving of this [Christ] love to a newly born child is the reshaping of our whole life, in its large essentials and in its every detail, in our environment, our habits, ourselves. The infant demands everything and, trivial though everything may seem when set out and tabulated, the demand is all the more searching because it seizes upon our daily lives and every detail of which they are built up.

"The sound of our voice must be modulated -- the words that we use considered, our movements restrained, slowed down, and trained to be both decisive and gentle.

"Our rooms must be rearranged; everything that is superfluous and of no use to the infant must be thrown out; only what is simple and necessary to him must remain, and what remains must be placed in the best position, not for us, but for him...

"There must be a new timing of our lives, a more holy ordering of our time, which is no longer to be ruled by our impulses and caprice, but by the rhythm of the little child.

"We must learn to sleep lightly, aware of the moonlight and the stars, conscious even in our deepest sleep of a whimper from the infant and ready to respond to it. We must learn the saving habit of rising with, or a little before, dawn. The rhythm of our bodies must be brought into harmony with his. They must become part of the ordered procession of his day and night, his waking and feeding and sleeping. Our lives, because of his and life his, must include periods of silence and rest. We must return with him and through him to the lost rhythm of the stars and the seed."

~Caryll Houselander, The Little Way of the Infant Jesus

More kids?

This piece on "Do you want more children?" is just great. From Jen at Conversion Diary.

It's cold season.

Back in the day, when I was a wee little evangelical Protestant, at Bible camp one year we were supposed to decide which jewel we would be in the heavenly kingdom. Was I a jasper? A ruby? An emerald?

Now I know.

I will be a pearl.

For I am an irritant being forged in a sea of mucus.

30 pounds ago, these pants looked good.

In a fit of self-confidence after a (precious) jog the other night, I threw on a pair of black stretch pants that, back in the days when I was an intellectual, had been oh-so-cute. Looking in the mirror, however, I realized that the emphasis should be firmly placed on had been. As in, the past tense.

One of the most disorienting effects of hyperemesis pregnancies has been the ridiculous fluctuation of my weight over the last three years. I have bottomed out at about 115 pounds only to shoot up to a ridiculous 175 pounds several times now. Now, almost five months postpartum, I'm still about 15 over a "happy place weight."

It's a roller-coaster ride for both the body and the psyche, as any mother of small children can tell you. And it can bring out the very worst in me.

I find myself oggling other mothers' waistlines, enviously if they are thin ("How did she do that in just six months?!!??! I'm so fat!") and with smug satisfaction if I detect a stomach roll ("Ha! There's no escaping it!"). Then the internal dialogue turns on me: "You're such a jerk! You can't even just enjoy these beautiful kids because you're so vain! Haha! You'll never wear those jeans again!" It's none too pretty: inside or out.

But I know, I know, that this is another opportunity to grow in grace. Yes, even this stomach roll. I'm not talking about self-effacement or not caring about my appearance.

First, we made a deliberate choice to be open to God's design for our family. Part of that choice (and, as we're learning, it was heroic) will involve a changing body for me. I'm not going to look like I did back in the old days (just like I'm no longer reading Kant seven hours a day, thank heavens); I'm not going to think or read or even feel like I did. This was a life-changing decision, and it requires a daily re-commitment, a daily yes to all this family requires. Including the fact that I need to wear larger pants. Lesson: Man up, momma!

Sigh.

Second, while I can't expect to get back my college body, I can have hope that someday I will be in a semblance of shape again. This is a short time. In ten or twelve years (which doesn't seem such a long wait anymore), I will probably be able to exercise daily again. But I won't be so able to snuggle a baby. Lesson: All things are passing.

And then, soon, I'll be standing before the Throne of God anyway (hopefully), where I can feast of the Lamb's Summer without a worry for calories. Lesson: Have a broader perspective.

Third, drop the internal dialogue. This is easier said than done when the brain is fried to a crisp by small children's incessant questions or endless sleepless nights. My conversation with my head gets out of control almost daily now. But it's not just the words coming out of my mouth that need to be charitable. The words of my mouth "and the meditations of my heart" must be "acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord." Lesson: Practice interior silence.

Finally, there are just going to be days when the body changes are frustrating, when I cry in front of the mirror, or when I just feel ... frumpy before I'm thirty. On those days, I need to close my eyes and offer it to God who gave up his body for me. "Unless the seed falls to the ground and dies, it cannot bear fruit." This time, too, will bear fruit.

And those pants were so goshdarn cute...

May your tribe increase.

I've been blessed with the friendship of many women espoused to Christ. I like to raise eyebrows when telling how three of my four bridesmaids became sisters--all in different congregations (Servidoras, Disciples, and Dominicans). My correspondence with each of them has continued intermittently through the years, and I hope that my girls will get to know these "aunts in Christ" well as they grow up.

One of the greatest gifts to come from these friendships is a deep gratitude for the complementarity of vocations in the Church. You can hear lots of complaints from the grayer folks about "the lack of vocations" or "the priest shortage" flying right on the heels of how "back when I was a kid, priests were seen as gods and sisters as saints... well, we know better now!" Now as I become gray, I can see a shift from complaining to (a) rejoicing in the fact that there is no vocation shortage and (b) a willingness to revere the consecrated/celibate life as actually lifting up the married life instead of competing with it.

The sisters in my life aren't an accusation that my choice to marry was somehow less-than-holy. Rather, in the words of Jerry Maguire (yes, I saw that movie), they say: "You complete me."

Sr. Anna, of the Nashville Dominicans, and I have been exchanging letters for eight years now. In each letter, one of us is bound to ask eagerly how God is working in us through our vows (either to Christ or to Todd) and through our children (hers spiritual, mine physical). She just sent me a doozy:

"Does motherhood grow deeper as you have more children? What do you learn with a third child that you did not know with two? Does wifehood grow deeper with a third child? I am always encouraged by the thought of your striving for holiness in the domestic church, and I often wonder ... how spiritual motherhood mirrors that of holy women in the world."

What a challenge and encouragement in that small paragraph!

What has changed with the coming of Ana? Is my motherhood "deeper"? I can hardly say. It's only been a few months, although the upheaval began one year ago this week when hyperemesis struck.

If motherhood is a forgetting of self, then, yes. I forget about myself much more often now. Literally. I forget to brush my hair before going out of the house. I forget to change my shirt covered in spit-up. But then, it's hardly a virtue, since I also forget to brush my children's hair and change their shirts.

Simply: I think the more children there are in my life, the more I encounter opportunities to love. And the more opportunities I have to love, the more I see my own unwillingness to love. With just Miriam, I was that great mom--answering every call and need with cheer. Then came Bella, and I noticed how much more mothering there was to be done. And how little I wanted to give more. But more I gave. Now with three little black-holes of need, the demand is almost constant. And in answering those demands, sometimes it is all I can do to keep from screaming (and sometimes I just scream).

But.

The joy has also deepened. There is more to wonder at. I laugh more. I watch them love each other in their little baby-ways, and I think, "May it always be so!"

In these precious moments of consolation, juxtaposed right next to a temper-tantrum in my heart, I see how motherhood deepens. There is a perfect Mother--in Mary and the Church--and every child given from God challenges me to a more perfect imitation of her. With each child, I also see more ways in which I could be better. And how deep, even deeper than I imagined a year ago, my need is for Help.

It is the same with being a wife. Each child transforms--in fire and water--our marriage. Fire, in the physical (and financial!) suffering. Water, in the irreplaceable-ness of each new little person.

So, I thank my dear Sister in Christ (who will never read this post). Her questions, from a spiritual mother who is no longer "in the world," give me pause and a chance at humility. May her tribe increase.

Joy and sleep deprivation.

I am shamelessly cribbing an excerpt from Chesterton's Orthodoxy sent by a dear friend. In these days of sleep deprivation, I find it impossible to conceal my tears and suffering. It is good to be reminded that He never tried.

"Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian. And as I close this chaotic volume, I open again the strange small book from which all Christianity came; and I am again haunted by a kind of confirmation. The tremendous figure which fills the gospels towers in this respect, as in every other, above all the thinkers who have ever thought themselves tall. His pathos was natural, almost casual. The stoics, ancient and modern, were proud of concealing their tears. He never concealed His tears; He showed them plainly on his open face at any daily sight, such as the far sight of His native city. Yet he concealed something. Solemn supermen and imperial diplomatists are proud of restraining their anger. He never restrained His anger. He flung furniture down the front steps of the temple, And asked the men how they expected to escape the damnation of Hell..."



Joy is often a hidden thing; I am even sometimes unaware of it within myself. But when it shines forth, suddenly, in an unexpected moment... it is then that I know the truth that Teresa of Avila spoke: There is One alive in my very center whose eternal joy cannot be quenched. I know He lives, not because of a philosophical proof, but because in the midst of tears I find myself laughing. Divine mirth.

"Yet he restrained something. I say it with reverence; there was in that shattering personality a thread that must be called shyness. There was something that He hid from all men when He went up a mountain to pray. There was something that he covered constantly by abrupt silence or impetuous isolation. There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth."