Twenty Questions and Then Some: Breakfast on the Porch with Anthony

Just the questions. Anthony is suddenly in the asking questions phase, with a vengeance!  I got a notebook and started writing them down about seven or eight questions in.  It was an experiment to see how many he could ask in one meal if not stopped. Oscar is the two-year-old boy who lives two doors down, and Anthony and Katie Rose clearly just love him. The experiment was stopped in the interest of the subject consuming more calories than he was burning while eating his breakfast.

Disclaimer: You might need a grown-up drink when you're done reading this list.

Is Oscar awake? Can I play with Oscar today?
May I pet your dog, please?
Can I go see if Oscar's awake now?
Why is Oscar still sleeping?  Is Oscar sleep-deprived?
Can I please have some coffee?
Is coffee a grown-up drink?
Is coffee like wine?
Why does Daddy say, "Coooofffeeeee?"
Do butterflies poop?
Where does the poop come out?
Hey, look there's Bearcat! Can I go pet him?
Is Oscar awake now?
What are we going to happen today?
Hey, can I ride that bus?
Does that bus go to Daddy's work?
Are we going to the library for storytime today?
Are we going to get books?
With Oscar?
Will we get a train book?
Can I go give Oscar his Thomas back?
Katie Rose, can I have your strawberries please?
Do we have more strawberries?
Do we need to go the store?
Do we need to go the store tomorrow?
Can I push the little cart? And Katie Rose, too?
Why are my Cheerios all soggy?

Never a Dull Moment

It's been eventful lately, around here.  We had a birthday, a feast day, a power outage, a fire, and lots of dessert.

First up, feast of St. Anthony of Padua, and the Second Annual St. Anthony's Treasure Hunt.  The treasure was cake, given us by a neighbor with fantastic timing.  I didn't take many pictures, but I did take this one as Ryan was reading the first clue:

 

 Love the anticipation on Anthony's face!  I did take some short video of them finding each clue to share with Ryan's family, as they did treasure hunts all the time with Ryan and his sister.

On Saturday Ryan spent twelve hours or so moving extremely heavy machinery.

Father's Day.  The photo sums up what Ryan felt like doing.  I drew a train track on the back of that t-shirt with a Sharpie, for use exactly as seen here.

It should say, "Best Patriarch Ever" on the front.

We mostly relaxed and did things together like a normal Sunday, but we did go out for ice cream!

Monday our power was out for the entire day. It was our first hot day for a long time, and our substation was overloaded.  The place where our power would have been re-routed was unfortunately down for maintenance, so first summer blackout for us. I had planned on laundry, vacuuming, you know, Monday after a messy weekend stuff. But this did afford me a chance to get a start on my Little Oratory!

This isn't exactly how I want it, but it's a start! For one thing iron that cloth since I have electricity back now!  Our "family altar" has been our mantle. But it was too high to be really used and I honestly never really liked the images of the Sacred Heart and Immaculate Heart there because they just weren't that good but I felt that I had to place them up there because obviously Sacred Heart is important!  So they were there but I never really looked at them while praying. They were much too high anyway, especially for kids.  Auntie Leila addresses all that in the book.  I've lit my candle and did my morning Lectio Divina at the prayer table yesterday and today.  So far so good. I would like a standing crucifix so it can be in the center of the table, and spots for more Rosaries and maybe a small shelf for the Breviary books.  The nails were already there so I used them like that for now. Under the cloth are little drawers that are sure to be handy for holy cards and other devotional ephemera.

Oh!  I can't forget to mention the power came back on around dinner time.  A few minutes later the transformer in front of our next-door neighbor's house catches FIRE.  Power out again.  Fire truck, police cars, Christmas for my kids.  I suppose everyone cranking the AC overloaded the line.  Fire's out, we go get Ryan from work and make it to Wendy's for supper.  8:30, kids in bed, Ryan's off to Adoration, Rosary said.  BANG!  BANG BANG BANGBANGBANG!  Duke Energy is replacing the blown transformer with a jackhammer, apparently.  And there are TWO trucks! Right in front of our house!  And there are men up in the sky, mommy! Oooh, and fireflies!  Can we catch them?

10:30, all is quiet again.

Yesterday, the man of the house turned 28.   Anthony especially was wanting to make this a very special birthday for Daddy.  He assisted with baking the cake:

 

We had some help reducing it to half this fast. :)

 And with decorating:

My mom gave us a bin of decorations when she was decluttering. That banner on the door is about as old as Ryan is. There is a picture of me somewhere at my first birthday party with that banner in it.  We also found Blue's Clue's napkins from the last millennium, and balloons and streamers in my high school's colors.

Anthony also made a book for Daddy's birthday present, all about an adventure Anthony and Daddy make together.  I had no idea he was capable of making a story with an actual plot to it! 

Today was mostly normal, except for Anthony managed to unlock, open, and climb out of his bedroom window on to the roof, with Katie Rose right behind!  Thank God thank God thank God I was only a few seconds behind them and nobody was hurt.  Anthony doesn't seem to grasp at all that it was a very dangerous thing to do, despite my hysterics.  Ryan and I are going to be childproofing upstairs windows tonight for sure.


Edited to add this to the Little Oratory link-up.  Click http://www.likemotherlikedaughter.org/your-little-oratory to see other little oratories!

June Is Bustin' Out All Over! A Peek at the Vegetable Garden

Oh my goodness, the vegetable garden is the exploding phase!  The pea vines that the seed packet promised would only reached two feet high are easily four.  Hundreds of green tomatoes are popping out.  We've eaten up most of the radishes before they got smothered by the rest of the verdant mess.

I really pack my garden tight, with the obvious exception of the bed in the front right.   If there is a spot of bare soil I will find something to plant there.  For one thing, I didn't want to double dig this year.  It is a big pain with our heavy clay.  I also keep a variety of plants all mixed up together, and feed with compost all the time, so I think it should be okay for soil quality long-term.  The other bonus is less weeding, since there just isn't much room for weeds!

Sometimes though, I forget all about little things that I planted under taller things.  Like the arugula that the tomato plants covered up.  A sad little yellow flower bolted to the surface, and I thought, "I wonder what that could be?"  Oh yes, there's about a square yard of arugula under all of that!  We'll be having that with our pizza tonight!

These things from outer space are onions.  I grew them from seed last year, but they were so puny at harvest-time that I decided to leave them and see if anything would happen.

Pea vine jungle!  Usually the peas are long finished by mid-June, but we had such a late spring they are just flowering now.

This may be unclear, but down the middle of the tomato bed I have Romaine lettuce in the very center, flanked by cucumber plants.  The cukes will grow up and over the lettuce on a string trellis.  They shade the lettuce, so I can keep growing it through the hot summer months.

Roma tomatoes!  I have ten plants of these.  Right now things are looking good for canning spaghetti sauce!  Also visible is some of the forgotten arugula and butterhead lettuce.

We're getting tomatoes before peas this year!  And aren't green bean blossoms pretty?

Tons and tons of tomatoes!!!  These are "Jelly Bean."

I don't know why this photo is upside-down.  But it's a pumpkin vine sprawled over the hugel.  That's basically a glorified compost pile, because there is just too much carbon from the wood underneath for things to grow well there this year.

Also upside-down.  Biggest broccoli head I've ever grown!  How to I know when to harvest it?  And yes, I am that pale.

And finally, a miniature chicken up in a tree.

Miscarriage

I had an "I'm pregnant!" post all ready to go.  There were just a few relatives we needed to inform before I could tell the internet.

And then I started bleeding.

This really could be like a birth story, but horrible.   In fact, many women have written them.  I've decided not to publish the physical details of my miscarriage.  If you really want to know, my blog isn't the vehicle for that. If you don't want to know, well then that's just awkward. The essential facts are that I was supposed to be 11 weeks pregnant, but the baby died around week 6 or 7.  Once we confirmed via ultrasound that the baby had died, we let nature take its course and no other intervention was necessary.

I do want to talk about what happened after the miscarriage.  In our culture, we do not grieve publicly.  Especially after a miscarriage, we don't even talk about it.  I have been guilty of saying, "I'm okay," when a friend kindly asked how I was, even though I was definitely not okay.  It's an automatic reaction. 

But more than that, the culture at large doesn't recognize a miscarriage as a true death.  If you're grieving, it's for what might have been and disappointed hopes, not for a particular child with an eternal soul who can never, ever, be replaced.  Even if you get pregnant again immediately and have a baby in January instead of October as originally expected, there was another person, your child, who DIED and you will not meet him or her this side of Heaven.  That child's life, brief as it was, is just as real and unique as anyone else's.  And just as deserving of being honored and respected.

Even those who believe that a baby is a baby from the moment of conception do not understand this.  I didn't understand it myself until I lost my child.  It's just something I didn't think about, precisely because miscarriage is so invisible to everyone else.  There was a doctor who wanted to take away the baby's tiny body for "testing".  Testing for what, I have no idea.  But I asked how soon I would get the body back for burial and she looked at me like I was insane.  Then she put on her compassionate voice and said, "That's not what they do."  This was at a Catholic hospital.  They do not do abortions or sterilizations.  But bury a miscarried child?  It simply isn't done.  But if we believe that's a human person, there is absolutely no reason NOT to give the child a respectful Christian burial if it is at all possible.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

In talking to other women who have had miscarriages, especially multiple miscarriages, they are all unique much in the way that every birth is unique.  Even if they don't name their children, the memories of each don't blur together.  My own mother related the events of all three of her miscarriages in precise detail, even though the most recent one was over seventeen years ago.  Of course this is all anecdotal, etc. take all disclaimers as read.  I didn't have to work too hard to gather this evidence.  All it took usually was a friend saying, "Oh, I'm so sorry.  You know, I lost two babies myself."  And almost all of them said their miscarriage(s) were one of the worst experiences of their lives, unprompted by me.  Often I had no idea they had had a miscarriage at all, even the ones I consider close friends.  See?  We just don't talk about it.  I'm not advocating that we talk about the deaths of our little ones to all and sundry, but it's absurd how taboo the topic seems to be.  So many women, and men too, go through this!  My midwife told me that as many as 50% of pregnancies end in loss of the baby.  We need to talk about this.  Especially as pro-life people, how do we support those grieving the loss of their child, how do we honor the lives of even the littlest ones we've lost, that we've never known and never will?  There are many, many things to discuss on the subject.

First of all, we named our baby.  Joseph Martin Keane.  It just seemed fitting for a child to be given a name.  It was obviously too early for us to know for sure of his being a boy, but I had a boy feeling all along so we went with it. Joseph for St. Joseph, of course.  Martin for Bl. Louis and Zelie Martin.  They lost three infant sons themselves, all of whom they named "Joseph." I do think of him by name.  It seems to help for grieving a particular person rather than just a generic, abstract, "baby."  I may have another baby.  I will never have another Joseph Martin.

Naming Joseph was also helpful in honoring him as our son and we are and will always be his parents.  Nobody else could give him a name.  And really, that is one of the only things we will ever be able to do for him.  Now, two months later, I think of him by name every day.  Of course his soul is eternal whether I named him or not, but he is alive to me in a particular way and I can pray *to* him as my own little saint in a way that I think would be difficult to experience if he were merely, "the baby we lost."  Also, it does witness to the unique humanity of each individual, no matter how small.

If you are one of the many women who have lost a baby and you haven't already, I encourage you to give your child a name, even if it is years ago.   Pray about what it should be.  It doesn't have to sound good with your last name or anything.  This name is for your child, and for you.  We wouldn't have chosen "Joseph" for a child brought to full term, because "Joe Keane" would always be thought to be just "joking!"  But it was meaningful to us and the circumstances of his life, and therefore the right name for this child.

And I am praying for you tonight.

Answer Me This: More drama than you bargained for in a link-up.

1. What's the scariest thing that's ever been in your yard?

I should say the hawk that swooped down and decapitated our poor, sweet Buff Orpington.  Our neighbor scared the hawk away for me, and I never actually saw it happen. So really the bloody headless chicken was scarier for me, because what do I do with that when I have a little boy and a toddler, both of whom I'd like to protect a little from the brutality of nature, and more importantly, whom I did not want messing with a carcass.  My husband wouldn't be home for hours, so I had to deal.  Such is the life of a wannabe homesteader.

Some sidewalk chalk kept the children busy on the patio while I hid behind a tree and savagely ripped the feathers and most of the skin off of her.  While I was out of view of the children, I was in full view of the neighbor, who shouldn't have needed to be shielded from the brutality of nature but was a little grossed out that we were going to EAT that.  He still eats our eggs and asks for gardening advice so I guess we're still cool.  I stuffed the chicken in a plastic bag which was then stuffed into a plastic bin and put out in the chilly yard until I could fully butcher her that evening.  I made chicken cacciatore and a very rich broth out of Hermione.  Both were fabulous, even if she was a rather small chicken.

Eating his favorite chicken and liking it! And yes, he did know who/what it was.

 The true answer to this question, however, is rats.  Or the distempered opossum.  No, no, it's the rats.


2. Beards. Thumbs up or thumbs down?

Thumbs up.  Truly, I have a thing for beards.  They're just manly looking.  And therefore attractive.

It makes me a little sad that my husband will never, ever have one.  A beard on Ryan would be more of a scarf.  So on my husband, a big thumbs down.  It would be extremely weird.  His blue eyes make up for it, I guess.

I guess I should say I had a thing for beards.  Not have.  You know, married woman n'at.  But I can still have a thing for flannel shirts and muddy work boots.

3. If stuff breaks, can you fix it?

Ryan can!  In his flannel shirt and muddy work boots. :-) 

Bow-chicka-wow-wow.

Ok, ok, Ryan almost always wears polo shirts and sneakers. I'm very anti-polo shirt.  Polo shirts are worn by every sort of corporate drone, from fast food drudges to cubicle prisoners to child slaves of the educational establishment.  I would be in full support of a polo-burning, like the mythical bra-burnings of the 1960s.  I'm telling you they're instruments of oppression!

What was the question?  Oh, right.  I've got some mad superglue skillz.  If it requires sewing, I can fix it after it sits in my mending bag for several months.  If it's anything mechanical or requiring tools, then it goes on the honey-do list, generally.  Ryan's become rather handy since we've become homeowners.  He's taught himself to build things and do electrical work.  Now he's talking about redoing the kitchen himself and I have no doubt he's capable of it.

4. What was your first car?

I've never had my own car, believe it or not.  I learned to drive on my dad's Toyota Echo, which was a nice little car I guess.  Then there was Ryan's Jeep, which I kindly totaled for him.  The airbags blew while he was PARKED so he cut them out and put duct tape all over the steering wheel.  Then it broke down three or four times in just a few months.  Clearly the best course of action was to have two wheels buckle under me on an exit ramp, then go spinning around into the embankment. I was fine, and the insurance company gave him more than he originally paid for the piece of junk.  (Don't try this at home, kids.)

5. How often do you eat out?

We actually gave up eating out for Lent.  We've gone out a couple of times since Easter, and my in-laws have been generous with meals out while they were visiting last week.  So I don't know, ask me again in a few weeks if you really care that much.  Goal is to have it only be something we do when it's planned and appropriately budgeted as a date or other special reason, or if we otherwise can't avoid it when traveling.  I've had success with meal planning, and I'm working on rebuilding my freezer stash for those days where we otherwise might resort to pizza/Chipotle. It's a bad habit, but my family did it twice a week or so when I was growing up so it seems so normal.  And I work hard, I deserve it, right? BAD BAD BAD self-talk!  Think "money for kitchen remodel" instead!  Have a goal, visualize that brand-new beadboard backsplash and farmhouse sink as a backdrop for all the home-cooked goodness that is not eating crappy guilty takeout!

Much better than Panera!

6. Why is your hair like that?

Oh, man, is that ever a complicated question.

I had it short and liked it a lot, but Ryan would look at my shorn head and cry for a week whenever I got a trim.  I'm exaggerating, but not by much.  Truly, he had a hard time even looking at me for a while he hated it so much.  I've learned that it's not at all unusual for husbands to mourn their wives' shorter hair, but my husband was definitely at the extreme end of that spectrum. 

We fought about it for a long time.  It's my hair, how dare you reduce my attractiveness and femininity to this one attribute, etc. etc.  It was ugly. He felt terrible about the whole thing but just couldn't help that visceral dislike of what he perceived as unfeminine, even though my haircut would have looked really dumb on a man and he knew it.  He felt like I was betraying him in some way, even though of course I had no such intention. It was sort of a role-reversal, since I was the one trying to be reasonable and he was just being so dang emotional in full contradiction of what I saw as the facts.

We prayed together through the whole thing. As stupid as it seemed on the surface, I think getting through this rough patch together really helped our marriage a lot.  I did decide to grow my hair out again out of respect for my husband.  Faster showers were not worth this sort of emotional turmoil. And yes, I felt totally free to decide for myself because we both agreed it was not a husband's place to dictate to a wife what her hairstyle must be.  Because I obviously couldn't just make my hair magically long again, we were still forced to work through the deeper issues at work in this situation.

My one regret is I didn't oh-so-sweetly ask him to burn the polo shirts soon after telling him I was growing my hair out.


Now go and read Kendra's answers at Catholic All Year!  She probably doesn't have quite so much psychology going on.

*Edit: Actually, Haley is hosting this week.

Why You Need to Find a Babysitting Buddy

My babysitting buddies have changed my life.  Really.  How would you like to get some time to yourself on a regular basis?  It's really so simple!

From last summer, when Emily and I started this switcheroo.

Tuesday is Emily's day.  We meet for 9:00 Mass, and afterwards she will take care of my children until 1:00.  She even picks up Anthony from preschool and feeds them both lunch.  That is my time to do whatever I wish.  Go shopping, take a nap, get a haircut, clean like a crazy person, sew, anything I need or want to do.  The next Tuesday I will take care of her daughter Emily Rose while Emily has some time to herself.

Thursday is Bridget's day.  Our sons are in the same preschool class, so we trade off Katie Rose and Molly at school.  While preschool is in session, one of us is has free time while the other babysits.

Tea party with Molly.  How cute is that!?

I think every mother should find a buddy or two.  It has made such a difference to have those few hours every week that I can count on for myself.  Sometimes it's truly "me time," other weeks not so much, but I know I will have it regardless!  It's also good for Katie Rose, because she gets two weekly playdates out of this arrangement!  I also get to socialize.  There is always time for chit-chat when we pick up and drop off.

It does mean that for every morning I have free, I have to babysit an equal amount of time as well as do some extra driving around on Tuesdays.  However, I still think it's completely worth it.  I really enjoy my friends' children, and Katie Rose gets along with them both just fine.  Even on days I'm the babysitter, I often find myself able to do some things around the house or yard while the girls entertain themselves.  It's no hardship at all.  It's also a good excuse to do fun outings to the playground or the zoo in good weather!

Best friends.

For such a simple concept, it really surprises me how few people I know do something like this!  Individualist society grumble grumble.  Mothers need to be able to rely on each other!  It is important to find the right buddy.  This might be tough if you don't have many friends in the same stage of life as you.  Can you think of anyone with a schedule similar to yours?  Children who get along well with your children and you wouldn't mind seeing every week?  Someone who lives close by or who could meet you somewhere convenient?  If so, screw up your courage and ask her to be your buddy!

Help Me to Come Closer to God by Myself: RPOTC Chapters 1 & 2

Catechesis is about forming a relationship. A relationship begins the very day, the very moment, that God creates that child in his mother’s womb, before the mother is even aware of that child’s existence.  Catechesis is not only about reciting the Ten Commandments and the Hail Mary, although we absolutely should teach our children these things. However, what we usually think of as “religious education” is merely the body, which serves the purposes of the soul.  The soul of religious education is that relationship of love with God that makes us desire to know more and more of Him.

None of us women in the group on Wednesday had heard that idea before, although all of us immediately saw it is true.  We’ve done things like have our toddlers blow kisses to Jesus in the tabernacle, sang our babies “Jesus Loves Me,” and such, long before we ever thought of “Catechesis” in the formal sense.  It’s just right.  But it’s beautiful to read it in such language as Cavalletti’s, confirming what we’ve already intuitively grasped and expanding upon it, giving us the privilege to see just how deep the love of God and a child can go.

Some of the anecdotes were surprising to us, especially about children from atheistic homes wanting to go to church and be baptized.  I think the most surprising part was that the parents went along with it!  The book doesn’t say, but we wondered how long those parents stayed atheists.  Also the part about how well behaved the children always were during and after Mass.  As hard as we try, that is not usually our experience!

We spent time discussing just how total children are.  They throw themselves wholeheartedly into each and every little thing they do.  And so trusting.  What adult would allow someone to throw them up in the air four times their height?  Not only allow it, but to think it great fun?  A big concept of these chapters is the essentiality of the child, meaning they go straight to the heart of things with no pretense, no self-consciousness, not holding anything back.  We think this quality of little children is what Jesus meant when he said, “Unless you become like little children…”  Little children want what Cavalletti calls the “vital nucleus,” the most essential, complete truth.  This is like planting a seed.  All of the plant is there, complete and present in the tiny seed, but of course it must grow and develop.  Another analogy I found helpful was that of St. Paul’s comparison of spiritual milk vs. meat (1 Corinthians 3:2).  When a baby is breastfed, the mother’s milk is the only food he gets.  However, it is perfect and complete in every way, easy to digest, meeting his every nutritional need.  So too should our presentation of the Gospel be to small children.

I also shared a picture that my son Anthony drew in the Atrium.  It illustrates the concepts in these chapters of children having a mysterious knowledge of God.  Here is his explanation:  "It’s a picture of God. He is very very happy in Heaven.  It is always light there.  It's a city in Heaven but I just drew God and the sun."  I asked him about the three people, and he said, "That's just God.  That one is Jesus. (The green figure in the middle.)"  

We all felt a sense of peace from reading these two chapters about our vocations as parents.  By helping our children to come closer to God by themselves, we are merely facilitating a perfectly natural and joyful process.  “Raising our children up for heaven” is big responsibility that certainly will involve a great deal of sacrifice and struggle, but it is the very nature of children and of God to establish a relationship of love between them.  We do not have to force it to happen, and really, we should never try because love cannot be forced anyway.  Obedience, perhaps, but never love.  Really our responsibility is to bring them to Jesus by bringing them to the Mass, reading the Scriptures with them, and then getting out of God’s way.

As mothers often do, we veered away from the book proper a little bit into practical applications of these ideas.  We talked about sitting up front at Mass so the children could see and participate in what was happening.  About encouraging spontaneous prayer by asking our children, “Would you like to pray for anyone tonight?” or, “What would you like to say to Jesus?”  Sometimes when we’ve done this we’ve been surprised by their responses, like four-year-old Thomas saying he was thankful for “Jesus and Mary.”   

We all thought it was a good idea to write down these little moments of grace, so we could remember them ourselves and also to share with them when they are older.   On the other hand, we don’t want to make a fuss over these things, lest we damage the beautiful natural spontaneity and un-self-consciousness of childhood.  The last thing we want is them trying to please us, to be clever or show off how "good" they are.  We should just appear to take no notice, because in truth these things are perfectly natural and not the result of any extraordinary goodness of our child.  And then exult over them with our husbands after the children are safely asleep!