Kathleen M. Basi's Blog, page 73

The State Of Julianna’s World

It’s been a while since Julianna’s taken the spotlight. And considering that it’s taken until 8:45 in the morning to work up the post-viral energy to sit down and blog at all, I’m going to take it easy today and just share a few thoughts about the state of Ju-Ju-Bee’s world.

She continues to be a social butterfly, making friends and making herself known wherever she goes. Every time I enter her school I am bowled over by how great the community is. Everyone knows her. I don’t know if that’s the case with everyone who attends school there, or if it’s just her, because she’s distinctive and she doesn’t allow people to ignore her. But she’s definitely got what is often referred to as a “fan club” there.

Generally she’s doing well in the first grade. She did have a non-compliant day last week, which caused her to miss story time so she could finish her work. But so far her reports are actually better than last year’s. She doesn’t “excel” at anything, but we’re very happy to see check marks instead of minus signs.

Shoe thief extraordinaire, enjoying the pool at her grandparents’ house. The life jacket made my life a whole lot easier.

The hardest thing about raising this chromosomally-gifted child is not even the delays, it’s the difficulty in excavating the school experience. I have absolutely no idea what they do in music class or art class, for instance, and I’m going on faith and watching how she does homework to know what she’s learning–because she can’t communicate those ideas. She’s trying to talk a lot now, and it’s absolutely adorable when she gets on a roll trying to tell us something. She rushes through her sentences and punctuates them with staccato “Um–um–um!”s when her brain outpaces her mouth’s ability to move. When she does this we almost never understand more than a word or two, but often by thoughtful questions we can get to the essence of the matter. Often, but not always. She handles being misunderstood with great grace. She’s getting very good at talking with her hands–sometimes in sign, but often just gesturing to body parts or whatever to clarify what she’s talking about.

For instance: early in August, at her well child visit, we had to go do a blood draw to check her thyroid levels–something that is commonly out of whack in kids with Down syndrome. When we walked into the phlebotomy room, the woman began doing her work, and I looked her up and down and said, “You’re going to need more people.” We ended up with four: me to hold her body (my legs wrapped around hers), one to hold her blood arm, one to hold her other arm, and one to take the blood sample. (Incidentally: thyroid normal. Booyah.)

A week later I had to have a blood draw. Julianna handled it rather well, I thought, but at odd intervals ever since she comes out with something that sounds like “boh-dah.” It took me forever to figure out what she meant, until she tapped the inside of her elbow. And last week, at a family dinner night at her school, one of the staff members said she’s been trying to tell her about this for weeks.

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“helping” Grandma make peach pie.

Anyway, the point is that with all of this it’s really hard to know what’s going on in my daughter’s life when she’s away from me. The night of the family dinner, I took time to chat with her teacher, who promised to send me a daily email to tell me how things went. I was and remain floored by that. Talk about above and beyond!

On the home front, she’s quite empathetic. Whenever someone is crying she wants to comfort them, and yesterday when I was lying on the couch the entire day feeling like I wanted to die, please God just let me die, she kept coming over and giving me hugs. She’s not a snuggler except when she first wakes up. Christian’s usually the one who reaps the benefits of that nice long cuddle, but once in a while I get one.

She also has finally, finally reached a cognitive level where she likes to watch real movies. For six and a half years, the only thing she wanted was Signing Times, Your Baby Can Read, and home movies. This summer she fell in love with “hoe-ee” (horsie), a movie called Second Chances. More recently she has attached to A Bug’s Life, and last night she was enthralled by Toy Story 2. It’s so gratifying to see her finally reaching the developmental point where she can follow and enjoy a story, you know?

When we read to her she spends as much time watching our mouths VERY CLOSELY as she does looking at the book.

I am sure there was much more I wanted to say, but I’m having hot flashes again, which tells me I need to go lie down. Whatever this virus is, people, I hope you never get it.

Sunday Snippets

Time for another roundup of Catholic bloggers at RAnn’s This, That & The Other Thing. Care to join us?

RAnn’s question this week is: What is your favorite formal, i.e. memorized, prayer? I’m going to cheat and say Psalm 139, because the memorized prayers are soothing rather than spiritually deepening for me.

This was Nicholas-the-jabbermouth week at my blog. Here, I talked about something he made me realize about myself. And here I just shared a smidgeon of what my life is like for one week with him. I also shared a video of Julianna, who is now in the first grade, reading.

We also had our fourteenth wedding anniversary this week.

Not a lot of profundity this week. Maybe next week!

 

Nicholas Speaks

As promised, it’s time for a post of Nicholas-isms. Are you ready? Here are some of the memorable things that came out of his mouth this week.

Random one-liners

“Yay, my muscles are all growed!” (after finishing his milk)

“Mommy, how do you get rid of a Christmas tree?” (On September 2nd.)

“Mommy, how do you make hand soap?”

“Is blue a color?”

“When can we ride on the fire bucket truck?”

“Mommy, can I tell you a joke?” (Breaks into the tune of the Star Spangled Banner. “When the ba-a-a-bies ate their own diapers!”

“Why is there wind outside? How do you make people? What happens if the blood stops pumping?” (Bam-bam-bam, just like that, with barely time for an answer between.)

“I poked Michael! Put the poke on there, Mommy!” (As I sit down to write the first three, after telling him what I’m doing.)

Memorable things said to me about Nicholas:

“Boy, he’s a talker.” (Random older man walking ahead of us in the mall, upon turning around to see who the motormouth is.)

“Why are you so talkative?” (His cousin E., while she’s trying to turn a somersault on a bungee trampoline, and he’s, yanno, talking nonstop.)

Conversation #1

Michael is yelling. “Nicholas, what are you doing to him?”

“I’m ANNOYING him!”

“Well, stop it!”

“Ridiculous Nicholas!”

Conversation #2

“Mommy, what’s this music?”

“Uh, I’m not sure. It’s either Mozart or Haydn, but I’m not sure which.”

“It’s Mozart.”

“Oh, you think so?”

“Yup.” Pause to sing the chant version of “Lord Have Mercy.” Then, “No, I think it’s Hide-out.”

(Pause for Mommy to get in a good belly laugh…internally.)

Then, “No,” he says seriously. “It’s Mozart. Because it’s getting louder.”

In case you’re wondering, it did turn out to be Mozart.

Conversation #3

“Okay, time to go to sleep, Mr. Cute.”

“Mr. Cute? Don’t call me Mr. Cute!”

“Well, what should I call you? Ridiculous Nicholas?”

“No! Call me Bad Boy Bad Girl Doom Ice Cream.”

“Uh…okay.”

“It has wasps and bees and beetles in it, and if you eat it…”

“You’re doomed?”

“No!” Overtired giggles. “Bad boy Bad Girl Doom Ice Cream!”

Fourteen Years Ago…

…this is what we were doing.

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At the end, we joined our choir (the one where we met).

*

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Now brace yourself. This next photo is really, entirely, wholly, completely liturgically inappropriate. But it was also unstaged, and for that reason it’s precious in my memory.

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Another unscripted moment with my whole family…

…and apparently we were singing something. But I don’t remember what.

Happy anniversary, honey. It’s been quite a ride, hasn’t it?

Photo courtesy of Tina Sbrigato Conley, http://www.fahrenheitnyc.com/

Introvert, Extrovert, Jabbermouth

Can you see that he’s even talking to the GOATS???

A couple of weeks ago, we had quite a discussion here about introverts and extroverts. Mostly introverts, because you know, the blogosphere is a haven for introverts.  Everybody who ever felt socially inept, unpopular and never fit in has found here a community of our own kind.

I don’t exactly fit in to the neat, tidy categories, which has always made me a bit uncomfortable with them. But one of my commenters, the lovely Michelle of Endless Strength, clarified that introverts aren’t necessarily shy. They can function in company, it’s just that it doesn’t energize them–it drains them. They need to recharge afterward.

Well, yesterday morning I took Nicholas to the grocery store. Mindful of another recent blog conversation, I left the radio off and decided to take the time to focus on this child who, candidly, is by far the most difficult of them (so far). He never shuts up, and he turns everything into a battle, and thus our interactions all too frequently consist of me shutting him down or forcing him to comply with instructions. I wanted this trip to be time to bond instead.

So when he launched his usual epistle of questions that make no sense and cannot be answered in human or angelic tongues, I took a deep breath and problem solved them to an answer anyway. Or I asked him to answer them himself, because I think this is how he processes his world–via Q&A.

When Nicholas talks (and talks, and talks), I almost always get this tight, anxious feeling in my chest, this seizing up of my intellect and a crying need for silence. But yesterday I made the colossal effort required to keep my brain moving and my heart open, and I talked to him. All the way to the grocery store. All the way around the grocery store. All the way home from the grocery store.  I’m pretty sure I answered something on the order of two hundred fifty questions in that time, and not one of them yes or no.

(My dad once said of Nicholas: “You could just let him talk, but the problem is, he expects an answer!”)

I keep using this shot, but it so perfectly encapsulates his character!

It was a good trip, and I was grateful for it. But two hours after we got home, the boy was still talking. Still asking questions. Still expecting answers. I short-circuited. “Nicholas!” I cried. “You haven’t stopped talking for SIX HOURS! I need a break! Just stop talking!”

(That might have been a slight exaggeration, but he was talking to Alex when he wasn’t talking to me, so it probably wasn’t that  far off.)

He paused then, as if his little brain was processing.

And in that blessed moment of quiet, for the first time I recognized Michelle’s definition of an introvert. I had put the effort in to interact with him, but afterward I needed a rest!

This also explains why I have such a difficult time writing when he’s around. He punctuates the entire day with words, and  as a mother knows, you can’t just block out your child’s voice. He’s your priority, and your brain is wired so that any vocalization of your child has direct access to the “attention” center in your brain. My concentration snaps the instant his voice registers.

Have you ever had that experience where you are just about to drop off to sleep, and the baby wakes up? It’s torture. That’s how writing with Nicholas around is. Every time I almost get a thought formed, there he goes again, and my eloquent thought  goes: Poof!

This has been the insight. I’ve identified the problem now: a need for recovery following intense interaction. Now the question is, how on earth do I get him to cooperate?

(Stay tuned. Friday’s post is going to be a collection of everything Nicholas says this week. Well. Not everything. But the most noteworthy things.)

Julianna

The boys have been taking center stage on the blog lately, so I wanted to do a post about Julianna. Unfortunately, it’s Labor Day and on Labor Day, we, uh, labor. Because we don’t have enough time to get all our labor done on non-holidays. Hence, it is 1:15 p.m. and I’m just going to share a video and call uncle. See you tomorrow!

(Incidentally, I took a better video, but a naked toddler crashed through the middle of it, and we don’t post naked shots. Guess you’ll have to make do with this.)

Sunday Snippets

Joining up with RAnn’s This, That and the Other Thing Sunday Snippets: A Catholic Carnival on this Labor Day weekend. Our question of the week is: What ministries are you involved in at your parish? My husband and I lead the “contemporary” ensemble at our parish, and we teach natural family planning through the Couple to Couple League. Those are both pretty intensive, especially considering the four kids, so we don’t do any more than that on a regular basis. Before kids I was liturgy and music director full-time at our parish, and before that I was Life Teen music director at another parish in town.

My contributions this week:

In Which A Road Trip With My Kids Provides Me Boundless Material For A Blog Post

What I Love About Michael

Alex

(all of those falling in the “antics of cute Catholic kids” category)

The Line Between Doing Too Much And Nothing At All

 

In Which A Road Trip With My Children Gives Me Endless Material For A Blog Post

This week, I had occasion to spend two hours in the back of the van, squished between my two middle children. It was extremely illuminating. You know how children are always screaming, “Stop touching me!”? Yeah, I might have been heard to say that a dozen times once or twice. Nicholas, you see, felt a need to rub back and forth over a mole on my arm until it hurt, and Julianna wanted to pat my other one.

I also learned, through the ignoring of repeated instructions to “stop talking for one minute PLEASE!”, that Nicholas’ ability to rest his vocal cords is three seconds long. When he runs out of things to say, he starts warbling: “WaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAay! DuhUHuhUHuhUHuhUHuhUHuhUH!”

We pulled off for gas at the exit for the hospital where all our children were born. “Oh, I guess we’re going to have a baby tonight,” I joked. To my right, Julianna grew very still, her little face blank with intense concentration. “I’m joking, Julianna,” I said hastily. “We’re not having a baby. This is just the exit where the hospital is where we had all of you.” I looked at Nicholas, whose excitement was quickly draining. “Why, do you want another baby?”

“YEAH!” both of them chorused.

“Okay, fine,” I said, “but you guys have to change all the diapers.”

Dead silence. (Three seconds long.) Then Nicholas said, “NoooOOOOO! That’s disGUSting! YOU do the diapers, Mommy!”

“Nice,” I said. “So you guys get to play with a baby and I have to clean up all the meses. How typical.”

“Yeah!” Nicholas said. “If it’s a girl YOU change all the diapers, and if it’s a boy DADDY changes all the diapers.”

In the meantime, Alex got carsick. A lot.

We got back on the highway, and Nicholas proceeded to sing a long song about babies and diapers and who changes them, set to the tune of the Star Spangled Banner. Being accustomed to Nicholas’ unique form of storytelling, I didn’t think anything of it, until up in the front seat, my grandmother’s shoulders began to shake, soon followed by my husband’s.

He is a stitch, my third-born.

 

What I Love About Michael

He’s so good-natured. He’s so quick to smile, and it’s such a cute smile too. He loves to laugh, and unless he’s feeling bad–hungry, tired, achy, or generally overwhelmed by his siblings–he just doesn’t fuss a lot. (Of course, when he does throw a tantrum it takes an unattractive form; he slowly and carefully bangs his head into the floor and then wails all the louder. I always tell him I have no sympathy. But the tantrums don’t last long. Yet, anyway.)
The way he makes his desires known. He’s quite slow to start talking, yes, but he is very specific about pointing. When you bring his food to the table, he points to the specific spot on his tray where he wants it: “Put it there, please.” Looks down, looks up.
The way he shakes his head “no” to mean “yes.” Stinkin’ adorable.
His physical prowess. I wasn’t prepared to have a 10-month-old walker–the rest of my kids reached that milestone quite considerably later–but it’s something else to watch an early walker keep exploring the world. He’s climbing ladders on the playground that none of my other kids even looked at until they were 2 1/2. Of course, that makes him more dangerous, too (he keeps climbing a ladder that’s up on our deck), but still, in between near-heart-attacks I am filled with wonder.
He loves to be tickled and chewed on. Alex and I both get the joy of making him giggle–deep, full-throated belly laughs that can’t fail to make you smile.

There’s nothing quite like little boys, and I’ve been triply blessed.

The Line Between Doing Too Much And Nothing At All

How many people can actually enter through “the narrow gate”? The priest posed this question this weekend. He went on to use Joan of Arc as an example of someone who did exactly what she was told by God to do, regardless of what anyone else thought. Our job is the same: to figure out what we are called to do. Not anybody else. Our own personal calling. The answer to the question of how many can enter through the narrow gate, he concluded, is one. Each person’s path is his or hers alone.

Alex leaned over to me and whispered, “What’s he talking about, Mommy?”

“You remember how I’m always saying ‘you take care of you’?” I answered. “He’s telling us it’s not our job to figure out what everybody else is supposed to be doing. We’re supposed to figure out what God’s asking us to do and do it, not try to tell everyone else what they’re doing wrong.”

This theme, of “stay the heck out of everybody else’s business,” is one that weighs on me a lot lately, probably because I have a house full of miscreants who love to mind everyone’s business but their own. It seems simple, but it’s not. Because there are times when someone needs to tattle on their baby brother who has moved the stool over to the kitchen counter and is, oh, I don’t know, playing with the sharp knife block.

It’s not hard to see the application to the larger world. Most of us are quick to pass judgment on news stories and situations we observe. We have easy prescriptions for what ails the world; we assume that what we’re called to is what everyone else is called to, and the fact that their lives don’t look like ours means they’re wrong, wrong, wrong. It’s easy to spend so much time minding everybody else’s splinter-in-the-eye that we forget our primary responsibility is to remove the plank in our own.

But.

Photo by Sepehr Ehsani, via Flickr

There’s a line between minding everybody else’s business and doing nothing at all. If we focus myopically on our own business to the exclusion of the larger world, then the work of spreading the Gospel won’t get done. Our lives, and therefore our faith lives, are lived out in a community of believers and unbelievers, in a social and political culture caught between high ideals and human nature. We have to do something. After all, sometimes the baby’s into the knife block.

Still, we have to recognize the limits of our influence. When we talk about making a difference we always think big: changing the world by impacting the culture, and especially politics.

Now, it’s probably no secret that I’m deeply, deeply jaded about politics. I’m just not convinced it really matters all that much who’s in charge. And my ability to sway them is zero. I know, because every once in a while I can’t help myself and I write a spate of letters to politicians. And they always send me back a form reply that goes something like this: “So sorry you disagree with me, but I’m clearly right so I’m going to ignore what you think, but I enjoyed our conversation and hope we have many more like it, until you change your mind and we become perfectly unified in belief.” I got one of those replies this morning…six months after I wrote to said politician.

The Narrow Gate (Photo credit: Peeblespair)

Clearly, my ability to impact the public sphere through the political process is zero. My energy would be far better spent sprinkling leaven among those closest to me. To live the faith and reach out to people by kindness and action. And I’m guessing the same is true for most of us.

Discerning right action is always going to be a tricky, non-sustainable balance between doing too much and doing nothing at all. But I’m guessing if we focus on identifying the “narrow gate” God is calling us to enter, what lies beyond it will become a lot clearer.