Kendra Tierney's Blog, page 5
October 30, 2017
George's Birth Story (Finally!)
He's a good baby. He nurses well and sleeps a lot and has the cutest little smiles. Not to mention the cutest little face.
But he's just very . . . particular, if you know what I mean. He most particularly doesn't care for me sitting at the computer and typing. (Perhaps he got his fill of that in utero, hmm?) He prefers being walked around in the carrier, and enjoys shushing, swaying, bouncing, and patting.
Like this . . .
But he's just very . . . particular, if you know what I mean. He most particularly doesn't care for me sitting at the computer and typing. (Perhaps he got his fill of that in utero, hmm?) He prefers being walked around in the carrier, and enjoys shushing, swaying, bouncing, and patting.
Like this . . .
July 20, 2017
St. Margaret of Antioch Proves That What the Catholic Church Thinks About Women is That They Can Totally Kick Satan's Butt
Happy Feast of St. Margaret of Antioch, virgin, martyr, dragon-slayer. And YOU thought St. George got to have all the dragon-related fun!
Whenever anyone says the Catholic Church wants to subjugate women, I want to make them read The Golden Legend. Because, sure, SOME religions DO want to subjugate women. But ours super-duper does not. The Golden Legend is a collection of hundreds of hagiographies (I
Whenever anyone says the Catholic Church wants to subjugate women, I want to make them read The Golden Legend. Because, sure, SOME religions DO want to subjugate women. But ours super-duper does not. The Golden Legend is a collection of hundreds of hagiographies (I
St. Margaret of Antioch Proves That What the Catholic Church ThinksAbout Women is That They Can Totally Kick Satan's Butt
Happy Feast of St. Margaret of Antioch, virgin, martyr, dragon-slayer. And YOU thought St. George got to have all the dragon-related fun!
Whenever anyone says the Catholic Church wants to subjugate women, I want to make them read The Golden Legend. Because, sure, SOME religions DO want to subjugate women. But ours super-duper does not. The Golden Legend is a collection of hundreds of hagiographies (I
Whenever anyone says the Catholic Church wants to subjugate women, I want to make them read The Golden Legend. Because, sure, SOME religions DO want to subjugate women. But ours super-duper does not. The Golden Legend is a collection of hundreds of hagiographies (I
St. Margaret of Antioch Proves That What the Catholic Church Thinks
About Women is That They Can Totally Kick Satan's Butt
Happy Feast of St. Margaret of Antioch, virgin, martyr, dragon-slayer. And YOU thought St. George got to have all the dragon-related fun!
Whenever anyone says the Catholic Church wants to subjugate women, I want to make them read The Golden Legend. Because, sure, SOME religions DO want to subjugate women. But ours super-duper does not. The Golden Legend is a collection of hundreds of hagiographies (I
Whenever anyone says the Catholic Church wants to subjugate women, I want to make them read The Golden Legend. Because, sure, SOME religions DO want to subjugate women. But ours super-duper does not. The Golden Legend is a collection of hundreds of hagiographies (I
July 17, 2017
I Have Some Things to Report: Part II (a skull fracture)
And now back to the continuing saga of what we've been doing for the past seven months. In Part I (here) we learned that I don't yet have a good grasp of what goes into to painting a room, despite having painted like . . . thirteen of them now. Also, that breaking tailbones is not fun.
Speaking of broken bones . . . we've really been surprisingly free of them around here. All these kids riding bikes and scooters and ziplines, and climbing trees, and jumping on trampolines, and we had NEVER had a broken bone. We'd had two nursemaid's (dislocated) elbows. For the first one, we went to the urgent care, for the second the husband just watched a youtube video and fixed the kid himself right there in the church parking lot. And we'd needed stitches three times (once in France). We didn't take care of any of those ourselves. Although giving myself stitches IS on my bucket list. (I have a weird bucket list. It's mostly dystopian.)
But other than that, over fourteen years, eight (at the time) kids, never a broken bone, never a trip to the ER. I guess when we do something, we like to REALLY DO IT, ya know?
The husband was out of town (in my experience, husbands are usually out of town for this sort of thing). The kids and I had just finished eating dinner out on the patio and I had gone back to the computer to work on the book. Betty was getting the girls ready for bed. The boys were SUPPOSED to be doing the dishes. Often, when the boys are supposed to be doing the dishes, they are instead having dishtowel battles. This time, when they were supposed to be doing the dishes, unnamed brother A picked up a three-foot length of three-quarter inch diameter PVC pipe he found in the yard and winged it towards unnamed brother B. Ya know, like ya do. Brother B deftly stepped out of the way like a bull fighter, and Frankie got javelined square in the forehead.
Brother A came running inside to get me, distraught enough that he couldn't really articulate anything. I came out to find Frankie standing there bent over at the waist with blood pouring out of a cut on his forehead. It was pretty clear he was going to need stitches. Just then Jack got home from baseball practice, grabbed a couple towels and put some pressure on the wound and offered to go to the ER with us. (He's always been SO good in a crisis.) We gave Frankie a sucker to try to calm him down and off the three of us (and my seven month belly) went to the closest hospital ER.
When we got there we were triaged to the front of the line. They took a look, he answered their questions. They agreed that he needed stitches, wrapped him up like a mummy, and sent us back to the waiting room for a few minutes.
Jack, who hadn't eaten dinner, went to the vending machine to get some chips, oreos, and soda (dinner of champions) and I thought Frankie was just resting on my shoulder. But when Jack offered him some soda, he was unresponsive. His eyes were open, but he just wasn't there. It had been maybe thirty minutes since the injury at that point. The nurse was just on her way out to get us, so she took us in a wheelchair to get a CT scan instead of stitches. While in the machine, he started having a seizure. First it was just a twitch on his face, then it was his whole body.
That's when things got crazy. They cut him out of his clothes, and put in an IV, which he didn't respond to at all, then they pulled the curtains and Jack and I were standing out in the hallway. My worry was tempered a bit by frustration and disbelief that all this could have come from something as silly as a piece of PVC pipe.
I called Jim (again) and told him what was going on, and he got up and left his conference dinner and got in an Uber to the airport. I called my friend Micaela and she went over to my house to be with the other kids, and my parents, who left a fancy gala dinner in San Diego and headed up to L.A.
The hospital we were in didn't have a pediatric trauma center, so they called for an ambulance. There just happened to be one there, that had just dropped someone off, so they loaded us in and off we went zig zagging through evening L.A. traffic. Jack in the front, where he got to operate the siren, and Frankie and I and some very nice firemen and paramedics in the back. It was in the ambulance that I learned that he had a displaced skull fracture. That means a whole piece had been broken loose and been pushed inward, increasing the pressure on the brain which resulted in a post-traumatic seizure.
They took us to L.A. County Hospital . . . which was good and bad. Good because they have a LOT of experience with trauma. But bad because it's in a sketchy part of town and the hallways of the ER were lined with shirtless tattooed dudes on gurneys. The lady on the other side of the curtain from us was explaining to a police officer that she didn't know how her teen-aged son got his gun shot wound, because he never tells her anything. Super sad. I'm still praying for her. To get into the main entrance, you have to go through a metal detector, and there are signs on the first floor directing you one way to the cafeteria and the other way to the prison. Because in addition to a top notch pediatric trauma center, they've got a prison.
But really, they were great. We were met by multiple pediatric neurologists and neurosurgeons. It really was amazing. All we could do at that point was wait and see if Frankie had any more seizures, and would therefore need immediate surgery. I was really glad MY teen-aged son was with me (and GSW-free). All those aspects of his temperament that made him tough as a toddler and a little kid, make him really helpful as a teenager. He filled out forms and answered nurses' questions and kept me company for some very long hours.
Eventually, my friend Jennifer came through the metal detector to pick him up, and bring me my medicine and my charger, and she also picked up burgers and brought those too, because she is an awesome mind-reader.
After a couple hours of observation, they brought us to a room upstairs in the pediatric unit. They finally stitched him up, and Jim arrived from the airport just in time to go with him to his second CT scan. They wouldn't let me and the belly even go to that wing. He opened his eyes and seemed to recognize Jim, but still couldn't really talk and was very disoriented.
Then it was just more waiting.
I had shared the picture of Frankie with his head bandaged on social media, because I thought he looked like the "injured guy" emoji, and at that point it was just a trip to the ER for stitches. If I'd known it was a serious injury, I think I probably wouldn't have shared the picture, or anything, on social media. But I ended up so glad I had. It was such a comfort knowing so many people were praying for him and for our family.
The next morning, on the feast of St. Gianna Molla, pediatrician and mother, Frankie woke up at about four in the morning. He didn't have any memory of anything after getting in the car at our house, but he was pretty much himself already. He was excited about getting to eat jello, and about the red light oxygen sensor on his finger, which he liked shooting at people.
He spent the day in the hospital, getting an EEG, watching movies, and playing with toys and games that the candy striper brought. Jim and I spent the day with him, just kind of bewildered that such a silly, freak accident could turn so serious, then completely resolve itself, over the course of one very long day.
The kids were very excited to have him back home. Especially unnamed brother A, who was kind of a wreck about it, even though it really was an accident. Fortunately, it's all pretty much forgotten now. The only lasting effect was that the traumatic brain injury and the anti-seizure medication he was on, kind of reset Frankie to his original factory settings. All the impulse control we have worked with him to develop over the course of many years was right out the window. If he got it into his mind to make a weird noise every few seconds, there was just no stopping him from doing it.
We had a follow-up visit with another pediatric neurosurgeon at another hospital a week after his injury and they took him off the medication which helped a lot. He's back to like 80% whackadoodle, which is better than 120%. And he's got this cool, exactly 3/4 inch diameter, scar. Chicks dig exactly 3/4 inch diameter scars.
The doctor cleared us to go on our scheduled trip the next week to Destin, Florida to meet up with my mom's whole side of the family for my cousin's wedding. It was BEAUTIFUL. My kids are used to the gray water and brown sand of the Pacific. At first, Lulu thought the beach was covered with snow! And it was the perfect opportunity to spend some time being grateful for each and every member of my family!
Still to come . . . my to do list before baby, including item #1: finish book, and item #100: have baby.
Speaking of broken bones . . . we've really been surprisingly free of them around here. All these kids riding bikes and scooters and ziplines, and climbing trees, and jumping on trampolines, and we had NEVER had a broken bone. We'd had two nursemaid's (dislocated) elbows. For the first one, we went to the urgent care, for the second the husband just watched a youtube video and fixed the kid himself right there in the church parking lot. And we'd needed stitches three times (once in France). We didn't take care of any of those ourselves. Although giving myself stitches IS on my bucket list. (I have a weird bucket list. It's mostly dystopian.)
But other than that, over fourteen years, eight (at the time) kids, never a broken bone, never a trip to the ER. I guess when we do something, we like to REALLY DO IT, ya know?
The husband was out of town (in my experience, husbands are usually out of town for this sort of thing). The kids and I had just finished eating dinner out on the patio and I had gone back to the computer to work on the book. Betty was getting the girls ready for bed. The boys were SUPPOSED to be doing the dishes. Often, when the boys are supposed to be doing the dishes, they are instead having dishtowel battles. This time, when they were supposed to be doing the dishes, unnamed brother A picked up a three-foot length of three-quarter inch diameter PVC pipe he found in the yard and winged it towards unnamed brother B. Ya know, like ya do. Brother B deftly stepped out of the way like a bull fighter, and Frankie got javelined square in the forehead.
Brother A came running inside to get me, distraught enough that he couldn't really articulate anything. I came out to find Frankie standing there bent over at the waist with blood pouring out of a cut on his forehead. It was pretty clear he was going to need stitches. Just then Jack got home from baseball practice, grabbed a couple towels and put some pressure on the wound and offered to go to the ER with us. (He's always been SO good in a crisis.) We gave Frankie a sucker to try to calm him down and off the three of us (and my seven month belly) went to the closest hospital ER.
When we got there we were triaged to the front of the line. They took a look, he answered their questions. They agreed that he needed stitches, wrapped him up like a mummy, and sent us back to the waiting room for a few minutes.
Jack, who hadn't eaten dinner, went to the vending machine to get some chips, oreos, and soda (dinner of champions) and I thought Frankie was just resting on my shoulder. But when Jack offered him some soda, he was unresponsive. His eyes were open, but he just wasn't there. It had been maybe thirty minutes since the injury at that point. The nurse was just on her way out to get us, so she took us in a wheelchair to get a CT scan instead of stitches. While in the machine, he started having a seizure. First it was just a twitch on his face, then it was his whole body.
That's when things got crazy. They cut him out of his clothes, and put in an IV, which he didn't respond to at all, then they pulled the curtains and Jack and I were standing out in the hallway. My worry was tempered a bit by frustration and disbelief that all this could have come from something as silly as a piece of PVC pipe.
I called Jim (again) and told him what was going on, and he got up and left his conference dinner and got in an Uber to the airport. I called my friend Micaela and she went over to my house to be with the other kids, and my parents, who left a fancy gala dinner in San Diego and headed up to L.A.
The hospital we were in didn't have a pediatric trauma center, so they called for an ambulance. There just happened to be one there, that had just dropped someone off, so they loaded us in and off we went zig zagging through evening L.A. traffic. Jack in the front, where he got to operate the siren, and Frankie and I and some very nice firemen and paramedics in the back. It was in the ambulance that I learned that he had a displaced skull fracture. That means a whole piece had been broken loose and been pushed inward, increasing the pressure on the brain which resulted in a post-traumatic seizure.
They took us to L.A. County Hospital . . . which was good and bad. Good because they have a LOT of experience with trauma. But bad because it's in a sketchy part of town and the hallways of the ER were lined with shirtless tattooed dudes on gurneys. The lady on the other side of the curtain from us was explaining to a police officer that she didn't know how her teen-aged son got his gun shot wound, because he never tells her anything. Super sad. I'm still praying for her. To get into the main entrance, you have to go through a metal detector, and there are signs on the first floor directing you one way to the cafeteria and the other way to the prison. Because in addition to a top notch pediatric trauma center, they've got a prison.
But really, they were great. We were met by multiple pediatric neurologists and neurosurgeons. It really was amazing. All we could do at that point was wait and see if Frankie had any more seizures, and would therefore need immediate surgery. I was really glad MY teen-aged son was with me (and GSW-free). All those aspects of his temperament that made him tough as a toddler and a little kid, make him really helpful as a teenager. He filled out forms and answered nurses' questions and kept me company for some very long hours.
Eventually, my friend Jennifer came through the metal detector to pick him up, and bring me my medicine and my charger, and she also picked up burgers and brought those too, because she is an awesome mind-reader.
After a couple hours of observation, they brought us to a room upstairs in the pediatric unit. They finally stitched him up, and Jim arrived from the airport just in time to go with him to his second CT scan. They wouldn't let me and the belly even go to that wing. He opened his eyes and seemed to recognize Jim, but still couldn't really talk and was very disoriented.
Then it was just more waiting.
I had shared the picture of Frankie with his head bandaged on social media, because I thought he looked like the "injured guy" emoji, and at that point it was just a trip to the ER for stitches. If I'd known it was a serious injury, I think I probably wouldn't have shared the picture, or anything, on social media. But I ended up so glad I had. It was such a comfort knowing so many people were praying for him and for our family.
The next morning, on the feast of St. Gianna Molla, pediatrician and mother, Frankie woke up at about four in the morning. He didn't have any memory of anything after getting in the car at our house, but he was pretty much himself already. He was excited about getting to eat jello, and about the red light oxygen sensor on his finger, which he liked shooting at people.
He spent the day in the hospital, getting an EEG, watching movies, and playing with toys and games that the candy striper brought. Jim and I spent the day with him, just kind of bewildered that such a silly, freak accident could turn so serious, then completely resolve itself, over the course of one very long day.
The kids were very excited to have him back home. Especially unnamed brother A, who was kind of a wreck about it, even though it really was an accident. Fortunately, it's all pretty much forgotten now. The only lasting effect was that the traumatic brain injury and the anti-seizure medication he was on, kind of reset Frankie to his original factory settings. All the impulse control we have worked with him to develop over the course of many years was right out the window. If he got it into his mind to make a weird noise every few seconds, there was just no stopping him from doing it.
We had a follow-up visit with another pediatric neurosurgeon at another hospital a week after his injury and they took him off the medication which helped a lot. He's back to like 80% whackadoodle, which is better than 120%. And he's got this cool, exactly 3/4 inch diameter, scar. Chicks dig exactly 3/4 inch diameter scars.
The doctor cleared us to go on our scheduled trip the next week to Destin, Florida to meet up with my mom's whole side of the family for my cousin's wedding. It was BEAUTIFUL. My kids are used to the gray water and brown sand of the Pacific. At first, Lulu thought the beach was covered with snow! And it was the perfect opportunity to spend some time being grateful for each and every member of my family!
Still to come . . . my to do list before baby, including item #1: finish book, and item #100: have baby.
July 14, 2017
I Have Some Things to Report: Part I (mostly house stuff)
Hey guys. Did you miss me?
I figured there might still be a few of you who would be interested in some updates to my announcements in my last post (seven months ago!). Let's begin with the most exciting, shall we?
Introducing . . . baby George!
After a very fast (and very easy) labor two years ago resulted in Mary Jane being born at home in the tub after about 8 contractions total and about 45 minutes of labor, start to finish (read about that here) . . . we -- well, mostly the husband -- had really been hoping that we'd make it to the hospital this time. We have moved since our last birth and had a new OB and a new hospital that I was comfortable with, but which are a good twenty minute drive away. I had been praying, and so had many of you! that I would feel labor early enough to head for the hospital before it was too late to even try and that labor would be long enough that we could comfortably drive there and check in and whatnot. And, well, you've heard the one about being careful what you ask for? . . .
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
When last I posted, it was early December, I was hit pretty hard by first trimester fatigue and barfiness and I wasn't going to make my December 6th deadline on the liturgical living in the home book manuscript. The folks at Ignatius were very understanding, and gave me another six months to get the book to them. In late January, I finally started coming out of the fog. So, because I am a person who never, ever learns her lessons, I decided to patch and paint and furnish and decorate the first floor of the house real quick, THEN finish writing the book.
It's mostly Betty's fault.
Her thirteenth birthday was February 6th, and in early January I had told her I just wasn't feeling up to throwing a complicated birthday party, and she suggested that we just have a Sense and Sensibility tea party/movie night with a few girlfriends. That sounded perfect. And easy. But then with just over a week before her party I started feeling a bit more like myself* and all of a sudden I couldn't live with the mac and cheese yellow walls patched with white in each place that the construction guys had put in a switch or outlet. At first I told the husband that all I really needed to do was just prime the walls in the living room and dining room. Then they'd be white not yellow for Betty's party and I could live with that. I'm pretty sure he knew better than to believe me.
* "like myself" meaning "crazy" apparently
As keeps happening on every "little" project I try to tackle with this old house, I kept backing in to bigger and bigger projects. The patched parts of the walls needed texturing, there was a big hole that needed patching -- and texturing -- in the ceiling, and THAT is a huge mess and needs to be done before priming. There was yellow overpaint on the edges of all the wooden doors, and the brick edging, and the stone fireplace. And if we were going to move all the furniture into the middle of the room, we might as well just rearrange it all to its permanent location, right? I didn't want the TV and the comfy couch in the formal living room long term, but that meant I also needed to paint the playroom/TV room and put up curtains in there so we could set up the furniture in that room. Once I had the walls painted, I realized how dingy the ceiling looked and so on and so on and so on.
So, in the week I had before Betty's Jane Austen Tea Party, all I did was make the house a MUCH bigger mess than it was before.
But the party must go on, and it did. We had the couch and TV moved into the playroom and we had the party in there and a good time was had by all. Although I did have to pause the movie and explain to a bunch of 10-14 year old girls what an "illegitimate" child was.
I figured there might still be a few of you who would be interested in some updates to my announcements in my last post (seven months ago!). Let's begin with the most exciting, shall we?
Introducing . . . baby George!
After a very fast (and very easy) labor two years ago resulted in Mary Jane being born at home in the tub after about 8 contractions total and about 45 minutes of labor, start to finish (read about that here) . . . we -- well, mostly the husband -- had really been hoping that we'd make it to the hospital this time. We have moved since our last birth and had a new OB and a new hospital that I was comfortable with, but which are a good twenty minute drive away. I had been praying, and so had many of you! that I would feel labor early enough to head for the hospital before it was too late to even try and that labor would be long enough that we could comfortably drive there and check in and whatnot. And, well, you've heard the one about being careful what you ask for? . . .
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
When last I posted, it was early December, I was hit pretty hard by first trimester fatigue and barfiness and I wasn't going to make my December 6th deadline on the liturgical living in the home book manuscript. The folks at Ignatius were very understanding, and gave me another six months to get the book to them. In late January, I finally started coming out of the fog. So, because I am a person who never, ever learns her lessons, I decided to patch and paint and furnish and decorate the first floor of the house real quick, THEN finish writing the book.
It's mostly Betty's fault.
Her thirteenth birthday was February 6th, and in early January I had told her I just wasn't feeling up to throwing a complicated birthday party, and she suggested that we just have a Sense and Sensibility tea party/movie night with a few girlfriends. That sounded perfect. And easy. But then with just over a week before her party I started feeling a bit more like myself* and all of a sudden I couldn't live with the mac and cheese yellow walls patched with white in each place that the construction guys had put in a switch or outlet. At first I told the husband that all I really needed to do was just prime the walls in the living room and dining room. Then they'd be white not yellow for Betty's party and I could live with that. I'm pretty sure he knew better than to believe me.
* "like myself" meaning "crazy" apparently
As keeps happening on every "little" project I try to tackle with this old house, I kept backing in to bigger and bigger projects. The patched parts of the walls needed texturing, there was a big hole that needed patching -- and texturing -- in the ceiling, and THAT is a huge mess and needs to be done before priming. There was yellow overpaint on the edges of all the wooden doors, and the brick edging, and the stone fireplace. And if we were going to move all the furniture into the middle of the room, we might as well just rearrange it all to its permanent location, right? I didn't want the TV and the comfy couch in the formal living room long term, but that meant I also needed to paint the playroom/TV room and put up curtains in there so we could set up the furniture in that room. Once I had the walls painted, I realized how dingy the ceiling looked and so on and so on and so on.
So, in the week I had before Betty's Jane Austen Tea Party, all I did was make the house a MUCH bigger mess than it was before.
But the party must go on, and it did. We had the couch and TV moved into the playroom and we had the party in there and a good time was had by all. Although I did have to pause the movie and explain to a bunch of 10-14 year old girls what an "illegitimate" child was.
December 2, 2016
Please Stay Tuned for the Following Important Announcements . . .
Hey guys! It's been a while, huh? House stuff, book stuff, school stuff, kid stuff . . . it's all been keeping me pretty busy. But it felt like time to share an update with you, the good and patient people of this blog.
1. Ya know how when you're a Catholic mommy blogger and you say you have an announcement, everyone just assumes you're pregnant? Well, I'm going to go ahead and reinforce that stereotype.
Yep. Baby number nine is due July 4th. I'm about nine weeks along. The kids are super excited about their new little tiebreaker.
2. In related news, I'm NOT going to make my book deadline. Le sigh. I decided to spend the first half of my supposed-to-be-writing-a-book time remodeling the house instead. And, really, I can't regret that. I'm really happy with how upstairs turned out, and it's contributed greatly to my emotional well-being that at least PART of the house looks in reality the way all of it looks in my imagination.
Once summer was over, I tried to be responsible and made myself quit house stuff cold turkey, even though my closet and the husband's office and the chapel aren't done. I was booking right along on the, um, book all through September and October and I am happy with it as a first draft, but I know it needs a lot of polishing and a few more important chapters. I had five weeks to finish it. But then, at the end of October, I sat silently weeping at our homeschool parkday, after a crazy misunderstanding between moms about where the kids should stand to give their saint presentations . . . and I figured I should probably stop by the Rite Aid on the way home. Because there is only ONE reason I cry. And it ain't long distance phone service commercials.
So . . . two lines. And here we go again!
I've been hanging in there with pretty regular-for-me fatigue and nausea. But when your business model depends on you only needing four or five hours of sleep and now you need nine or ten . . . something's got to give. And the kids are louder than the book, what with wanting to eat and learn and be driven places. So the book is still in a very first-drafty stage.
My editor has been very understanding. Perhaps this sort of issue isn't unheard of at a Catholic publishing house? I'm thinking I just need a good solid month with it once I get over the barfy part, which is usually right at twelve or thirteen weeks for me.
It's kind of killing me to miss a deadline. But I'm trying to have some perspective. Better a few months late and coherent, right?
3. Also big news, also related . . . Betty and Bobby started "regular" school with Jack.
I started homeschooling pretty reluctantly, and only because I didn't think we had another good option. But I grew to love it and truly appreciate it as a part of our family culture. I really never intended to homeschool the kids all the way through though. We always hoped we'd eventually be able to move closer to a school we could feel good about.
And we did! But when we asked Betty and Bobby over the summer whether they wanted to start at St. Monica Academy with Jack, they didn't. They wanted to stay in their homeschool group, with their friends, and keep schooling in the way they were used to. With the move, we decided not to push it, but figured they'd start next year.
But they've both been involved with activities in which they've met kids from their classes at the school, and we were all finding that five kids in five grades, plus a preschooler and a toddler made for really packed days. I signed them up for a bunch of online classes, figuring that would lighten my load, but really it just made our schedules crazy and meant we couldn't go on field trips.
1. Ya know how when you're a Catholic mommy blogger and you say you have an announcement, everyone just assumes you're pregnant? Well, I'm going to go ahead and reinforce that stereotype.
Yep. Baby number nine is due July 4th. I'm about nine weeks along. The kids are super excited about their new little tiebreaker.
2. In related news, I'm NOT going to make my book deadline. Le sigh. I decided to spend the first half of my supposed-to-be-writing-a-book time remodeling the house instead. And, really, I can't regret that. I'm really happy with how upstairs turned out, and it's contributed greatly to my emotional well-being that at least PART of the house looks in reality the way all of it looks in my imagination.
Once summer was over, I tried to be responsible and made myself quit house stuff cold turkey, even though my closet and the husband's office and the chapel aren't done. I was booking right along on the, um, book all through September and October and I am happy with it as a first draft, but I know it needs a lot of polishing and a few more important chapters. I had five weeks to finish it. But then, at the end of October, I sat silently weeping at our homeschool parkday, after a crazy misunderstanding between moms about where the kids should stand to give their saint presentations . . . and I figured I should probably stop by the Rite Aid on the way home. Because there is only ONE reason I cry. And it ain't long distance phone service commercials.
So . . . two lines. And here we go again!
I've been hanging in there with pretty regular-for-me fatigue and nausea. But when your business model depends on you only needing four or five hours of sleep and now you need nine or ten . . . something's got to give. And the kids are louder than the book, what with wanting to eat and learn and be driven places. So the book is still in a very first-drafty stage.
My editor has been very understanding. Perhaps this sort of issue isn't unheard of at a Catholic publishing house? I'm thinking I just need a good solid month with it once I get over the barfy part, which is usually right at twelve or thirteen weeks for me.
It's kind of killing me to miss a deadline. But I'm trying to have some perspective. Better a few months late and coherent, right?
3. Also big news, also related . . . Betty and Bobby started "regular" school with Jack.
I started homeschooling pretty reluctantly, and only because I didn't think we had another good option. But I grew to love it and truly appreciate it as a part of our family culture. I really never intended to homeschool the kids all the way through though. We always hoped we'd eventually be able to move closer to a school we could feel good about.
And we did! But when we asked Betty and Bobby over the summer whether they wanted to start at St. Monica Academy with Jack, they didn't. They wanted to stay in their homeschool group, with their friends, and keep schooling in the way they were used to. With the move, we decided not to push it, but figured they'd start next year.
But they've both been involved with activities in which they've met kids from their classes at the school, and we were all finding that five kids in five grades, plus a preschooler and a toddler made for really packed days. I signed them up for a bunch of online classes, figuring that would lighten my load, but really it just made our schedules crazy and meant we couldn't go on field trips.
October 20, 2016
October 10, 2016
How We Discuss Imperfect Heroes with Kids
Happy Columbus Day!
This is not a feast of the Catholic Church, of course, but it's a national celebration (at least it WAS a celebration, now it's more like one-more-excuse-to-be-mad-on-Facebook) of a Catholic person with admirable qualities and great failings, both. So how do we handle a figure like Christopher Columbus with our kids? The same way we do everything else: truthfully.
Christopher Columbus is not to be confused with St. Christopher. He has not been proclaimed a saint by the Catholic Church. That means we don't expect that he lived a life of heroic virtue. That means we shouldn't be surprised when we find that he, like most of us, listened to his little shoulder devil more often than he should have.
Does that mean he cannot be an inspiration and a role model for our children? It does not.
Christopher Columbus (like the founding fathers, and various actors, musicians, and athletes who come into my children's awareness) was given a GREAT GIFT BY GOD. He was smarter, and more determined, and more courageous than the people around him. God made him with a purpose, and because he corresponded with the gifts God gave him, Christopher Columbus lived a life of extraordinary adventure and accomplishment. He was a Catholic, and it's clear from his journal entries, that he loved God and wished to glorify God through his discoveries.
However, he was also a very flawed human being. It appears that he allowed himself to care more for glory and riches for himself in this world than he did for knowing, loving, and serving God and preparing himself for eternal life.
He was a visionary, daring to attempt feats no one had attempted before. But he became so obsessed with finding a passage to India and China, that he never himself appreciated having discovered a New World!
He was an inspirational leader, able to rally his men in the face of great hardship. He was also a ruthless leader, resorting to very cruel punishments.
He was a Catholic who valued his faith and wished to bring it to the people of the world. But he seems never to have really viewed the native people of the Americas as worthy of the respect and dignity due every human person. He tricked and enslaved and mistreated Native Americans in a shameful way. He impersonated a god in order to bend them to his will. That's a real no-no for Catholics.
Despite his great gifts, at the end of his life he was an unhappy, unsatisfied man.
He should have taken his own advice: "No one should fear to undertake any task in the name of Our Savior if it is just and if the intention is purely for His holy service."
So, in our home, we discuss Christopher Columbus as an American Hero (from Italy via Portugal) with very real human failings. We talk about how he could have handled his life differently, how he COULD have lived his life to merit being called St. Christopher, Christ-bearer. We hope and pray that, at the end of his life, he took responsibility for his failings and made a good confession and received the sacraments and that he is in heaven today.
We talk about St. Brendan, a Catholic who visited the Americas eight hundred years before Columbus and didn't trick or enslave ANYONE. Someone who DID live a life of heroic virtue.
And we use this same method to discuss Olympic athletes who have mind-blowing physical gifts, but appear to be less-than-humble, and singers with angelic voices and terrible judgement, and founding fathers with an amazing intellect and admirable vision and self-sacrifice, who allowed and/or perpetrated the bondage of other human beings at the founding of our nation.
The term "devil's advocate" is taken from a role formerly used in the canonization process in our Roman Catholic Church. In 1587, Pope Sixtus V established a process involving canon attorneys in the roles of Promoter of the Faith or Devil's Advocate. The devil's advocate person argued against the canonization (sainthood) of a candidate in order to uncover any character flaws or misrepresentation of the evidence favoring canonization.
Saint Pope John Paul II reduced the power and changed the role of the office in 1983.
St. JPII doesn't want us to be devil's advocates. I'm pretty sure he'd want us to be honest about people's flaws, but not dwell on them, and certainly not deny the obvious gifts that God has given some people, just because they're total knuckleheads in other aspects of their lives.
My kids see my failings every day, on good days they see their own failings. But I don't want them to define me or themselves by only our failures. I want them to search for the good in everyone. I want them to find inspiration everywhere.
. . . . .
And, I'm back! But not really. Thank you all, my dear readers, for your patience as I disappeared from the blog here. It turns out that I DO have a maxed out point and remodeling a house + keeping said house clean + looking after a husband and eight kids and their food and clothing related needs + homeschooling five grades + driving and volunteering for one in regular school + writing a book is it for me. Something had to give and it was this. But I miss it SO MUCH, and this particular post has been bouncing around in my head for months and months and finally burst out of me this morning.
In addition to all the very real and pressing concerns in our world, would you please say a prayer for me as I try to get this book written by December? So many of you have told me you would appreciate a book on how we live our faith and the liturgical year in our home, and I've wanted to write one ever since I started the blog. But I am having a terrible time trying to focus on getting it done in the midst of the rest of my crazy life and all my personal failings. I have yet to resort to trickery and enslavement, but I have wasted a LOT of time on Facebook and Netflix.
Also, despite me being a TERRIBLE blogger at the moment, at least one of you saw fit to nominate me as one of the best at the Fisher's Net Awards. There's really no accounting for you guys. Probably you should vote for Bonnie or Haley instead of me, but that's your call. Double cheek kisses for everyone.
This is not a feast of the Catholic Church, of course, but it's a national celebration (at least it WAS a celebration, now it's more like one-more-excuse-to-be-mad-on-Facebook) of a Catholic person with admirable qualities and great failings, both. So how do we handle a figure like Christopher Columbus with our kids? The same way we do everything else: truthfully.
Christopher Columbus is not to be confused with St. Christopher. He has not been proclaimed a saint by the Catholic Church. That means we don't expect that he lived a life of heroic virtue. That means we shouldn't be surprised when we find that he, like most of us, listened to his little shoulder devil more often than he should have.
Does that mean he cannot be an inspiration and a role model for our children? It does not.
Christopher Columbus (like the founding fathers, and various actors, musicians, and athletes who come into my children's awareness) was given a GREAT GIFT BY GOD. He was smarter, and more determined, and more courageous than the people around him. God made him with a purpose, and because he corresponded with the gifts God gave him, Christopher Columbus lived a life of extraordinary adventure and accomplishment. He was a Catholic, and it's clear from his journal entries, that he loved God and wished to glorify God through his discoveries.
However, he was also a very flawed human being. It appears that he allowed himself to care more for glory and riches for himself in this world than he did for knowing, loving, and serving God and preparing himself for eternal life.
He was a visionary, daring to attempt feats no one had attempted before. But he became so obsessed with finding a passage to India and China, that he never himself appreciated having discovered a New World!
He was an inspirational leader, able to rally his men in the face of great hardship. He was also a ruthless leader, resorting to very cruel punishments.
He was a Catholic who valued his faith and wished to bring it to the people of the world. But he seems never to have really viewed the native people of the Americas as worthy of the respect and dignity due every human person. He tricked and enslaved and mistreated Native Americans in a shameful way. He impersonated a god in order to bend them to his will. That's a real no-no for Catholics.
Despite his great gifts, at the end of his life he was an unhappy, unsatisfied man.
He should have taken his own advice: "No one should fear to undertake any task in the name of Our Savior if it is just and if the intention is purely for His holy service."
So, in our home, we discuss Christopher Columbus as an American Hero (from Italy via Portugal) with very real human failings. We talk about how he could have handled his life differently, how he COULD have lived his life to merit being called St. Christopher, Christ-bearer. We hope and pray that, at the end of his life, he took responsibility for his failings and made a good confession and received the sacraments and that he is in heaven today.
We talk about St. Brendan, a Catholic who visited the Americas eight hundred years before Columbus and didn't trick or enslave ANYONE. Someone who DID live a life of heroic virtue.
And we use this same method to discuss Olympic athletes who have mind-blowing physical gifts, but appear to be less-than-humble, and singers with angelic voices and terrible judgement, and founding fathers with an amazing intellect and admirable vision and self-sacrifice, who allowed and/or perpetrated the bondage of other human beings at the founding of our nation.
The term "devil's advocate" is taken from a role formerly used in the canonization process in our Roman Catholic Church. In 1587, Pope Sixtus V established a process involving canon attorneys in the roles of Promoter of the Faith or Devil's Advocate. The devil's advocate person argued against the canonization (sainthood) of a candidate in order to uncover any character flaws or misrepresentation of the evidence favoring canonization.
Saint Pope John Paul II reduced the power and changed the role of the office in 1983.
St. JPII doesn't want us to be devil's advocates. I'm pretty sure he'd want us to be honest about people's flaws, but not dwell on them, and certainly not deny the obvious gifts that God has given some people, just because they're total knuckleheads in other aspects of their lives.
My kids see my failings every day, on good days they see their own failings. But I don't want them to define me or themselves by only our failures. I want them to search for the good in everyone. I want them to find inspiration everywhere.
. . . . .
And, I'm back! But not really. Thank you all, my dear readers, for your patience as I disappeared from the blog here. It turns out that I DO have a maxed out point and remodeling a house + keeping said house clean + looking after a husband and eight kids and their food and clothing related needs + homeschooling five grades + driving and volunteering for one in regular school + writing a book is it for me. Something had to give and it was this. But I miss it SO MUCH, and this particular post has been bouncing around in my head for months and months and finally burst out of me this morning.
In addition to all the very real and pressing concerns in our world, would you please say a prayer for me as I try to get this book written by December? So many of you have told me you would appreciate a book on how we live our faith and the liturgical year in our home, and I've wanted to write one ever since I started the blog. But I am having a terrible time trying to focus on getting it done in the midst of the rest of my crazy life and all my personal failings. I have yet to resort to trickery and enslavement, but I have wasted a LOT of time on Facebook and Netflix.
Also, despite me being a TERRIBLE blogger at the moment, at least one of you saw fit to nominate me as one of the best at the Fisher's Net Awards. There's really no accounting for you guys. Probably you should vote for Bonnie or Haley instead of me, but that's your call. Double cheek kisses for everyone.
May 18, 2016
So. Many. Decisions. (We went with Purse, Snail, Radio.)
The end is coming into hazy view on the horizon . . . of phase one, anyway. Phase one of at least three (but probably more like thirty-seven) phases of the fixer-upping of Gramblewood. Our contractor says he'll be done with the kitchen and the upstairs in about two weeks. I need to finish all the painting upstairs. And we need some furniture. I'm hoping that once school is done for the year at the end of this week, I can really focus on that stuff. And THEN, we can move upstairs, and unpack all the boxes in the garage that we packed up last June (unless I "accidentally" set them all on fire to avoid that), and we can start cooking IN our HOUSE. Crazy. But true.
I'm thinking we'll be up there in a month. Or by the end of June anyway. We shall see.
I knew going into this that a big issue a lot of people have with remodeling a house is decision-fatigue. How it feels so exciting to be choosing things at the beginning of the process, but that by the end you're just throwing darts at an old Ballard Designs catalog that came int he mail to the previous owner in order to pick furniture because you have no more cares to give.
Maybe I'll get there, we have a long way to go. But so far, I'm still having fun with it. And in a lot of ways, I feel like I'm only now rounding into mid-season form. I'm getting better at this. I'm actually feeling grateful that I wasn't more organized about my design choices before we moved in, because now that we've had some time to live in the house, I'm definitely making different choices.
Some modernizing is going to be necessary in a house built in 1920 that still had a few push button light switches around, but the longer I'm in the house, the more I appreciate the craftsmanship that went into all this old stuff, despite its current shabbiness. I had to watch Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries and Gran Hotel again on Netflix. For important historical research. And now maybe Poirot? If I'm method designing, I need to stay in character.
I've been able to find light fixtures and doors and doorknobs at local architectural salvage places and on eBay, to go along with the quirkier Etsy/Ikea/Anthropologie stuff I had chosen before we moved in.
All these lights were made before 1920. The flush mounts are really different from the recessed can-lights we've had in every house ever. But I really love how they look. (Don't mind the smoke alarm + shower cap.)
It took over a week for them to repair and sand down all the wood floors upstairs, and I kind of loved it. The whole house was filled with a fresh pine scent, thrumming with white noise, and vibrating like a magic fingers coin-operated bed. Frankie, who almost never naps anymore, was powerless against sleep. It was awesome.
Then we had to choose a finish.
We have two different kinds of wood upstairs: oak on the stairs and in the boys' and girls' rooms, and douglas fir in the master bedroom and office. My Instagram peeps will, I'm sure, be excited to learn that we went with "purse" (upper right) on the douglas fir in the grownup suite.
and "snail" (bottom right) for the kid areas, figuring that it would show less dust, on the off chance that the kids don't dust that often.
The floor in the boys' closet and bathroom currently looks like this:
which I love, but I have much, much grander plans for it. So far, those plans have involved me and a bunch of linoleum and a hooked razor blade and a hairdryer and a couple old WWI Marine Corps recruiting posters and much gnashing of teeth and cursing of said linoleum (but never the Marine Corps) and the eventual offloading of the project into the hands of a professional. So we'll see how it turns out. Hopefully in the next few days.
In the kitchen, the cabinets are all in, and the counter tops are in, and the new old doors are in, and the windows have been replaced. We had about twenty layers of paint stripped off of the amazing solid-wood doors in there. I can't believe anyone ever painted them!
My only contribution to the kitchen so far was turning this:
Into this:
with some awesome period reproduction wallpaper from Michael Uhlenkott.
That's the back of the glass cabinets (that don't yet have the glass in them, or shelves), the wallpaper is also on the inside of the solid cabinet doors, and might end up inside some drawers, too.
The glass in there will be the original wavy glass from the butler's pantry, and we're also going to reuse all the hardware that was in the kitchen when we moved in, as is. It seems to be from a few different eras, but I like the idea of some part of the old kitchen living on in the new one.
The kitchen is almost all white. White cabinets, white counter tops, it's going to have a white subway tile backsplash. But the floor . . . the floor is NOT white.
Many of my five hundred and forty-three and counting remodel-related decisions have been shared (and voted upon) on Instagram. Including what the pattern of the linoleum floor tiles was going to be.
We went with . . . radio (bottom). For me it has a symmetry that the regular pattern on the right doesn't have. That one ends up feeling slant-y to me. The random pattern on the right was my original vision for the floor, but I ended up preferring a more traditional feel in pattern, with such a very nontraditional color palette.
I love this floor. I understand if you don't. We can still be friends. But it makes me smile. And the kids think it's awesome. I think it's evocative of the traditional 1920s black and white checkerboard kitchen floor, but with an unexpected twist.
Appliances and plumbing and shelves and knobs all happen this week. Yay!
I can't wait to see how it all turns out.
I'm thinking we'll be up there in a month. Or by the end of June anyway. We shall see.
I knew going into this that a big issue a lot of people have with remodeling a house is decision-fatigue. How it feels so exciting to be choosing things at the beginning of the process, but that by the end you're just throwing darts at an old Ballard Designs catalog that came int he mail to the previous owner in order to pick furniture because you have no more cares to give.
Maybe I'll get there, we have a long way to go. But so far, I'm still having fun with it. And in a lot of ways, I feel like I'm only now rounding into mid-season form. I'm getting better at this. I'm actually feeling grateful that I wasn't more organized about my design choices before we moved in, because now that we've had some time to live in the house, I'm definitely making different choices.
Some modernizing is going to be necessary in a house built in 1920 that still had a few push button light switches around, but the longer I'm in the house, the more I appreciate the craftsmanship that went into all this old stuff, despite its current shabbiness. I had to watch Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries and Gran Hotel again on Netflix. For important historical research. And now maybe Poirot? If I'm method designing, I need to stay in character.
I've been able to find light fixtures and doors and doorknobs at local architectural salvage places and on eBay, to go along with the quirkier Etsy/Ikea/Anthropologie stuff I had chosen before we moved in.
All these lights were made before 1920. The flush mounts are really different from the recessed can-lights we've had in every house ever. But I really love how they look. (Don't mind the smoke alarm + shower cap.)
It took over a week for them to repair and sand down all the wood floors upstairs, and I kind of loved it. The whole house was filled with a fresh pine scent, thrumming with white noise, and vibrating like a magic fingers coin-operated bed. Frankie, who almost never naps anymore, was powerless against sleep. It was awesome.
Then we had to choose a finish.
We have two different kinds of wood upstairs: oak on the stairs and in the boys' and girls' rooms, and douglas fir in the master bedroom and office. My Instagram peeps will, I'm sure, be excited to learn that we went with "purse" (upper right) on the douglas fir in the grownup suite.
and "snail" (bottom right) for the kid areas, figuring that it would show less dust, on the off chance that the kids don't dust that often.
The floor in the boys' closet and bathroom currently looks like this:
which I love, but I have much, much grander plans for it. So far, those plans have involved me and a bunch of linoleum and a hooked razor blade and a hairdryer and a couple old WWI Marine Corps recruiting posters and much gnashing of teeth and cursing of said linoleum (but never the Marine Corps) and the eventual offloading of the project into the hands of a professional. So we'll see how it turns out. Hopefully in the next few days.
In the kitchen, the cabinets are all in, and the counter tops are in, and the new old doors are in, and the windows have been replaced. We had about twenty layers of paint stripped off of the amazing solid-wood doors in there. I can't believe anyone ever painted them!
My only contribution to the kitchen so far was turning this:
Into this:
with some awesome period reproduction wallpaper from Michael Uhlenkott.
That's the back of the glass cabinets (that don't yet have the glass in them, or shelves), the wallpaper is also on the inside of the solid cabinet doors, and might end up inside some drawers, too.
The glass in there will be the original wavy glass from the butler's pantry, and we're also going to reuse all the hardware that was in the kitchen when we moved in, as is. It seems to be from a few different eras, but I like the idea of some part of the old kitchen living on in the new one.
The kitchen is almost all white. White cabinets, white counter tops, it's going to have a white subway tile backsplash. But the floor . . . the floor is NOT white.
Many of my five hundred and forty-three and counting remodel-related decisions have been shared (and voted upon) on Instagram. Including what the pattern of the linoleum floor tiles was going to be.
We went with . . . radio (bottom). For me it has a symmetry that the regular pattern on the right doesn't have. That one ends up feeling slant-y to me. The random pattern on the right was my original vision for the floor, but I ended up preferring a more traditional feel in pattern, with such a very nontraditional color palette.
I love this floor. I understand if you don't. We can still be friends. But it makes me smile. And the kids think it's awesome. I think it's evocative of the traditional 1920s black and white checkerboard kitchen floor, but with an unexpected twist.
Appliances and plumbing and shelves and knobs all happen this week. Yay!
I can't wait to see how it all turns out.
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