Lord, That I May See

This breaks my heart. All I want to do is hold and love and kiss the little one inside of me while my hot and angry tears flow. http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?id=10831

My parents, my 8 siblings, my husband, Turtle and I in May 2007 John Paul II in Love and Responsibility : "To create a family means to create a community, since the family is a social unit or else it is not a family. To be a community it must have a certain size. This is most obvious in the context of education. For the family is an educational institution within the framework of which the personality of a new human being is formed. If it is to be correctly formed it is very important that this human being should not be alone, but surrounded by a natural community. We are sometimes told that it is easier to bring up several children together than an only child, and also that two children are not a community--they are two only children. "It is the role of parents to direct their children's upbringing, but under their direction the children educate themselves because they develop within the framework of a community of children, a collective of siblings. " ( emphasis...

What I am no longer allowed to do (according to a certain someone who I suspect may be a dictator in a very cute disguise): Dry my hair with the blowdryer -- too scary Look at a hymnal in Mass all to myself and on the correct page -- too stingy Wear a necklace -- too envy-inducing Sit on the little chairs in the kitchen -- too violating-of-personal-property-rights Apply stretch mark cream -- too . . . I-don't-know-what? Drink or eat anything that I am not prepared to share at least half of -- too tantalizing Wear sunglasses when I drive (or anytime!) -- too maddening! Shower with the curtain closed -- too private Drive past the park or the library and not stop -- too tragic Go out just to the drive-thru at the bank and then go home and never get out of the car -- too infuriating Get the mail out of the mailbox on my own -- too annoying I have very strict rules that I must follow in this house. Pardon me, my mistress is calling. *********************** ETA: The R...

when, upon being denyed the exciting ability to connect to the internet via mommy's cell-phone, she proceeds to: -- scream very loudly -- fling herself on the ground -- bang her forehead on the ground and then on the leg of the table -- get up and run to her room to knock toys from the shelf to the floor -- spot the laundry basket, be offended by it's presence, and so overturn it and hurl clothes to the floor But, you know she's still only a baby when something as small as a button on her shirt in the dirty clothes distracts her and stops her screams all at once. And you know that her mother is a bad mommy when all she can do is watch and laugh helplessly. But quietly. Cholerics don't like being laughed at.

A friend of ours visited us one Sunday afternoon a few weeks ago. He is a lover of the Tridentine Mass and of all things old and traditional that relate to the Catholic Church and its Sacraments or ceremonies. In the course of talking about this coming baby, my pregnancy and how I was doing, he asked me if I had heard of the Catholic "old rite" ceremony of the Churching of Women. I had. My understanding of it was that it was a "purification" ceremony following childbirth that hearkens back to the Purification of Mary. In Jesus' time, every Jewish woman had to be purified before entering the temple because the blood of childbirth had made her unclean or contaminated. So, I shrugged a little. I was not interested in the idea of being "cleansed" after my childbirths, as if I had just finished doing something ugly, dirty and degrading. Yes, Mary submitted to it humbly, but that was the rule of that time and that time was different. Why on earth the Catholi...

Why do I spend hours reading book after book till I'm blue in the face to a little girl on the potty, who though she be cute and chubby, almost NEVER produces the desired results . . . EVER? Why, after above-mentioned hours and hours, does said cute and chubby girl proceed to have three accidents in one morning, each one 5 minutes after the three potty-sitting-sessions? Why do I involuntarily say "Uh-Oh" every time she has an accident, causing the poor thing to say "Uh-oh" when she actually DOES it in the potty? Why this morning did I somehow end up with a mess on the floor of the living room and the bathroom, the seat of the potty, the underwear and the child, and STILL not get anything INTO the potty? And why was the same mess followed immediately by another in the diaper as soon as she got into bed? Why is a mess in the diaper SO fascinating to my child that one awful week, 4 mornings out of 7, I found that mess spread high and low, on crib rails, on blankets...