Life With A New Baby In the House

An odd thing has started happening to me.

I'll be chatting pleasantly with someone when suddenly my conversation partner would look over at cute Baby Tess, grimace and mutter "I bet that new baby is really messing up your older kids home-schooling experience!"

It happens over and over again.

I first noticed this phenomena while talking to my OB. He's says "Abby, do you need any birth control?"

"No!" I giggled. I smile at the baby in my lap and 3 bored children hanging off of various pieces of medical equipment. (Because that's how we post-NICU mother's roll. You must take all FOUR children to a post-birth vaginal exam because your poor husband has already exhausted all of his 2010 sick leave.)

"Instead, you'd rather have a tutor! Right Abby?"

"Huh?"

"You know, a tutor . . ." my doctor said uncomfortably "for your kids . . . because your home-schooling is going so badly this year.

"SAY WHAT???"

Until I started getting bombarded with criticism, I didn't think our home-schooling was going so badly this year. Since my 1st and 2nd grader can discuss organic chemistry with their Dad on weekends and polish their basic phonic skills with Mom on weekday mornings, I figured we were we solidly on track.

Granted, as the sleep deprived mother of a newborn, I'm not the most creative teacher this Fall. Home-schooling comes behind making sure that Baby Tess is healthy and growing, insuring my Family has clean clothes in their drawer and good food in their bellies.

All the same, the stream of comments started getting under my skin. So during Thanksgiving break, I kicked our school lessons into higher gear.

Which all explains why this morning I was sitting in front of a chalkboard with Baby Tess trying to teach my seven year old daughter Hannah double digit addition.

We'd hit a rough patch. Hannah could add double digit numbers when they were listed out horizontally (10 +15 = 25) but she was having trouble when the equations were listed out vertically. Suddenly the number 1,105 was showing up as an answer to the above equation.

I could tell that Hannah was about to lose it. When things get tough, my sanguine tends to fly off into an 'This is too hard and I can NEVER understand it" tantrum. I could see the cracks beginning to surface. We were way past my usual line "Jesus likes it when we do hard things for him, it's called perseverance!"

Totally inspired, I picked up sweet Baby Tess and used her as a ventriloquist.

"Shh! Don't worry Hannah, I know the answer." I had the speechless baby say to her sister.

Then I picked up a piece of pink chalk and put it in the baby's hands. I had Baby Tess assume the classic Thinker's pose.

"Hmmmmm!" Baby Tess said. "What can be the answer to 10 +15? I know! I know!"

Putting my hand on top of Baby Tess I had her draw out a bottle under the equals sign!

"That's it! That's it!" I had Baby Tess sing out merrily! "Hannah the answer to all of life's problems is always a bottle of milk!"

My stressed Hannah went from mad, to confused, to side splitting laughter. She thought my little comedy routine was the bees knees.

After we'd played out the comic math lesson, giving the further answers of "a pacifier" and "a clean diaper", I shrugged my shoulders.

"Maybe you should take another try" I suggested gently. "It doesn't seem like Baby Tess is much help on the math section of your Quiz Bowl Team!"

Hannah happily picked up the pieces of her math equations and went on to correctly answer 4 new problems.

So that would be the answer that I'd hand my doctor and all those naysayers out there.

Yes, babies are hard work. Babies are messy. Babies do tend to throw off your normal routine and spiral your life into chaos.

HOWEVER, at the exact same time babies can help propel your entire family forward.

If my Hannah was an only child, I'd have many more hours each week to go over double-digit addition with her. Most of that "extra" time we would have spent butting heads and becoming increasingly miserable.

Sometimes what you really need is a silly, giggly, newborn baby Sister in your math class to make things come out right.

The Deep Mystery of the Incarnation

From Five Hundred Chapters by St. Maximus the Confessor, abbot.

"The Word of God, born once in the flesh . . . is always willing to be born spiritually in all who desire him. In them he is born as an infant as he fashions himself in them by means of their virtues. He reveals himself to the extent that he knows someone is capable of receiving him. He diminishes the revelation of his glory not out of selfishness but because he recognizes the capacity and resources of those who desire to see him. Yet, in the transcendence of mystery, he always remains invisible to all."
(Advent, Office of the Readings, pg. 519)

Prayer: How the Lost Get Found!

Have great HOPE for success from the Holy Father's call for a prayer Vigil tonight for Nascent Human Life. Even stubborn hearts can get turned around with the touch of Christ's grace.

I should know!

(For the full story on how I went from a pro-choice, career-obsessed Protestant woman to a pro-life, Catholic mother of five click here.)

Vigil for Nascent Life

The Holy Father has asked all Catholics to hold a vigil for Life on this last day before the Advent Season.

"Today, Pope Benedict XVI has called Catholics worldwide to a special prayer for the most vulnerable persons in the world with a profound conviction that our attention to them is the cornerstone to peace on earth.

He asked every bishop to lead his diocese in a Vigil for Nascent Life.
This prayer will be prayed in Catholic churches around the world, invoking God's protection on all human beings who have been called into existence.

Our Holy Father Pope Benedict recently said, "when the promotion of the dignity of the human person is the primary inspiration of political and social activity that is committed to search for the common good, solid and enduring foundations are created for building peace and harmony between peoples."

In our world today, those who were just conceived and those who are in the womb of their mothers are often not shown peace, but the opposite. Their lives are ended.
We pray today for the many ways that human life, the very gift of God, is threatened and often deemed useless.

We pray to end abortion; we pray for the embryos stored at fertility clinics; and we pray for those newly created human persons in research clinics whose fate is destruction.

In this prayer, we also pray for ourselves, that we might be instruments of God's love to ensure all lives are treated as sacred.

It is important for us to remember not only the fetus and the embryo, but also those who are in a position to bring dignity to the very delicate life of the unborn person.

In our prayer this evening, we ask for the protection of pregnant women who are vulnerable to physical violence that they might be safe from harm and their child might be safe as well.

We pray for those parents who have received a diagnosis of a fetal abnormality of their unborn son or daughter. May these parents receive the grace and support to celebrate the life of their very special child or children who may have special needs so that they choose life for their loved ones without falling to the pressures of abortion.

Our prayer extends to medical research and science.
May God's natural law be applied in all testing, remembering that every human person is precious to God.
As the Judeo-Christian Scriptures proclaim in Psalm 139 (13-14), "You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother's womb. I praise you, so wonderfully you made me; wonderful are your works!"

May our medical treatments using adult stem cells continue with the great success we have already achieved, so that cures continue to help those afflicted while no emerging humans or nascent life is destroyed in the treatment of disease.
I have invited the pastors in our diocese to share in this Vigil for Nascent Life at our Sunday Vigil Masses this evening." (quoted article from Cleveland Catholic Diocese)

Baby Skylar is Home!

Thank you for all the prayers said on behalf of Baby Skylar, my baby Tessy's old roommate at the NICU. After 87 days, this baby is now HOME! Thank you, St. Nicholas!

 

Here's a picture I snapped last week with Mom and baby hanging out in Skylar's new "big girl crib".

Enjoy life outside the NICU, Baby Sky! As Miss Tess can tell you, it's easy livin'. All the food you want, whenever you want it. No one waking you up in the middle of the night to draw blood. No weird tests or funny smells or uncomfortable NG tubes down your throat. A Mommy who suddenly doesn't have to drive an hour just to change your diaper. Sunshine on your face.

Life with a healthy, pretty Skylar is going to be beautiful!

This Thanksgiving, I'm Thankful For Baby Tess

 

. . .and all the people who cared for her
. .. all the people who loved her
. . . and all the people who prayed for her!
Thank you!

Turkey Trot

 

After four years of resistence, this was the year that I finally brought my kids to my Sister Emily's favorite athletic event "The Turkey Trot." As my husband said, after my sister's heroic service to my family during Baby Tessy's illness "Give Aunt Emily anything she wants!" (My Sister is the one in the middle holding my daughter, Maria. She just finished running the Marine Corps Marathon last month.)

In previous years, I was rather smug about going to Mass in the morning and hosting Thanksgiving at my house in the afternoon. I felt like charity runs were a tad less important than eating Jesus himself. I ate humble pie when I realized this year that the food pantry which hosts this charity event, So Others Might Eat (SOME) was actually run by a Catholic priest.

I was totally shocked by the amount of money friends donated to this run. In one day, we raised what took 33 months for Jon and I to donate to the local Catholic food pantry from our own teeny pocketbook.

Thanks to my Protestant (and vegetarian!) Sister who found a way to combine charity on Thanksgiving Day with a super, yummy free-range Turkey from a local Amish farm.