Catholics with a Past

“The man who has not suffered, what can he possibly know, anyway?” says Rabbi Abraham Heschel. He may be onto something. When we look for insight and understanding, we go to someone who has been wronged, and who has come out stronger and wiser: survivors of wars, genocide, concentration camps; people who have overcome massive disabilities; people who have been abused and outcast, and who have responded with love, gentleness, generosity, and wisdom.

But what about the man who caused his own suffering? The man who has been selfish, foolish, ugly, cruel, and who has suffered because of his own willful sins?  What can he possibly know, anyway?

Read the rest at the Register.

My new bumper sticker!

Just a quick post! Lots to do. I just wanted to say:

1. Mary’s Shelter is amazing, and the soiree was fantastic.

2. The Catholic and pro-life communities of Fredericksburg, Va are amazing and fantastic.

3. I have a new bumper sticker.

 

bumper stickers

 

 

 

Of course, my motives are not entirely pure. I’m working, little by little, on covering up . . . whatever this is:

 

photo (52)

 

 

On the plus side, I have never ever been in a parking lot and said, “Wait, is that ourvan? I’m not sure.”

UPDATE:  Several people have asked about the “COEXIST” sticker. You can order onehere!

How to make a shelf in, like, two minutes

1. Get a milk crate, find a strong clothes hanger, force the arms of the hanger through holes in the sides of the crate, and force the hook through a hole in the top.

2. Put a screw in the wall.  If your husband is watching, use a stud finder first.  Hang the hook on the screw.

3. Ta-dah!

 

photo (8)

 

You now have somewhere in which to keep your best toy ever so your baby sister doesn’t get it. You can also keep things on top. This is not the sturdiest shelf in the world, obviously, but sometimes it’s the best you can frickin’ do right now.

The Case for Siblings: Why Having a Baby Is Good for Your Other Kids

[This post originally ran at Faith and Family Live in 2010, when I was pregnant with #8. I’m on my way to Virginia for the Summer Soiree at Mary’s Shelter! If you have a prayer to spare, maybe send up one that my ears don’t get too plugged up on the plane? It’s hard to talk into a microphone when your ears are plugged up! Usually I take Sudafed, but this is a no go for this stage of the pregnancy. And also please pray that I don’t cry on stage for any reason. I don’t even know why I would, but pregnancy increases my cryability about 900%. Most of all, please pray for a successful fundraiser for this wonderful organization that helps so many women and children. Thanks!]

 

Lucy holding baby

One of the best parts of being pregnant with my eighth child was that I never woke up in the middle of the night, panicking: “How can I do this to [current youngest child]?”

True, I woke up for a thousand other reasons, most of them involving my internal organs. But it was a huge relief to finally realize that having a new baby is not bad for the current baby.

How I used to fret about this! The whole nine months, I would worry about how we would all get along, how the soon-to-be-supplanted youngest would adapt, and even whether I could love the new baby as much as I loved my firstborn. (I did.)

But everyone else seems to think that a new baby is bad for the other kids. Dozens of times, I’ve had strangers peer around my enormous belly to coo at the toddler, “Aww … now you won’t get to be the baby anymore.”

Thanks, lady. Thanks for informing my child that she’s suffering. Luckily, she doesn’t know what you’re talking about—and neither do you.

Here is what really happens when we have a new baby at our house:

First are the immediate benefits: my mother reads them books until she goes hoarse. My husband fills the house with steak and ice cream and and blurts out things like, “Pick out any toy you want, kids!”

Then they get to visit me at the hospital, which has an elevator, and the nurses stuff them with popsicles and muffins, and everyone raves over how well-behaved they are.

Of course it’s not all sunshine and buttercups. With childbirth, I magically transform from a third trimester exhausted zombie into—ta dah!—a postpartum exhausted zombie. Instead of having no lap to sit on, I have an extremely tender abdomen, and I’m constantly nursing the infant who DOESN’T WANT YOU TO SIT ON HER, OH MY GOSH, GET OFF, GET OFF!

Still, everyone loves the new baby, everyone is amazed and enchanted, and they all want to help. The girls want to pet her, and the boys want to guard and protect her. (If that’s a sexist statement, then life is sexist, because that’s what happens.)

“Look at her little tiny feet, feel her silky hair! Ohh, Mama, I can feel her heart beating on the top of her head.”

Then follows the second week, when the toddler suddenly realizes that the baby is … staying. In this week, everyone is crying, everyone has a rash, everything we own is wet and smelly, and if I had the mental wherewithal, I would be able to form a complete thought such as, “Another baby? What were we thinking?”

This stage lasts for about five weeks, actually.

But then the 6-week marks comes. At six weeks, no one can remember life before baby. She smiles, she’s trying to figure out how to laugh, her belly button is no longer scary, and she clearly likes us. The older kids can hold her while I shower, and the younger ones have figured out how to sit next to the baby without sitting on the baby, so we can all read Katy No-Pockets together for the 923rd time.

Yes, sometimes they feel left out or envious. But more often, they fight over who gets to hold her. The middle kids discover that they can be allies, rather than rivals. The youngest one relinquishes Family Baby status with visible relief, and starts to pursue a more exciting goal: being one of the gang. She generally has a language explosion a few weeks after the new baby is born. And if you want to see a proud, pleased and confident toddler, tell her, “Uh-oh, the baby is crying!” and watch her pop a pacifier in the baby’s mouth. Hero!

And she still gets to be a baby—just not the baby. I still rock her and sing “Baby Beluga.” Or one of the older kids will rock her and sing “Baby Beluga,” and that’s good, too. Because one day, I won’t be here, and the kids will only have each other. They are getting used to caring for each other, and care engenders love.

My seven siblings and I email regularly, visit when we can, pray for each other, nudge each other to go to the doctor, recommend books and movies, proofread each other’s writing, understand each other’s sense of humor, and share the same childhood memories, good and bad.

A woman once told me that she’d decided not to have a second child, because she “couldn’t do that” to her son. Couldn’t do what? Live? Love someone, and be loved? My parents gave me seven allies in a hard world. Change and loss will happen anyway—better to have the good company of brothers and sisters when it happens to you.

At the Register: Ten things I learned the hard way about sending kids to school

10. You’re not going to get an ideal education in a brick and mortar school. You’re also not going to get an ideal education by home schooling, or by unschooling, or by semi schooling, or co-schooling, or private schooling, or charter schooling, or attending-all-the-conferences-and-working-yourself-into-a-damp-spot-on-the-carpet schooling. Some schools are better than others, but since we are dealing with finite time and human nature, there will always be gaps. Expect this, fill in what you can, and remember that your kids are people, not empty mason jars waiting to be filled up with the perfect combination of ingredients. We’re making people, here, not soup.

Read the rest at the Register.

I have a job for you, baby.

Not the little guy who just kicked me for the first time, that I could feel, just yesterday (yay!). I mean the other one, the one I lost. I wrote about how hard it was not to have a body to bury. You want to be able to take care of your children with your own hands, but I couldn’t do that, and it hurt.

Now, as the months have gone by and the pain of loss has receded, I still find myself bewildered about what to do with the baby’s soul.

When I found out I was pregnant last time, I prayed for the baby’s protection constantly, and turned him over to God. So I have a strong hope that, whenever it was that he left us, he was already baptized through our desire and intention to do so, and he went straight into the arms of his loving Papa in heaven. This is a good thing! I am not worried.  I love him, but God loves him more.

But, what to do when I pray for my all children, one by one? I was never sure when I got to this child. It didn’t feel right to pray for him. Even though I know no prayer is wasted, it seemed like asking for something that was already given.

And I know that many parents pray to their lost unborn babies, and that seemed reasonable, but felt odd, too. Probably this shows that I have a poor understanding of the saints in heaven, but praying to him felt like turning him into a spiritual being, which made him foreign, elevated beyond the family, not really our kid; and at the same time, it felt like too much to ask of such a little guy. I’m not going to tell my five-year-old when Daddy is having a hard time at work or Mama is worried about school; so why would I spill the beans to a seven-week-old fetus, even if he is enjoying the Beatific Vision? I know, I’m over thinking it, but it just felt weird!

But yesterday, it came to me: Baby, you pray for the new baby. You two hold hands and be good to each other. Take care of each other while Mama is taking care of the rest of them. Aha! Everybody needs a job. We are at our best when we know what we are here for.

At the Register: The Culture of Blechh

What kind of person responds to someone’s joy with an agenda? I don’t even care if you’re right or wrong: that’s dehumanizing (and last I heard, most people on both ends of the political spectrum are generally opposed to dehumanization). You’ve heard of the Culture of Death, which teaches people to sneer in disgust at the good, the true, and the beautiful. What we have here is its sad sack cousin, the Culture of Blechh, which teaches people to turn every occasion, whether happy or sad, into a basin to catch the Very Important Message they perpetually disgorge.

Read the rest at the Register.

My dream self is a raging jerk.

A reader had this dream about me last night:

You had some sort of Catholic women’s gathering at your house, and women from all over were coming. When we got there, there was a sign on the porch that said, “This ain’t no Edel gathering.” We went in and on some tables was the food. You said, “I’m pregnant and I like peanut butter and I like sausage. So you can make yourself a peanut butter sandwich, or a sausage sandwich or a peanut butter and sausage sandwich.” There was a large can of peaches with a spoon in it. You said, “after you eat, go outside and find some twigs and make a craft or something.” I mentioned to you that I was expecting our 5th baby in November and you just snorted and said, “Amateur” and walked off. Then I woke up.

I can’t tell if this means I’ve arrived, or that I’ve departed.

 

Fine, I’m pregnant!

See?

 

12 weeks

 

Too tired and gassy to come up with any announcement more adorable or original than this, but everything is looking good so far.  God willing, Fishie #10 is due in late Feb./early March.  Hooray!

At the Register: Lessons from the ER

–One of the greatest functions of the ER is to illustrate for your children why you do not pay for TV at home. Ninety nine channels, ’round and around and around you go.  See, kids? There is nothing on. Nothing.

–If you are holding a catheter tube, and I say, “Careful, she is little, but she is strong,” then you should listen to me.

Read the rest at the Register.

PIC I’m a bad doctor