Ball Family Chronicles #2: Little Voices at Mass

It's been entirely too long since I published something (and in the process of writing this post, I realized how few pictures I've taken over the last three months.... shame on me!). The newborn and infant phases of parenting have really been taking everything out of me.

Daniel has left to go to work, and so in these smallish hours before the littles wake up, I have a little joy to share with you.

As you can imagine, having a baby makes going to the same Mass each week a bit arduous, so we do the sensible thing.

We don't worry about it. We get up when the baby makes us, and we go to the first Mass that's after she finishes nursing.

Essential Virtues for Potty Training... (and How I Don't Have Any of Them)

For the record, I have no idea how anyone manages to potty train a child. None.

For the kid... diapers aren't inconvenient. You do your business wherever you happen to be and tell mom you need a new diaper whenever you get around to it. You don't ever have to stop what you're doing.

So far, I have attempted potty training with Pitter Patter twice... and I don't think that's Pitter Patter's fault - it's mine.

Bad Blogger, Good Mommy

You may have noticed that I have not posted for a few weeks. For that, I apologize.

My water broke unexpectedly (and inconveniently) one evening in January, and I had to go to the hospital and have a baby! It was a wonderful birth experience that I am looking forward to typing up and sharing sometime in the not-too-distant future. (Don't worry - baby was plenty old enough to be born. We just.. .weren't expecting it to be that night and we had company over...)

Baby and I have both been doing very well, but I forgot exactly how much time being a new mommy consumed. - Especially the time that is consumed with napping.

With all of the new baby stuff that I had to do, and being exhausted from being pregnant... I was ready to be a new mommy again, but this blog definitely wasn't. I think I'm okay with that, and I hope you don't mind. Priorities, you know? God first, then family... I'll get back to looking after my blog when I get my parenting sea legs under me again.

Ain't she cute.

Yep. Being a new mommy (again) has definitely been consuming all of my attention, and I still feel like I'm not ready! It seems like I've only just now gotten everything in order for one day... and then the baby clothes - which were sorted at one time - have been conveniently been unsorted. Not to mention any names, but I'm pretty sure that this is the responsible party. ------------------------------------->

{7 QT 24} - Resolutions!

Happy New Year!

I'm one of those unfortunate people who loves making New Year's Resolutions, and usually gets carried away in the process.

Inevitably, I make resolutions that are unrealistic - being either too big, or requiring too many little pieces and parts. And I may have done this again this year, but at least I'm trying to make an improvement in how I make resolutions.

These are designed to encompass only those things that are the most important for me to do, and everything else... I'm willing to not worry about.

I don't know if you're familiar with Leigh Ann Dutton @ Intentional By Grace, but she has a lot of right ideas about life. The biggest ones being that being a good mother, a good wife, a good friend, a good daughter, a good employee... a good whatever... those things aren't going to happen by accident. They're going to happen because you are intentional about them, and by the grace of God.

So... resolutions this year boil down to being intentional about the things that are most important. This year, I've made twelve and managed to number them 1-7! (I'm a nerd, remember?)

{7 QT 18} - Glove Boxes, Duggars, House, and Kids

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So, we bought a new-to-us used car last week, and it wasn't until we were leaving for our road trip on Friday that we discovered that one thing that we missed when we were looking at the car.

The handle on the glove box is completely unusable. We can't open it, but we're hoping that our car guy can rig something up.

As undiscovered problems with cars go... it's not so bad. It jut means we don't have a good place to put all of the napkins we get from fast food places!

Never Underestimate the Power of Your Village

Never underestimate the power of your village.

At our annual Mother's Day gathering this past year, my Mom was playing with Pitter Patter (as per usual), and I was not about to stop her.

When her mom, my Grammy, arrived with my godmother (Nanny), Mom immediately started to show Grammy all of the cool stuff that Pitter Patter knows.

She first started out with the things that I had worked on with her, The ABC's, "what's that letter for", counting, "what sound that animal makes", and then she started into the prayers Pitter Patter knows.

Gratitude for the Small Things

If you've been reading for about the last two weeks, you've probably noticed two things.

(1) I have been incredibly busy.
(2) I have been sick.

Between being sick and having a funeral to attend, it's easy to get caught in the poor, poor, pitiful me's, like I did when I was first diagnosed with Hashimoto's. (Which, by the by, is even harder to eat for when your sick and ALL of your comfort foods are carbs.)

It's a good deal harder when you're dealing with problems to have a grateful heart, to think of all of the little gifts that God has given you along the way while he's been carrying you through your convalescence.

It's Hard to be a Dad

In Holly Pierlot’s book A Mother’s Rule of Life, she identifies the five main priorities of a mom’s life, in this order: (1) Prayer, (2) Person (meaning, “self care”), (3) Partner, (4) Parent, (5) Provider.

I think they apply equally to a dad’s life, and in at least one way, I think Dads have things harder than moms, with these priorities.

{7 QT 10} - NPR Dreams and Potty Fire Drills

 

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As promised on Monday, I spent some time trying to take pictures of the decorations we put up for Mother's Day, and here are a few of the good pictures:

These are the same decorations that I put up for Pitter Patter's birthday last year. I thought they were just too pretty to only see use the one time!

Baptism: A Big Responsibility

First Sunday of Lent

This Sunday, the second reading will be from 1 Peter 3:18-22, I’d encourage you to read the rest of the readings.

The new covenant in Christ’s blood, of which we are partakers, is prefigured in great detail in the Old Testament.

The flood, Peter says, prefigured Baptism.

By coincidence, I happen to have recently had a lengthy discussion with Daniel about what Baptism is, and what is its function in the Christian life. (See the CCC 1214-1284, for its treatment on Baptism.) (Yes, we know. We’re both nerds who love the Lord.)

Peter says that Baptism is an appeal to God for a clear conscience. My Bible notes that the word “appeal” could also be translated “pledge”, which I think adds an important dimension of meaning to the passage.

If we are not baptized as infants, we also make a commitment when we get baptized, a pledge to live in accord with the precepts of the Gospel. It is expected that those baptized (or their parents, for infants baptized in the church) will do what is in their power to assist that faith to grow and develop into a more complete and mature faith.

For those of us who are parents, this is a very big and weighty undertaking, and very humbling when we realize the full scope of the task:

You mean I have to teach her everything in the textbook?

 And the Cliff Notes? 

But I haven’t even finished reading them myself!

There have been two thousand years of family history and development in our understanding of Christian doctrine.

We can’t hope to cover it all even once, so how do we make this look possible?

Three things come to mind:

(1) You can’t do it alone, and you aren’t doing it alone.

You have your spouse, and the godparents to help and support you in this undertaking, along with family and friends, when you need them. Call on them for their support and insight when you have a problem.

And aside from these, even the single, divorced, widowed, and disowned have another support - the Church herself. So, call on your parish to support you, too!

(2) Pray! Pray, pray, pray!

Jesus promised us that whatever we ask in his name (there are some strings attached to this "in his name" clause) will be granted. How might we suspect that the salvation of our children is anything but in accord with his holy will?

So, pray without ceasing. Ask others to join their prayers to yours. Storm heaven with your prayer!

And then...

 (3) Trust.

We have from God’s word that for him who has faith, all things are possible. And whoever has even the faith of a mustard seed can move mountains.

Trust that once you’ve put your best foot and prayed earnestly, God will take care of the rest.

 Let’s pray this week that the Lord will open the eyes of our hearts, so that we can see the next step in our own formation, and in that of our children.  Let us ask that he help us to make time for that next step in our busy schedules, to take it, and to do it as well and as completely as we can.

2.0 Readiness

Well, last week was exciting. I knew that Pitter-Patter and I weren’t feeling well, so I canceled my post on Monday. What I didn’t know was that within 24 hours of writing that post, we would be in the pediatrician’s office sporting 103.7.

Pitter-Patter is a dream of a child - she communicates well, she slept through the night early, she loves fruit and vegetables, and doesn’t really like cake or candy… and she doesn’t even cry all that much.

Up until the “Great Ear Infection Crisis of 2014” she’d never given us anything in the shape of a “real” problem or scare. It was the most I’d heard her cry in months. (She did not want that sponge bath I gave her when I realized what her temperature was, and she did not want me to give her a cold bottle of milk to bring her temperature down instead of nursing her. And she definitely didn’t want me to put her down long enough to put clothes on and comb my hair before we left for the doctor.)

I had about 18 hours of good, solid “parental freak out mode.” In short, it was a really big deal for us - at least until she started showing a dramatic improvement within an hour of the first dose of antibiotics. Big enough that I think it was kind of significant for my growth as a parent.

I have always known that I wanted a big family - or at least what passes for a big family nowadays. (12 is big, right?) But after having such an obviously easy child, I wasn’t really sure I was ready. Something was telling me that I wasn’t quite ready to make that jump from one to two. A kid that doesn’t give you any real problems can’t possibly prepare you for settling World War 3 in the back seat.

In short, I was scared about it, but maybe I didn’t really need to be. Pitter-Patter is fine, and I hadn’t thought about it before, but in the last week, she’s actually started throwing fits (laying on the floor and screaming) when I tell her that she can’t have/do something she wants, and she’s also starting to show some early signs of potty training readiness. And I’ve been handling those transitions pretty well.

I think I was more ready than I was giving myself credit for. I just needed God to show me.

Also, because I know my parents read this blog… No, Mom. I am not pregnant. :-)