I took Gianna (age 4) to gymnastics last week. As we waited for the class to start a new girl and her mother entered. I introduced myself and the mom started peppering me with questions about the class. I was answering them to the best of my knowledge when suddenly the baby started to cry, and Charlie (age 2) made a mad dash for the bathroom. As I yelled for him to stop, she glanced down at Gianna, who was waiting patiently for me to help her with her hair. The woman immediately asked, “are all three of these yours?”

I smiled and said, “yes.”

With a slightly disapproving edge to her voice she stated, “I guess that’s the in thing now.”

Taken aback, I immediately responded, “excuse me?”

She clarified, “it’s the in thing to have 3.”

I wanted to say, oh, “I thought you were talking about my shoes.” But I just stood there, awkwardly silent.

The “in thing!?!” are you kidding me? Yeah, I have three young children because I think it looks cool. It is even cooler when one of them is crying in your arms, another is about to put his hands in the toilet at a dirty gym, and a third is hugging your legs. I have had this strange desire to be popular since high school and now I have finally succeeded. Who would have thought that having 3 kids was so darn cool.

Wow, talk about materializing our children. In an age where one boy and one girl have become an accessory for many parents, I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry at this woman’s statement. I wish she were only talking about my new shoes.

We’ve hit this topic a little in our email discussions about midwifery, but I wanted to revisit it more generally. What’s with the larger-than-average number of Catholic moms who harbor a suspicion against the medical status quo? I wouldn’t pin myself as a “granola” or “homeopathic” mom, but this weekend when I found myself formally declining Pedialyte solution during a late night visit to the emergency room with a 105-degree 18-month-old Bean, I had to stop and wonder. It’s just Pedialyte! But on the other hand, I had explained to Mr. Nurse that Bean drank 32 oz. of diluted juice and had several wet diapers over the course of the day, so why pump him full of dextrose and dyes at midnight just because Mr. Nurse says to? Besides, I was still dealing with the guilt of giving poor sick Bean only watery juice to drink when I saw that Elizabeth Foss was spoon-feeding her feverish 18-month-old ice cubes blended with whole oranges. While homeschooling 6 other children with her husband out of town. She rocks.

Quite a few of us tend toward midwifery and natural birth before obstetrics, natural remedies before medications, observe and wait before rushing to the doctor for sure treatment… and it seems to me that a disproportionately large number of Catholic moms are the same way. Bean had ibuprofen, acetaminophen and an antibiotic for the first time ever this weekend, and this is certainly not the first time he’s been sick. I’ll admit I can be an obnoxiously inquisitive patient or mom when I do find myself or my children under medical care. I’m not proud of being a thorn in the side of the noble doctors and nurses who help keep my family healthy.

So… why? Is it because of a leaning away from things artificial—such as artificial birth control and baby formula (not to compare them morally)—that we lean away from technological solutions and trust our bodies? Is it because we’re subtly influenced by some complicated mind-body unity philosophy that has Catholic origins? Is it because of a more recent cultural trend to get back to nature/back to the earth among religious parents, evidenced also by attachment parenting and the like? Is it because we’re micromanaging, hands-on, stay-home, potentially-homeschooling moms (versus moms who have help from day cares/nannies), so we expect to know exactly what treatments our kids are getting and why? Or is it not Catholic at all, just a swelling trend among a certain segment of moms?

May God bless all the doctors and nurses out there. Maybe our next batch of cookies will be for the emergency room personnel, Saturday pm shift.

Since we are all talking about what we are feeding our families, I am wondering if anyone does a rotating meal plan. I’ve seen lots of versions on-line. Some moms use a 3 week rotating schedule, some a monthly schedule, some cook and freeze for weeks at a time with tired and true (and easy) recipes that take a lot of the guess work out of meal planning and grocery shopping.

At this stage in the game, we don’t do anything of the sort. I generally meal plan the same day or, possibly, the night before. I have the flexibility to pull something out of the freezer in the morning and if I realize I am lacking an ingredient, run to the grocery store with my 1 and 2 year old. This may happen 3 days a week. Totally doable now, but as schedules fill up these fun and educational grocery outings (we talk about what we see, etc.) will be more of a struggle.

I bring this up in the spirit of Lent. I have been thinking of ways to simplify our lives to leave more time for just being. And, since unpacking the Last Box this afternoon, I am returning from a bit of survival mode to maintenance mode. I do, however, foresee more times of slight chaos, be it from moving or new babes, or sick kids, etc.

As stay-at-home mom beginning to homeschool my kids I find less time than I’d like for planning and thinking. About 18 months ago I started to feel very overwhelmed and inadequate, perhaps not too differently from the feelings articulated by this reader of Elizabeth Foss’ Real Learning blog. I didn’t know where to begin. So many cirriculums, educational philosophies, resources (ahem, my first baby was 1 at the time). I wanted to read everything. The impossibility of this project never crossed my mind. Until I became overwhelmed. So I started to think of what I really wanted our family life to be. Peaceful, uncomplicated and, most importantly, centered around the Liturgical Year. No need to figure out math manipulatives or a high school curriculum just yet. Just focus on the seasons of the Church.

To that end, I made a plan.

Year One: Read, gather ideas, pray.

Year Two: Begin compiling ideas and sketching out an annual calendar, pray. Pay attention to Feast Days special to our domestic church.

Hopefully, the fruit of this labor in the form of monthly and daily sketches will serve to simplify our lives in the years to come, especially during those busy baby times. I don’t want this kind of planning to give me the illusion that I am in control. That is the last thing this control freak needs. Rather, I hope that it allows us to relish in the seasons of the church year by having some ideas and plans sketched out and in one location.

All this to say that, while we don’t need a weekly meal plan now, it may be a good way to simplify things around here and establish a routine for the more hectic times. Does anyone plan weekly, monthly?

For the past couple of nights, my almost 4 year-old C has been calling out in his sleep, “Mommy, mommy” in such a sad, almost pathetic, tone. It’s heart-breaking, at least for this mommy, and the reason is that I fear that I’ve been a bit too harsh with him over the past couple of days. I’m usually a fairly calm, upbeat person, but over the past couple of days I have been “laying down the law” and in the process, I fear that I have been traumatizing C.  This is not to say that I’m not firm in general when it comes to our family rules, but the past couple of days have been different because I’ve been doing a lot of the disciplining right before bedtime.  I find discipline in general to be the most difficult in the evening hours, because it is hard to come up with and enforce consequences around bedtime, and also because my patience is sometimes running lowest this time of day. We work on the understanding that if Christopher wants certain privileges (stories before bed, dessert, a video during the day, etc.), he needs to fulfill certain responsibilities (taking care of himself by getting dressed, brushing teeth, eating good meals, etc.; taking care of others by being kind, helpful, etc.).  If he doesn’t fulfill his responsibilities, there is a consequence.  Around bedtime, the only immediate privilege that can be taken away is bedtime stories – all of the other consequences must wait until the next day. Maybe some of you have other ideas for consequences in the evening?? 

Do any of you mamas ever struggle to find a balance between being firm and loving at the same time? Any ideas on how to handle situations around bedtime? And any suggestions on how to deal with very stubborn kiddos who won’t budge once they get a certain idea in their head?