Tuesday morning, my OB noticed that my blood pressure was elevated. Rather than the logical assumption that driving 5 kids to the appointment in the October SNOW might be stressing me out, he was concerned that I was one of the less that 10% of women with re-occuring pre-eclampsia. Since I am only 34 weeks, this was a scary notion, and I was told to return the next day for another check up. In the 24 hours in between, I had time to contemplate the effect on my family if I had to go on total bedrest for 3 weeks. My conclusion? The effects would be totally positive.

Now, I don’t mean to make light of grave illness, and I was thankful when my blood pressure had completely returned to its normal levels the next morning, but I am doing some thinking about what my feelings about bedrest say about my life at the moment.

We can all laugh about how fun it would be to spend a few days in bed, but I really had a plan:

1. Move all the school books and some great read alouds into my room, along with trains, blocks and dolls.
2. Hire a cleaning lady for 3 days a week to do laundry and keep up the house (or, just let the house go, budget depending).
3. Make a list of slow cooker meals that my husband could start before he left for work each morning.
4. Send K to the knitting store to stock me up, and make hats and mittens for the kids in my downtime.
5. Hire the neighbor’s teenager to be a sitter when the kids go out to play with other neighborhood kids each afternoon, and spend that time cuddling the baby.
6. Cancel everything else.

Really, what could be better? This is very much the way we homeschooled last year (except for being in bed), in that we had no friends and I didn’t clean the house, I just spent all of my time reading to my kids in the backyard and we ate mostly cheese, crackers and apple slices. This week, we have had appointments every single day, and for what seems like 2 months now we have been off our schedule and overtired because of something…move, summer, baseball, race training, holidays, pregnancy, playdates, grandparent sleepovers, travel…it is time for me to put my foot down, but how?

1) Am I the first nursing mother to indefinitely delay the introduction of solids because I like the effect that exclusive nursing has on my figure? Angelina is 6 months old and shows some interest in our food. She has proven that she can swallow cereal and mashed foods but doesn’t seem hungry as long as I nurse her often enough. I’m finally comfortably back into clothes that have been stored since our wedding. As I see it, this is a win situation for everyone.

This prayer illustrates that in order for us to live like the saints did, we need to let God change us so that His light can shine through us.

A tad drastic? Maybe, but my intention in this post is to explain and then give thanks for a revelation I have experienced over the past 18 months of my life.

It was May 2007 – my, reluctant, four-year active duty Army service was completed and Husband and I had decided that someone needed to be the rock at home. No more two parents at work for insane hours. No more two parents fearing deployments to hostile lands, one is more than enough.

Leaving the work-a-day world to stay home with my children was Earth-shattering at first, and not in all good ways. I was floundering. I did not know how to do this. I was raised as a Navy brat – both of my parents served as naval officers until after I left home for college. I am amazed by my mother’s success as a female naval officer who broke so many barriers for subsequent generations. However, her homemaking life was ad hoc at best. It was the best she could manage on evenings and weekends. Some things were out-sourced, we had the occasional cleaning lady and always a gardening crew, but for the most part she probably just slept very little and spent a lot of money on takeout. My most poignant memories are of family trips and vacations, but the day-to-day stuff was run by a series of nannies. So that was my background and there I was at home with (almost) two children. At our new duty station I was invited to a Protestant Bible Study- it was entitled “Creative Companion” and we read a book by the same title that rocked my world.

The book itself wasn’t that profound, but what was profound for me was that being a wife and mother, a homemaker and an educator and a catechizer is a serious — the most serious — profession there is. The way we approach our jobs as homemakers is 100% mental. In my first months at home I was allowing myself to fall prey to the societal bogus that being a stay-at-home mother was wasting my talents and was all about spit-up and laundry. It is so so much deeper than that. My world has been exploding for the past year thanks to the ladies on this blog and those who have gone before us and written about the work that goes on in a home. I have learned that it is one thing to “keep a home afloat” and another to be continually reading and refining your routines based on what you read and who you meet.

It is inherent in our very created nature to lead our families toward a holier, better existence. If we don’t, no one will find the time. Edith Stein writes that we are called to, “serve man, children and all creatures in a reverential loving manner in order to foster their natural formation for the glory of God and thereby further their natural happiness.” (and I wouldn’t even know that if I wasn’t a virtual member of Mary Alice and Right Said Red’s monthly Catholic mothers’ exchange group!)

God has had such a hand in my life by showing me the way to deliberate living. Not being lost in the laundry and the dishes, but learning to do both better and with a better mindset. Frankly, it is sad that I couldn’t realize all this on my own – you know, that one can improve the way she supports her husband and family through “professional” reading? I mean, clearly when we work outside the home we are encouraged to do professional reading. Lawyers read law journals, stock brokers read The Wall Street Journal, as a military officer I read books about the Middle East and military history. Why would I have assumed that that all stopped when I became a stay-at-home-mother? Au contrair! I have embarked on a bold experiment here – to professionalize my role as the homemaker in this household. I read books about how to cook baby food, how laundry is a path to holiness, how to keep a home journal to keep things flowing in a more orderly way. I don’t know, it all sounds pretty scholarly to me. And I pray that my family will reap the benefits. I don’t think I have learned enough yet, I think I have a long way to go. Furthermore, I sometimes wonder if my lack of a childhood home which I seek to imitate sets me back even further. Nonetheless, I am pleased to embark on this journey of deliberate living and I can’t believe that my “to-read” book list is longer now than it was when I was an intellectually curious sophomore at Princeton.

At bat for me: A Mother’s Rule of Life: How to Bring Order to Your Home and Peace to Your Soul.

On deck: Building the Christian Family You Never Had: A Practical Guide For Pioneer Parents