What are your favorite meals to receive?

May 9, 2012 By Katrina

Some of us Builders have been having an ongoing discussion about how wonderful it is to receive help from others  after the birth of a baby, especially receiving meals and groceries from friends. Just out of curiosity, what have been your favorite meals to give or receive, and why were they so successful? Have they been kid-friendly, freeze-able, gourmet delights, store-bought, etc.? We can all benefit from each others’ comments! For example, I love giving and receiving fresh fruit in my meals, such as sliced fresh pineapple and strawberries, and I like to include a bottle of Barefoot wine. How about you?

Filed Under: Food and Nutrition, Motherhood and Parenting

Can I hold your toddler?

May 8, 2012 By Katrina

Example: my sad toddler

At Sunday Mass this week, I saw a friend walk in with her five children, including her sweet newborn whom she was carrying in the Ergo. Wondering where her husband was, I realized that he was the lector and would therefore be sitting apart from them for the first half of Mass. My immediate thought was that I should walk to the other side of the church to help her! I know that if I was alone with my three children, I would be terribly desperate for someone to help me!

As it turns out, I stayed put and her children were amazingly well-behaved, so she didn’t need my help after all. I started wondering, though, how my friend would have felt if I had offered my help. Would she have been insulted? Grateful? Confused? This particular friend would have probably been grateful, but I began to wonder about the mothers in our parish that I don’t know very well. Would it seem strange to them for an acquaintance to offer help with a crying toddler at Mass? Are we so worried about looking put-together that we would be offended by an offer of help? I’m not trying to suggest that we all take on the mentality of “It takes a village” every time we go to Mass, but I am wondering about our ability to give and receive acts of charity on a very personal level.

In this Easter season, we are being inspired and encouraged as we hear about the early church in the Acts of the Apostles. We learn that the first Christians took the idea of community seriously, pooling their resources to help those in need, gathering in each others’ homes to celebrate the Eucharist (Acts 2:46), and learning together about the person of Jesus. They were all in this thing called Christianity together, and whatever they did, they would succeed or fail together. The Book of Acts is full of phrases like “they grew in number” and “they were all together” – everything was about community and about their fellowship in the Holy Spirit.

Aren’t all of us also in this thing called Christianity together? Although our world looks very different today than it did 2000 years ago, we face many of the same challenges as the early Christians – persecution by non-believers who think us foolish, temptations of vanity, pride, and sensuality, struggles in raising our children to love and serve God above all. None of us can walk this road alone, and all of us are called to worship, to pray, and to sacrifice together, just as the early church did. Whether we are at Mass, which is the pinnacle of this communion that we have with one another, or out in the world, we are united by our Catholic faith and can rely on each other for support and encouragement as we grow together in faithfulness to Our Lord.

So, maybe you won’t let me hold your toddler at Mass, and that’s perfectly fine :) However, as I said before, I would challenge us all to reflect on our ability to give and receive acts of charity in a personal way. Many of us are very good at serving the community at large – we are on the PTA, we serve at soup kitchens, and we generously support wonderful charities. Today, I am thinking about how we serve one another personally within our church communities, for the purpose of “building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God” (Ephesians 4:12-13).

Filed Under: Liturgical Seasons, Motherhood and Parenting Tagged With: , ,

How My Daughter is Teaching Me to Stop Gossiping and Look Up

May 7, 2012 By maryalice

Red’s recent post on meanness hit a nerve with a lot of readers, and I have been thinking about how the attitude that she describes can really wreak havoc on relationships so much closer than the nearest supermarket.

As a woman, I have often struggled with friendships with other women because I kick into some sort of competitive mode.  In my head, I cut the person down, so that I can make myself feel that my competencies are more important than hers.  I think that this is my smart girl’s conditioned response to a fun, pretty girl.

For a long time, this mindset really damaged my relationships, especially when thinking about other women’s faults drifted into talking about other women’s faults, almost compulsively.

I have been encouraged instead to look for what I can learn from the other woman, and to look for ways that what she brings can be a gift to my life.  I can’t change my temperament, but I can work on my faults, I can try to emulate some of the good things about other women, or at the very least stop cutting them down.

Back to that pretty girl thing.  My daughter wants to be a pretty girl.  She is just more girly than I am.  Her eyes LIT UP when she saw that her ballet costume for this weekend’s performance recommended curling her hair.  My eyes rolled.  Like, with all that I had to do that day, now I was going to curl my 7 year old’s hair for her 5 minutes on stage?  The competitive part of me said, I don’t know how to do that, I don’t have time to do that, and therefore it is stupid to even want that.

My first big act of openness — I got in touch with my (former Miss Rhode Island) sister in law and asked to borrow curling stuff.  My second big act of openness — I asked my mother in law to come over early and do the curling.  Then, to fully conquer my competitiveness, knowing that Mary’s hair would be the prettiest and not wanting her to stand out, I invited her dance partner over to join the curling session.

Let me tell you, my daughter looked so pretty, but most of all she was so thrilled.  I was really impressed at the care, attention and ability that my mother in law showed in doing the girls’ hair.  I also remembered that Mary had been working for a year to prepare for those 5 minutes on stage, so our making them important was worthwhile.

My Mary makes friends where ever she goes, loads and loads of girl friends.  She has a stream of toddlers following her around at the park.  She is funny and open and kind.  Even other adult women respond to her and invite her out for lunch or shopping!  She has some “it girl” qualities that I want to admire, not squash, and wanting to be pretty goes hand in hand with that.  I know that over time I will have to teach her that goodness is not all on the surface, but I think for now her personality is really pretty too, so I don’t have to worry about it too much yet.  I have told she and her best playmate/dance partner that, like super heroes, they must use their power for good instead of evil, because all the younger ones on the block want to play with them, and they can make it more fun for everyone by being kind and welcoming them in.

And I can try to do the same, by welcoming women who have those strengths into her life, and by trying to learn a little bit from them.  To start, I’m going to go brush my hair.

 

Filed Under: Children, Motherhood and Parenting

Water Baby

April 27, 2012 By Bethany "B-mama"

With T minus 11 days until my due date, my mind is naturally gravitating toward labor and delivery.

These thoughts abounded the other day while I was swimming laps in the pool, dreaming about the upcoming event and wondering how it was going to all play out.  Swimming this pregnancy has been a godsend in so many ways.  My end-of-pregnancy back pain is at an all-time low, my muscles feel more agile and relaxed, I have less pelvic floor discomfort–much of this I am crediting to swimming.  It is such great exercise!!

It’s not surprising that my body has taken to it so naturally.  As a baby, myself, my mom would have to “rescue” me as I jumped, fearless, into the pool without knowing how to swim.  This later translated into lap upon lap of winter and summer swim seasons, USS meets, and eventually high school swimming.  The water is a safe haven for me.  I feel very much at ease.  My body glides to the rhythm of the strokes and floats with ease almost like an acrobat doing a high-wire routine, but in the water.

I shouldn’t be so surprised that adding water to a pregnancy makes all things better.  But what about delivery?  A water birth?  Hmm…  I can’t imagine a better scenario for me personally, getting to relax in a tub and feel the weightlessness of the water while focusing through the contractions.  Part of me is so tantalized by thoughts of a water birth that I’m a little annoyed I haven’t looked into it sooner.  There’s the other part of me, though, the cautious side, that knows you have to do a home birth if you want to birth in the water.  And I’m not using a midwife, either.  Hospitals are also safety nets in my mind that I’m not willing to be without.

My solution?  I’m planning to crank up our jacuzzi tub during the at-home stages of labor.   Can’t believe it’s taken me five babies to come to this solution.  I will love the chance to birth our baby my way and pass those early, grueling, and oft-annoying hours in the water.  My only fear is that I’ll love it too much, not feel as much pain (who am I kidding?), and head to the hospital too late!!  I can just see the look of panic on my husband’s face as we feverishly drive to get to the hospital…

Oh well.  It will make for a great story, right?!

 

Filed Under: Motherhood and Parenting, Pregnancy Tagged With: , ,
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