Then Comes Baby: The Catholic Guide to Surviving & Thriving the First 3 Years of Parenthood<\/em><\/a>. In the interview, we share some of the struggles we\u2019ve been through along the way and the ways that God has led us through those challenges. \u00a0Plus, we share how parents of infants and toddlers can really celebrate those early years and use that time to create the foundation for a truly joyful, love-filled, family life. \u00a0I hope you\u2019ll check out the whole thing, but here\u2019s a taste!<\/p>\nLisa:<\/strong> When we were finally able to start a family\u2013especially after everything we\u2019d been through\u2013we were thrilled. \u00a0But every time we told someone we were expecting, they would start telling us stories of how awful it was going to be.\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019ll never sleep again. \u201d\u00a0 \u201cThere goes the romance.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019ll never get a moment\u2019s peace.\u201d\u00a0 People seemed to rejoice in trying to kill our joy about having kids.\u00a0 We wanted to send a different message.\u00a0 Sure parenting is hard work, but we like to think of it as the hard work that goes into planning an awesome party.<\/em><\/p>\nDr.Greg:<\/strong>\u00a0 Exactly.\u00a0 You could approach a party dreading every second.\u00a0 Resenting the time you have to put into decorating.\u00a0 Dreading all the preparation time and cooking, and effort.\u00a0 Or, you could allow the hard work to build the excitement and the joy and remind you of the specialness of the thing you\u2019re celebrating.\u00a0 We don\u2019t sugar coat anything in the book.\u00a0 We\u2019re very real.\u00a0 Yes, parenting will be the most challenging thing you will ever do, but it can also be the most enjoyable, fun, loving, rewarding, soul-satisfying experience you will ever have.\u00a0 We want parents to know from day one that their baby\u2019s life is worth celebrating and that every day you get to be a family is a gift from God, and what do you do when someone gives you a gift?\u00a0 You rejoice in it!\u00a0 We want the book to show parents how to rejoice in their family life from day one.<\/em><\/p>\nLisa:\u00a0<\/strong> We really hope that parents will come away from Then Comes Baby with the \u00a0sense that all the long nights and sacrifice is about more than that, it\u2019s about opening our hearts to grace.\u00a0 It\u2019s about growing into the people God is calling you to be.\u00a0 It\u2019s about creating the kind of home life that fills your heart with love and your days with laughter.\u00a0 If you can just allow yourself to turn off the inner-critic, and tune out all the people who are lining up to tell you \u201cyou\u2019re doing it wrong\u201d and just learn to hear God speaking to you through your child\u2013just as St. John Paul II\u2019s Theology of the Body teaches\u2013then you can discover a path to an uncommonly joyful, loving, grace-filled family life. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nCheck out the rest!<\/a>\u00a0(and many thanks to Lisa Hendey for the opportunity to speak with her and for all the great work she does at CatholicMom.com!)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Recently, Lisa and I sat down with Lisa Hendey of CatholicMom.com about our book Then Comes Baby: The Catholic Guide to Surviving & Thriving the First 3 Years of Parenthood. In the interview, we share some of the struggles we\u2019ve been through along the way and the ways that God has led us through those […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1437,"featured_media":2567,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[278,6,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-attachment-2","category-parenting","category-popcak-2"],"yoast_head":"\n
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