Yes, it is just as bad as it sounds.

But, the good news is that God wants to woo me, and he’s figured out how. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, he’s given me a grateful heart. I asked him for one, rather halfheartedly, knowing that I’m often irritated by people with thankful hearts for seeming so out of touch with the ratio of good to bad in their lives. But I risked it, and asked for a thankful heart.

Well, God answered that prayer, and suddenly I can see how he has answered plenty of other ones. My sister got a great job; she survived a dangerous pregnancy and had a healthy baby; she didn’t marry the jerk that put her in a family way and now we can have family parties that don’t include him, which means the family parties are fun again. I prayed that my mom would win her lawsuit against an employer that stopped paying her workman’s compensation; she did and now she can pay off a bunch of things that had piled up during that time. I prayed that a friend’s placenta previa would change so that she could have a natural birth; it has and she probably will. I prayed that I would see Wolfie with loving eyes, even when I’m tired and would prefer to snuggle the 100% complacent baby; now I do, and it happened overnight.

Everywhere I look, God is answering my prayers. Yes, there are a few more that have been on my list for a while, but so were the ones above. I am suddenly certain, absolutely certain, that God is listening and that he cares.

And so, I will finish with the prayer of a woman who had the most thankful heart of all (Luke 1:46-55).

Mary greets Elizabeth

My soul magnifies the Lord
And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior;
Because he has regarded the lowliness of his handmaid;
For behold, henceforth all generations shall call me blessed;
Because he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name;
And his mercy is from generation to generation
on those who fear him.
He has shown might with his arm,
He has scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
and has exalted the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has given help to Israel, his servant, mindful of his mercy
Even as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his posterity forever.

1 Zoe is starting to stretch her sleep out. Last night we were up to 6.5 hours before she needed to nurse. Woot!

Buff Orpington Chicken who lives in my backyard

2. Wolfie looked so happy when I was reading him a letter he received that I said, “Does it make you so happy to get mail?” and he responded, “No, you make me so happy!” What a three-year-old…

3. I babysat for my 1-year-old nephew today and got to experience life with 3 kids. If I had a high chair set up to plop my nephew in during lunch, I would have found the three of them easier than my regular two because Wolfie was busy playing with his cousin, instead of demanding every drop of my attention. I think we’ll shoot for a third baby to be born about the time Zoe is able to feed herself.

4.) I am so tired of hearing about Occupy Whatever. Stop whining, get jobs, and stop electing shmucks.

5.) Fierce and I have watched the first two seasons of White Collar on Netflix and are now picking up the rest of season three. I love having shows that we only watch together. I don’t know why he doesn’t love Law & Order….

6.) I think I’ve broken my Starbucks habit. Having two kids in car seats makes homemade hot chocolate so much more appealing than Starbucks. I hate getting kids in and out of car seats more than any other aspect of parenting. Sleep deprivation? Bring it. Running errands with kids in the car? Death first.

7.) Some of my tutoring clients have upped their hours, I went back to week a few weeks early, and my parents paid us back on a loan, so we aren’t quite as poor as we had been. Fierce just saw an amazing job opening in our town and is going to go after it. If he gets it, it will nearly treble his take-home salary, which means I can work as little or much as I want to. Honestly, he could work as a grocery store manager and treble his salary, so don’t get the wrong idea…it’s not an obscene amount of money, but after three years of being miserly just to get by, it would be a big boost. (And the main thing I think about “buying” is the freedom to have more kids more closely together.)

Thanks to Jen at Conversion Diary for hosting!

1. My kid is more ____ than your kid. With infants, we all want the kid who is the biggest or the smallest, the best or the worst sleeper, some sort of superlative. It isn’t enough that we have a child of God with an immortal soul suddenly gifted to our care; we need this kid to be “more special” than other kids, even though God made those kids too.
2. You’re Doing It All Wrong. Pick a battle: bottle or breast; co-sleep or crib; disposable or cloth diapers; attachment parenting or child abuse (just kidding); stay-at-home or work; plan your kids meticulously or fill your quiver; etc.

In short, for every snarky MommyWar post you read, it can be categorized as either Competitive Parenting or Judging As Sport. I think both are addictive ways of approaching other people because they allow one to stoke one’s ego while enjoying not only being Good, but Better. I’m an intelligent person, but the pleasure comes from knowing that I’m above average. It wouldn’t matter if the average person was a genius and the low end of the spectrum was still quite bright; one never wants to be below average, and if we’re honest, we probably don’t want to be just average either.

However, the very idea of being an average parent of an average kid is sort of inaccurate. While we might be able to make a bell curve out of infants’ height, the things that truly matter about a person, kid or not, are not measurable or graph-able in that way. We love to look at the chart and say, “his math score is in the 99th percentile” because we know that means he’s better. As long as he’s above 50th percentile, we can publicize. But it’s a lot harder to have the confidence in our God-given uniqueness to say, “no matter how I compare to other people, I am lovable.” Our culture doesn’t love people who don’t outshine their peers in some way. In our culture, people don’t matter until somebody who matters says so. So even though we know that our oldest child has a terrific sense of humor, or our youngest has an admirable lack of fear, we don’t readily discuss those things with other parents. For one, nobody cares or believes us without a chart to back it up, and for two, these traits are ones that actually matter to us and it’s just not worth having some jerk turn her nose up at the things we cherish in our kids.

If anyone feels like I do–a bit fatigued by feeling like most conversations with other moms turn into a contest of “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours”, I would suggest a way out. One can either never discuss one’s children, which at least prevents someone from dismissively asserting, “Oh, three hours is nothing, my son cried for FIVE hours.” (Isn’t it tempting to say, “Really? Three hours of tortured crying is literally nothing because you’ve dealt with five hours? Why would five hours matter if three don’t? So you felt pretty good at the three hour mark, but what did you in were minutes 181-300?”) Or, one can give these parents what they seem to need: affirmation.

The other day I was waiting to go into my son’s classroom, and I had Zoe, who is six weeks old, in her car seat at my feet. Another mother, whose daughter is three months old, was standing next to me. I made a pleasant remark about how big her daughter was already getting, and she beamed and explained that she had weighed in at 12 pounds a week earlier. I was confused because her daughter Lulu is enormous next to Zoe, but Zoe is 12 pounds as well. I made the mistake of saying so, and the mom immediately started to explain that her daughter is really long. I had triggered her Defend and Explain Mechanism, when all I had meant to suggest was that Lulu had possibly grown even more since her weigh in. This mom was so accustomed to other mothers responding to her children’s accomplishments with dismissive, competitive, or arch comments that she needed to explain that her baby was fine! She really is growing fine! She’s not below average! She’s not less special than your kid! 

I took a second to realize that the conversation was going to annoy me if I continued to engage the mom in the same manner, and instead I took what she was saying and accepted it at face value. Wow! Three inches in a month! That must be a record. I didn’t explain where she had misunderstood me, or argue with her misconception, because it seemed like the last thing she needed was another person correcting or judging her. She relaxed in the face of my praise.

If we want to opt out of the MommyWars, it’s as simple as letting basic charity dictate what we say to and about other moms. No matter how stupid somebody’s parenting ideas are, they don’t look so stupid to the parents holding them. Just as we might delicately ask leading questions or plant ideas for someone who thinks carrot cake is a good diet food (Oh really? I thought cream cheese frosting was made out of cheese, butter, and confectioner’s sugar…), we can respect other parents enough to use tact if we think there might be an improvement to be made.

I’m not old enough to know, but I’m curious if the Internet is contributing to the culture’s general disdain for mothers and their kids? I think people might get so used to spouting off in comboxes and accustomed to the privilege of seeing the inner workings of so many families that they forget these are real people online, and the people in their lives have not given them a combox to air complaints. Just because someone tells me something does not mean they are actually inviting me to comment, criticize, or question.

If we can imagine or remember the world pre-Internet, and think about how people might have been hesitant to barge into other people’s private lives, even if given small glimpses of those lives, we might be able to figure out how it is we should respond to people online and in person when they are sharing something about their kids. Online, many people wouldn’t hesitate before writing, “I can’t believe a moron like you is allowed to breed. I’m lucky my parents knew better!” In person, almost none of them would have the nerve or stupidity to say such a thing. However, many of us will go quite a bit farther online than we would in person. In meeting a new mother, most of us would congratulate her and dote on her baby. Online, we feel free to chastise her for stupidly doing X, Y, or Z. Yes, she is sharing her thoughts with strangers on the Internet, but I don’t recall Emily Post deciding that this meant she should be treated with no respect, or the Pope deciding that online forums aren’t subject to God’s laws. If it’s a sin to say it in person, it’s a sin to say it online. If it’s too pushy to say in person, chances are it’s too pushy to say it online. Perhaps we can end the online MommyWars if we simply start to treat the Internet as an extension of daily life, and start to bring to our daily lives the graciousness we want our precious, darling children to emulate.

1. When your combined kitchen/dining room is one of the two rooms available to guests, plan a menu that allows you to put the food out and stack the dirty dishes for later. No matter what your mother says, you do not need to serve a menu that includes multiple roasts and vegetable sides.
2. Borrow extra chairs and card tables if possible. Serve foods that can be eaten while seated but not at a table.
3. Place food and drink buffets so that traffic does not crash in on itself. There should be a way of getting from the end of the line to one’s seat that doesn’t involve the food line backing up to let you through.
4. Skip the music, there is too much noise anyway. For warm weather parties, you can experiment with it, but when everyone is trapped inside, it doesn’t really work.
5. If you’re using plastic cups, put out one that says “Your Name” on it, and stick some permanent markers inside. Everybody will get the idea and you won’t go through nearly as much soda.
6. Invite specific people to park in your tiny driveway. Nobody wants to be the one to do it, but somebody should and they will if specifically invited.
7. Decide in advance where coats will go and post a little note in the entrance way to that effect.
8. If you have a sun porch with glass windows (as we do), and it is possible, try to heat it for the event. This was our first time hosting anything since we finished construction, and the extra space made a huge difference. I can’t wait to host Wolfie’s birthday party this summer.
9. When you have enough vegetarians and health nuts in a family, you can never have enough salad. Have refills ready in the fridge.
10. I personally think the best dessert is gourmet ice cream. For Zoe’s baptism on Sunday, I served icream and a very simple banana cake from The Barefoot Contessa “How Easy Is That?” book. The ice cream was from the local parlor that only serves organic stuff with 14% butterfat. The good thing about eating anything this delicious is that it makes dieting easier. All the store-bought ice cream tastes unworthy and nobody can afford to eat this stuff everyday. (I mean financially…it’s $28/gallon. Obviously if you could afford to eat the love child of whipping cream and butter every day you wouldn’t be dieting.)
11. I think it’s nice to use real china, but that’s because I am fortunate to have a vintage set with an extra 15 dinner plates (27 total). It definitely made the lasagna seem classier. If you want china, or want more dinner plates, consider older sets on eBay. My set is from my mom, who spent a total of $200 on it. I like vintage china because it has a warmer look to it than most of what is available new today. If you have a complete set of new china, consider getting extra dinner plates that coordinate but don’t match.
12. Don’t feel guilty about tossing leftovers. Does anybody really want to eat pasta that has been cooked, allowed to sit out for several hours, and has been breathed on by everyone? If you want to conserve food, try keeping the things that are cool/room temperature divided into smaller containers and just refill the serving dish as needed. Warm stuff that sits out probably won’t make it.
13. Make an effort to check on the bathrooms every now and then. It’s amazing what people will do in your bathroom, and you’ll be embarrassed that half of your guests think that you didn’t bother to clean the toilet before the party. :/ On this note, change the hand towel on the hour, or get disposable hand towels for the day.

• Condoms & Contraceptives
• Lubricants & Moisturizers
• Vibrators & Adult Toys
• Mood Setters
• Sexual Wellness Supplements
• Intimate Care (douche, medications, tampons, waxing)

I am trying to figure out how one could use most of these items to “enhance intimacy” or “plan a family.” Of course lubrication is helpful for couples who need it, and treating a yeast infection could theoretically enhance sexual satisfaction or fertility. But the fact is, 95% of what is listed in this category is aimed at reducing sex to recreation, or reducing people to their parts. Where are the pregnancy and ovulation tests? Where are the…wait…I can’t really think of anything else a married couple might need to plan a family, except of course for the important stuff that you can’t buy.

If theoretically you could shop for stuff that would help you plan a family, this is what I’d hope to find stocked:

• A strong commitment to staying married, even when things really suck.

• An understanding that both your body and your spouse’s body were designed by God and are therefore holy. Sex is holy.
• A willingness to sacrifice for each other, both in terms of submission and patience.
• An openness to children, even if it’s not a good time. Couples using NFP will sometimes conceive when they were trying not to, and it’s important to remember that marriage and sex are all about children. Conceiving while using NFP to avoid conception isn’t a sign that it “didn’t work.” That would imply that the whole point of NFP is to perfectly control the timing of children. It’s not. The point of NFP is to cooperate with God’s will.
• A sense of humor. Because sometimes, especially when you’re pregnant, sex is very funny.

I don't think this is going to work either, Honey.

• A deep respect for your spouse as a person and not as a means to your end.
• Generosity in the bedroom. Let’s be honest…nobody healthy wants to be married to a prude. I know more than one Catholic couple who figure, “There’s no way we’re committing sins against chastity because we’re not going an inch beyond what an Anatomy & Physiology book says is required for conception.” I think there are a couple of sins wrapped up in this way of thought, one of which is a lack of trust in God. Should we really fear that God, despite having given married couples the go-ahead for sex, is actually waiting to throw ardent lovers into the cosmic bug zapper? Or should we trust that what He has made is good, and our job is to respect His role in creation, our role in procreation, and our spouse’s innate dignity?

Of course, one can’t buy any of these things, and in our culture, one can rarely hear about them. This is one reason why it’s important for Catholic (and other Christian) women to burn brightly for Christ, and their spouses. Noooooobody is attracted to the frumpy prairie type, and if we’re not attracting people, we’re distracting or dismaying them. When I dress nicely, people are more apt to look at me and accept me. If they accept me, they’re more likely to accept the validity of the things I might say. If I want to be a witness to the Gospel, that’s important.

I'm better than you because you can't see my figure!

Similarly, since we live in a culture that promotes fornication, adultery, contraception, abortion, out-of-wedlock births, and divorce, it is extremely important for Catholic couples to burn brightly with the love of Christ and the joy of Christian marriage. If we want to attract people who have been deadened to the true power of sex, we need to glow with the beauty of chastity and faithful love.

Sex is a magnetic thing and we can use that to our advantage in evangelizing. I know couples with large families who are a powerful witness to the young people around them, not just because they are open to life, but because they are deeply in love with each other and unashamed of it. I know that in my own life people have been attracted to me because of my chastity (real and attempted). In college, I was asked out frequently, despite living in a college culture where most people didn’t officially date. I had really gorgeous guys, deadbeat guys, normally-quite-shy guys, badass bachelors, etc. ask me out and continue to pursue me even after I used my “no sex before marriage” man-repellent. My husband was one of these guys.

Fierce actually broke up with me because he was so frustrated, but confessed that he loved me in the same conversation. Had we been sleeping together in college, I have no doubt we would not be married today. We needed a good long time to work out our differences, and having a sexual relationship would have put a lot of pressure on us to simply pretend we were already on the same page.

In short, the things we need in marriage are things that we develop before marriage. Anybody who wants to sell a product that promotes intimacy probably doesn’t understand what real intimacy is. Anybody who wants one to plan a family by buying some product doesn’t understand what families are for, where they come from, or who gets to plan them. Those of us who know better need to do better to communicate the truth better.

Exhibit A: Someone gives one of us a really lame gift.

• My nice friend’s response: Oh, thank you! It is so thoughtful of you to think of me! (Meanwhile, in her head: It’s so nice they even thought of me! God is so good!)
• My response: Oh, thank you! (Meanwhile, in my head: I doubt I can even regift a piece of crap like this. Why would anyone give me a shadowbox with a homemade origami swan inside?)

It’s true, I really have no gratitude for anything that isn’t pretty much what I would have chosen for myself. I write nice thank you notes, but I often don’t really mean what I write because I’m too busy being picky to have a thankful heart. I have honestly at times thought, “Great, now I’m going to have to spend time exchanging this.”

So, now that I have demonstrated why my nickname in these parts is Scrooge, let me say how much I love my baby. Zoe has a feathery sweet touch when her fingers flutter; she smiles brilliantly while she dreams; Zoe lies quietly and observes me with her dark blue eyes while I change her diaper and clothes, despite the fact that I’m slow and awkward like a 7th grade dance; she is perfectly content to wear a sack cloth or the mountains of pretty outfits bestowed upon her by her fan club–she has no material concerns; she purrs in my arms and openly grunts as she works her digestive system–she’s as honest about that as she is about her appetite.

I point out my natural tendency toward curmudgeonry because I personally get a little green around the gills when I read certain Christian/mommy blogs.  My life is so blessed. I could see God’s love for me because he answered my prayers today. I was driving when I saw a perfectly-good ironing board leaning against someone’s trashcan. This is exactly what I needed! Can you believe how good God is to me? Also, please keep me in your prayers because my unemployed husband was killed by a drunk driver this afternoon, and despite having six kids and no job skills we stopped paying his life insurance two days ago. I can’t help it, I think maybe you should place a little less stock in God’s prayer-answering capacity and a little more in Murphy’s Law. God provides, but I’m pretty sure he leaves the upgrades to us. Free will and all that….

I think it’s good for people to know that God could send me blessings so obvious you would think he was trying to hit me over the head with a two-by-four, and my response would be: Black? I was hoping we would win a red car. This puts into stark relief what happened today: four minutes before we were due to leave the house for the baptism, I pick up the baby to put her in her carseat and her backside is COVERED in poop. It extends from her knees to her shoulders, and just so happens to be soaking through the only white outfit I own in her size. My first thought was, “I was worried this would happen at Church and now it won’t!” I calmly and lovingly cleaned her off and found something else for her to wear. It was like I was somebody else, somebody nicer.

God really is good. I’m not, but I think he’s working very hard to change that.

1. Fierce is halfway through his two week winter break. Woot! We’ve been in new-baby-zombie-land and at least now we can do that together. I think the whole “going to work” thing is overrated.

2. My grandmother started hospice care this last week and is showing signs of being antibiotic-resistant. She has been falling deeper into dementia since at least 2007, maybe longer. It struck me this last week when I went to take Wolfie and Zoe for a visit (Zoe is named after my grandmother), how hard things have been for so long. My grandmother requires full-time care and my grandfather, who is still sharp as a tack, needs company and emotional support. I am grateful for the summer of 2006, when I stayed with grandparents while working at an office nearby. I did not know that it would be the last time I would ever really talk to my grandmother.

3. Zoe has a heat rash because I keep falling asleep with her on top of me and we both wake up sweaty. Great parenting…

4. Wolfie told Fierce and me that we were on the Naughty List because we gave him a time-out. Apparently Wolfie is on the Nice List because he “washed his hands.” I guess the Lists are weighted to take into account one’s age and capability.

5. My family thinks it is hilarious that my sister Katelyn dropped by just as Wolfie “accidentally” poured Coke on the Christmas tree. They think that Wolfie is an angel who does nothing wrong. I would like to present evidence to the contrary:

6. The old high school friend who was a pain during her last visit sent me an email, pointing out that I had been unresponsive and she didn’t know if it was because I had a lot going on with a new baby, but that she valued her friendship and wanted to see me. I wrote an honest email back, explaining that she seemed pretty irritated by Wolfie acting like a 3-year-old and me being frank about my conservative viewpoint on things (in response to her freely sharing, per usual, her liberal take on everything). I might have implied that she was a bad guest and a pain in the ass. Oh yeah, and her grandmother died three days ago…

7. Could someone please just give Simcha Fisher a round of applause? She’s blogging already, and doing a bang-up job. I don’t get it. I feel totally overwhelmed with my puny little life and she’s over there having a ninth beautiful baby and being funny on her blog to boot.

Last year, Archbishop Cardinal George of Chicago gave a homily at Georgetown’s Mass for Life. He said something profound when he was reflecting upon the message in that day’s readings: A people who walked in darkness have seen a great light (Isaiah 9:2). He discussed the different types of darkness that besiege us, including political evils and sin. Then he said, “In the end, it isn’t darkness that kills us; it is cold. Light is not enough; there must be warmth. Truth is not enough; there must be love.”

This resonated with me because it is an area where I am sorely lacking. I love the Truth. I love learning about God’s law and I love His Church. But do I love Him? Do I love His children?

The fact is, I’m lazy in my prayer life and easily frustrated in my home life. Like an athlete who favors one arm, I rely on my native strengths and fail to develop my weak areas. I like the logic of God, so I safely reside in a area where I can study the Church like a specimen or a sonnet. But forging an emotional connection with God? This would require sitting in the classroom of silence, being open to God’s call to me, and frankly, I’m afraid of what he might say. I suspect something about being a little more patient with Wolfie, a little more affectionate with Fierce, a little more giving with people outside my immediate jurisdiction. God might say, “You’ve seen the light, now feel the warmth; you know the Truth, now desire My Love.”

So, I will look to Lisa, and the holy women I know like her, and imagine them in their prayer lives; the peace and joy they bring to their vocation is a miracle; so is the fact that God wants to give me those gifts too. I find it incomprehensible that not only does God want a beautiful life for me, but that if I ask for spiritual gifts, he’ll give them to me. I have been the way I am for so long that I struggle to conceive of a version of myself who is patient, loves to pray, can hear God’s voice. But, rather than intellectualizing God’s love, I will try to draw near him, like a fire on the hearth, sure that whether or not I understand the fire, I can feel the warmth.