God is Talking Again

I want to introduce you to a new friend of mine. His name is Spencer and he is six years old. He lives in a comic strip called Knocking on Heaven's Door Spencer lives with his mom and his dad and his little sister Ruby and has a pretty normal life except that Spencer's best friend is God and he has the most amazing conversations with God on a daily basis.

Spencer and his family are the creation of Comedian Tommy Blaze and Mad Magazine Illustrator Nate Fakes. If you are like me and have really missed Calvin and Hobbes you will love Spencer. You should give it a try. Follow the link above, which is also permanently on my sidebar and read through them for yourself.

Pax

supporting a daughter's fragile sense of self

Our saintly middle daughter tried to get her learner's permit today. She has waited this long because of her concern about her epilepsy issues (she has only ever had two seizures, the last one was a year ago last February). Her doctor cleared her to get a license if she wanted last fall, but she has really been struggling with confidence and worrying about the epilepsy.

We have been trying to get her to want to drive and hoping that she will be driving by fall, which would make my life so much easier. She could drive herself to class, and possibly even drive her sister since they are taking classes at the same campus. She has been studying the rules of the road book for over a month, but never seemed to be ready to step up and take the test. Part natural shyness, part fear I think.

Anyway, today was her first attempt at the permit test, and she missed one question more than is allowed. She was crushed. I told her that both her brother and sister had to take it more than once, and now that she has seen the questions that they ask she will have some idea of how to study for the next time she takes it tomorrow (I hope).

I wish there was more I could do for her, but realistically all I can do is take her to take the test as often as it takes. I did talk to her a bit about how to take a multiple choice test (eliminating the least likely answers first to cut down the possible choices on the ones you have to guess at).

I really hope she passes it the next time. I don't think she can take another failure.

Pax

Another Weekend; Another Daughter; Another Retreat

Middle daughter (the saintly one) just left for an overnight retreat at which she will be acting as host/team member for a group of high school students from our parish. This is the second time she has participated in a retreat as a member of a team since she graduated from High School herself last June, and we are really happy that she enjoys this ministry, because she is a relatively quiet young woman.

Please say a prayer that the team does a good job. That the kids on the retreat get what they need from the Holy Spirit, and that our Saintly daughter can get at least a little sleep in her sleeping bag on the floor of the gym tonight. She is on epilepsy medicine, and sleep is very important to her.

Pax

Big Day

The angelbaby is going on her very first retreat today. She is really excited as are we for her.

Please say a prayer that she is filled with the Holy Spirit and meets some new friends (especially ones she will be going to school with next year when she switches to the Catholic School for middle school).

Thanks for the prayers.

Pax

A Little Parental Pride

The angelbaby was in a contest to design a web page describing the accomplishments of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in a way that would educate other children about what his mission was and what his impact on other generations was.

I think she did a really great job, but she didn't even get an honorable mention in corporation wide contest. She was pretty crushed.

If you want to see her website you can see it here. Click the links at the bottom of the home page and see what you think.

Perhaps her problem was she didn't use a lot of color, and she expected kids her own age (elementary school) to actually read his entire speech. Who knows about these things. Or perhaps it is her too rosy view of how much things have changed (which I find refreshing, and probably a direct result of how we have raised her and not because she doesn't understand what life is really like "in the real world").

Oh well, I think she is over the hurt by now. I just wonder if the corporation couldn't have given every child who submitted an entry an honorable mention just for taking the time. It seems like they were forgetting a bit of what Dr. King was trying to preach.

Pax

Angelbaby Theology

Overheard bit of a conversation between the angelbaby and her older sister the other day:


Angelbaby: God is perfect, he never makes mistakes


Older sister: That is right.


Angelbaby: Except maybe spiders.


Pax

Nature (and motherhood) Abhors a Vacuum

It is Tuesday, a day when I am usually rushing to get to my internship in Indianapolis to spend a day being a Spiritual Direction Intern immersed in talk of God, spirituality and being other centered. But this happens to be the one Tuesday a month that we get off to allow us time to catch up on the paperwork involved in the program.

Well actually I happen to be a bit ahead of the game in terms of paperwork for my internship because I got two papers written this Sunday when my tummy was acting up so I had really intended to take the day off and rejuvenate my spirit by being a bit lazy. But, motherhood like nature abhors the vacuum of unscheduled time.

By early evening yesterday I had been delegated at least four kid related errands to be accomplished today that will eat up my glorious free day. These activities must be accomplished today and will involve my driving all over town (in at least three directions anyway).

Oh well, I can be lazy when I am old and feeble. I can spend today taking care of the needs of my beautiful children. Besides this is more training on being other centered and helping me to see that it isn't all about me, so: It's all good.

Pax.

Why is it. . .

That we as parents are held accountable for the sins of our children?

We are seeing this played out on the National Political stage right now but I venture to guess that many of us have a child that has strayed from the path of righteousness and others look at us and think, he/she must have raised that child wrong! That home must have been too conservative or too liberal or too indulgent or too strict.

And to be fair and balanced we parents of erring children have asked the same questions of ourselves. What we tend to forget is, we can't live our children's lives, we can't protect them from every mistake and miss-step.


Even the bible says in Proverbs 22:6 Train a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.

That little promise doesn't say anything about not departing from the way when the child is young and hormonal. We are promised that eventually sanity will rule the child's heart again and the child will find the true path again someday.

Until that day, as St. Monica did for Auggie the Rat, our job as parents is to watch and pray and be a wide safety net. We are not meant to clean up every little slip along the way, but rather to make sure that the child doesn't fall off the side of the big scary mountain all together.

So, when our children don't live up to our expectations, we continue to love; but often we have to use a tougher kind of love. We have to watch them make some mistakes that we would have rather they didn't make. We have to watch them deal with adult situations long before they are probably capable of dealing with them. We have to watch them grow up a little faster than they might have had to. But we stand back and let them, because we love them. And while we are letting them be adult, we are praying for them even harder, because we know that with God all things are possible.

Pax

Tragedy Has Struck (Stricken?)

The angelbaby found out the most devastating news of her short life today . . . her favorite teacher; the one she has waited twelve long years to get to have (her older siblings all had him, even son and heir had him the year she was born, so she has known him her whole life) has been transferred to another Elementary School effective this School Year! This isn't some idle rumor either, we got it right from his own mouth when we saw him at the Farmer's Market this morning.

She is practically in mourning. She has built up for her entire time at her school how great it will be to finally be in his class this year that she can't possibly imagine what it will be like to have to endure another teacher for the year. I have been telling her that she will still have all of her friends there, and she will still be in sixth grade and we all know that sixth graders rule the school. Nothing seems to help.

I am at a loss as to how to make this better for her. I know that Wednesday when she gets to school, no matter who her teacher is everything will work out, but somehow this has come as a real shock to her system.

I despise the fact that the only thing I can tell her is that life just isn't fair, and then you die. I have been trying to help her realize that perhaps she will be surprised and she will have a teacher that she likes even better than she would have if she had had Mr Love (I am not making that up, that really is his last name.)

So, this school year will have more surprises than I ever expected.

Pax

Prayers Appreciated

Our oldest daughter has been out of work for over a month now and really trying to find another job but not having much luck. She has a very promising interview this coming Thursday for a job at a sandwich shop downtown, which would be pretty convenient for her and might work out well for her course schedule in the fall.

Please if you get a chance in the next few days say a special prayer that she be taken seriously in this interview and that she be offered this job if it is God's will for her. She is getting very discouraged by all of the rejection, and she really needs to start earning some money again.

We would really appreciate any prayer support you all can offer.

Pax

Lucky Catch

The angelbaby met some really nice kids at the beach today who were catching tiny hermit crabs left and right. She tried to catch one herself but had no luck. They even loaned her a mask and snorkel.



Then a while later they came over and offered her one of the ones that they caught. So now we have a tiny new pet.



She has dubbed the tiny hermit crab Pashmina (she is sure that it is a female crab and I have no clue how to tell if it is male or female.)

We probably will only keep it around for a while and then let it back into the gulf before we go home, but she sure is having fun just watching it right now.

Pax

A Promising Career Perhaps?

The angelbaby took part in a Mock Trial today. For the past twelve weeks she has had Law Students at her school teaching her class the finer points of Civil Court Case Law. The final exercise was today's mock trial at which she took the part of the Plaintiff's attorney.

The trial revolved around an alleged slush ball mugging of Calvin by Susie. The angelbaby took her job very seriously. She spent much time going over the depositions of all of the witnesses and thinking about which questions she would ask.

The judge was one of the Law School Professors. He ruled for the Plaintiff in the amount of $9000 to cover medical costs and damages. She said the judge also said that she would make a very good lawyer. (Just what we need to hear, that we will have to pay for law school down the road, oh joy).

I have no doubt about her making a good lawyer, she was reading a Calvin an Hobbes book over the weekend and showed me a cartoon panel that showed Calvin contemplating hitting Susie with a slush ball and talking to Hobbes about it. She told me that she didn't think it would be a good idea to bring that to court with her on Monday. It makes a mother proud to know that her baby already knows how to suppress evidence. I told her that she should be sure to tell her law student that she had found the comic strip after the trial, because he would get a kick out of knowing how savvy she really had been.

I am glad she got the opportunity to give this a try, even if she never goes into law it can't hurt to know her way around a court room. For now, can't she just stay a little kid for a while longer, please?

Pax

When a Correction Turns into an Opportunity

I want to warn parents about an insidious import from Japan called the Manga or graphic novel. My kids have been reading them for a while now. The problem is that they look like comic books so you wouldn't immediately think to look for content ratings, but believe me when I tell you that the rated T for Teen ones are nothing short of soft core porn.

I learned this the hard way when my fifth grader, the angelbaby got caught with one at school that she had checked out of the public library. I had no idea that the content of the ones available at the library was so graphic!!!!! Needless to say, she won't be bringing any of that trash into my house anymore.

As we discussed why it was a good idea not to read that kind of material if one wants to remain chaste, and what we both could do to make sure that nothing like this happens in the future, I got the idea that she and I should spend more time together doing constructive things. She has really gotten the short end a little as I was so deeply involved in completing my gradual school work.

We decided that from now on she and I are going to spend Saturdays together doing whatever we like to do. We began today by going to the first Farmer's Market of the season. Then we participated in an Autism Speaks awareness walk. Then we went shoe shopping because she needed new athletic shoes. And finally we ended the afternoon by stopping at church for a visit with Fr. for the Sacrament of Reconciliation (hey after our week we both could use it).

All in all what started as a moral crisis has become a great opportunity for the two of us to spend some real quality time together. We got to discuss what religion topic she wants to cover this summer while we are staying in Florida (she chose Old Testament Stories). We ran into one of the teachers from her school who sells beef from his farm at the Market. He will most probably be her teacher next year as he has been the 6th grade teacher of all four of our other kids, and he and the angelbaby have a really great relationship. She got some really cool shoes, and a cute shorts outfit while we were shopping, and I learned a great deal about how her pre-teen mind works.

I would say that this correction of ours is going to be very beneficial to us both.

Pax

Happy Birthday Neighbor

Today marks the 80th Birthday anniversary of every one's favorite neighbor, Fred Rogers. If you grew up between 1959 and the present or had children in that time you were exposed to his gentle brand of loving education.

My daughters and I watched an episode of his show just the other day, and while the youngest still enjoyed it, the 21 year old found it a bit syrupy. I looked her right in the eye and said, for years you made me watch this show with you day after day after day. Mr. Rogers doesn't make his show for the parents he makes it just for the kids. There was no subtle nod or wink, wink joke in anything he did. He was totally focused on the task of teaching children in a safe, predictable environment.

Then of course because we are who we are, we proceeded to find double entendre's in everything from Mr Rogers making the trolley go into and out of the hole, to Lady Elaine's Red Nose, and what exactly did they make in that factory anyway? We were laughing so hard we were in tears. Oh how I wish I had thought of it in that way when I was watching the show every day for fifteen years straight while the kids were growing up.

Anyway, for everything he did for the children of this country, especially for exposing my kids to some really amazing musicians, I will always be indebted to Fred Rogers. May he rest in peace.

Pax

40 Reasons to Have Children

So there is a meme going around the Catholic Internet and all these wonderful moms are waxing nostalgic and getting all spiritual about why they went and had kids. I thought this was just the kind of meme that I needed to let off steam and prepare me to complete my philosophy essay for my gradual school final.

So, in a nutshell this is (as best I can remember, it has been nearly 24 years since we started cookin' the first little varmint) why mrangelmeg and I had kids.

Nota: This is post should be taken tongue in cheek. It in no way is the only reason that himself and I decided to have children, I am sure that somewhere deep in our hearts way back 25 years ago we had much purer motives, but we were much younger then.

1. tax deductions, we get one for each kid we have (cha-ching)

2. swollen legs, hemorrhoids, a weak bladder and stretch marks are all the rage as signs of beauty or haven't you heard?

3. crawling babies clean the floor much more efficiently than those silly roomba vacuums (and we didn't have to pay shipping)

4. I don't have a lick of decorating sense, so I keep having kids and say I will decorate as soon as the kids move away (I am good well past 2025 woo hoo)

5. little kids are better than Comedy Central when it comes to making us laugh.

6. If we hadn't had kids I would have never seen a wet hamster.

7. kids are the best BS meter on the planet, they can spot a phony a mile away, especially when it is a parent so it keeps us really honest

8. I love to read, although if I had to choose I might not have chosen to read One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish for the three-thousand-four-hundred-ninety fifth-time last night, I suppose its a good thing no body's counting.

9. kids are one of the best reasons for having an after dinner drink (or two, or more)

10. since himself isn't very social the fact that we take up an entire pew in church suits him hust fine.

11. who needs vacations, when the kids want excitement we just have them switch bedrooms. Now that is as exciting as any amusement park you have to pay money to get into.

12. Kids little toys, especially Lego's make really good exercise equipment. If you accidentally step on one you hop around holding your foot for at least a half hour. That has to burn as many calories as those expensive machines they sell on television.

13. Who doesn't love kids food (probably the exact same thing every lunch for three weeks in a row even) I ask you?

14. Naps.

15. They keep your Math and English and Social Studies and Science skills sharp while you are helping them with their homework.

16. You are completely justified in buying sugar sweetened cereal (the kind with the prize inside) because your kids eat it -- yeah right!

17. You are completely justified in going to the animated movie that all the kids are going to, because you have to take your kids.

18. Have you seen all the cool toys they make now? (I suppose that is a dad's reason.)

19. live in excuse to go out for ice cream?

20. I'm playing with the kids is the greatest excuse for not doing whatever it is you are supposed to be doing.

21. Who doesn't want to spend an entire weekend at the baseball (basketball/soccer/volleyball/football) field, those concession stand nachos are just yummy.

23. My lifelong ambition was to be the ten year president of the elementary school PTO, really it was.

24. Surviving another year of the first grade Christmas Pageant makes you realize that sanity is relative, and probably fleeting.

26. liberals with no kids reduce, reuse, and recycle to be trendy. People with kids are trendy out of necessity cool.

28. If you can put together a tricycle at 3 o'clock in the morning after having had dinner with the in-laws and taken two cranky children to midnight mass without going insane you can conquer the world.

29. Getting fifteen minutes to yourself, even if it means having to lock the bathroom door and stuff toilet paper in your ears and hum as loud as you can, is worth it when you see how happy their little faces are when you finally come out.

30. eventually they actually get old enough to help you do housework.

31. they even get old enough to help mow the lawn, although you have to be sure to cut the blocks big enough so that their little feet reach the pedals on the rider.

32. who needs disposable income, we'd only get into trouble if we had money to waste on things. kids take care of all that extra income really efficiently.

33. Little girls grow up and legitimize my devoted husbands growing collection of firearms (to show to potential dates).

34. Eventually they get old enough to get their drivers license and you can make them take their brothers and sisters places in order to get the use of the car. Now that is a great reason.

35. Trick or Treat candy taxes. (don't tell me you don't take them up in your house, and if you don't you are welcome to the suggestion)

36. So that we could populate the world with children who would grow up loving Monty Python and Mel Brooks Movies, duh.

37. Because the bible tells us to be fruitful and multiply and it sounded a lot more fun than just adding.

38. Because who needs to sleep through the night anyway? When they are little they can't sleep and when they get old enough to go on dates you can't sleep.

39. Because retiring young is for wimps.

40. Because we know what it takes to make them and we enjoy the process thoroughly.

Now back to my essays.

Pax

I Wouldn't Have Believed it If I Hadn't Been There

So my youngest daughter went to fencing camp last week. She had such a wonderful time that she bugged me all weekend to remember that the Fencing Club Open Lessons are on Monday nights. She was all ready to continue her career as a fencing fool.

The amazing thing is that she has convinced her couch potato older sister to join her at fencing! They went to their first open lesson tonight. Older sister was in the beginners class and younger sister was in the advanced class because of fencing camp.

Older sister really enjoyed it and is looking forward to actually getting to "suit up", since this week the beginners just worked on footwork and didn't put on fencing gear.

Younger sister was the youngest and smallest one in the advanced class, but kept up with everyone else in all the drills, and was really sad when the class was over.

The instructor told older sister that she had to keep up with the footwork practice so that she wouldn't get sore, and younger sister is all about making sure that they remember to practice every day. As we were driving home younger sister said "I can't wait till next Monday!"

I think they have found a sport that they really like. Praise God.

Pax