Trying to Meet Needs

This introvert-loner mama who has a husband who works from home and kids around 24/7 really treasures the occasional mornings when I get a few minutes alone-with-the-baby before the big kids wake up. But I know how hard it is for John that he always has a toddler sister messing up his Big Boy Games, so when I hear the pitter patter of his feet coming downstairs to join me at 5:30 a.m. (and my heart sinks at my lost sole opportunity for alone time in the day) and he begs me to play chess with him, I can hardly refuse.

But mama still needs respite every so often . . . and today I got it when my baby was napping and the sitter was here for the morning. Instead of using those few hours to do chores like usual, I sat in my van under a shady tree in our neighborhood and read a book, with instructions to be called when the baby awoke. Because you mothers understand me when I say that if I tried to read a book locked in a bedroom or in my own back yard, those children would find me, seek me out, have some need that only Mommy could make right!

Speaking of reading that book, I'm only 32 pages in but already want to recommend The Catholic Book of Character and Success by Edward Garesche, S.J. (Sophia Press--an abridged edition of The Will to Succeed, originally published in 1931). Already I've gotten much good meditation out of this excerpt:

"A successful life is a life that achieves its purpose. Such a life is a happy one, even though its way may pass through suffering and difficulty, because happiness is one thing and pleasure another, and a person may have great pleasure and still be very unhappy, just as he may lack pleasure almost entirely and still be very happy.

"What is the purpose of life? The chorus of all generations of mankind, the general conclusion of history, is that the purpose of life is to do one's duty to God and man, to make the most of one's opportunities of service, to live virtuously, and thus enjoy the happiness here and hereafter that comes from such performance of duty."