Week in Review

Week in Review: Joseph one-month-old!

This week I felt like I was getting my sea legs--with all the slipping, falling on my face, and "sea sickness" that entails!

Chris was back to work and even took his first two-day, one-overnight business trip. I started the children back on almost the normal load of homeschooling and taught four days of it, plus Chris took them to their afternoon co-op. And I kept up with laundry.

Margaret (22 months) began formal potty training . . . because that seems like a good idea when one has a four-week-old baby, right?! My thinking was that I've been putting off Margaret for two to three months as she is eager to be like the big kids and I'm afraid the "window of opportunity" will close if I don't act soon. Three days into it and Margaret is doing great, wearing a diaper only at sleeping times and outings, and doing all her own initiating!

It is so wonderful to have a second adult available full-time in the house so I can say, "Would you play Old Maid with the kids to buy me 15 minutes while I wash dishes?"

I continue to learn spiritual lessons about accepting help (being small, humble, inept), as I was able to accomplish what I did only because I have a husband who works from home, and we had hired a babysitter for three mornings, then my stepdad arrived so helped me with the final two days of the week. I am in awe of mothers who do this kind of work with even less assistance.

As of this week, sometimes Joseph will be calmly happy if a sister or brother lies down next to him, which lets me have hands free for a few minutes so I can do luxuries like brush my teeth!

Incredible thankfulness is what I feel toward the women are making meals for us. Really, I'd be keeping the baby alive through feeding and the children alive through not killing each other and that's about all I'd be doing if I had to put thought into meal-planning, grocery-shopping, and cooking. The breakfasts I am preparing on my own are about the level of toast, and lunches are extremely simple, like peanuts, raisins, crackers, and cheese thrown on a plate.

The only way I know how to get anywhere on time right now is to sketch it out on the whiteboard like a battle plan. And I simply don't yet know how to get anywhere in the morning before about 9:00 or 10:00.

I went on not one but two outings to the doctor--even with extra kids in tow, out of necessity--for Joseph to have a frenotomy: he was diagnosed with a tongue tie (the IBCLC said type 4, the pediatrician said type 3). Given John's history (see here!), I was suspicious of a posterior tongue tie by the time Joseph was three days old. Did you know that tongue ties run in families and are twice as common in boys as in girls? Interesting. Now we will keep up the routine of nursing, pumping, bottle-feeding, logging, and obsessing over ounces while adding in tongue exercises for Joseph and observing to see if his nursing improves. I am learning so much--about being in relationship with a baby through a piece of plastic, about judgment, expectations, control and lack thereof, God's providence, vulnerability, dependence, gratitude--through this challenging experience that I would not have chosen for myself!

This week I worked hard to implement a more formal schedule for our hours in the day. If I can just keep us to it, life will move more smoothly and should be more pleasant even for the children. In the meanwhile, I felt all this week like I was running from one urgent need to another, almost without ceasing from morning till bedtime. I felt that every human under my care and each domestic chore was screaming at me, "Now me! Now my need! You're late!" But this leads me to ask myself: Isn't it very disordered that in the modern culture, we consider what is essentially a state of relaxation and leisure to be the norm and having to work steadily and productively is considered onerous to the point of being "unhealthy" emotionally and perhaps "impossible"?

On the bright side, I am learning much about organization, thoughtfulness, order, diligence, and that the challenges of irritations (from children, from unexpected trouble, such as a van that won't start or spilling food on myself) are not an acceptable excuse for me to fail in virtue but are, in fact, an opportunity for me to exercise virtue. I'm certainly not practicing patience when my entire world is calm, quiet, and under my control, now am I? I read about a woman who suffered deeply for years with depression and anger, but had an epiphany and felt deeply convicted about what the Lord says in the Bible about anger, such that she has not yelled at her eight children in fifteen years now. I am meditating much on that. (And I'm not saying to be a wimp: actually I feel that exercising discipline--discipleship-- and maintaining standards and order is more critical than ever the more children in a family. But flying off the handle and shouting or using that too-familiar ugly tone of voice is simply un-Godly and not something I want to model for our children.)

Last night I went on my first night-time outing with Joseph in tow! The Charlotte Catholic Women's Group hosted one of its excellent reflections for women, this one with national speakers Fr. Larry Richards and Dr. Ray Guarendi. The event was edifying and deeply enjoyable! And can anyone guess how I ended the evening? Ten points if you guessed that I slept through most of Fr. Larry's concluding talk, despite the fact that he literally shouts in a deep voice into the microphone through his entire delivery!