Back in Time

I just experienced going "back in time": for three days, I was a mama of only a three-year-old and a one-year-old with a husband on the road again. Flash back!

While Chris took John and Mary to the priestly ordinations of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter--to which they didn't make it because Chris has the worst cold we can remember in years!--I had plenty of time to ruminate on the difference just a couple of years makes.

'Hello, Mama, I miss you," with each family member labeled by initial

Way back when, I enjoyed a dear friendship with a woman whose oldest was a mere four years older than my oldest. We talked and emailed daily--before our lives as homeschooling mothers simply became way too busy for such indulgence--and I didn't see how my difficult life would ever become easy in certain ways as hers was.

In the midst of the day-to-day slog of homeschooling four children, I sometimes don't notice how much has changed. But a sudden trip back in time illuminates the changes for me! For the sake of any of my readers who still have all children under age five, I share with you so you can have some hope of things to come. For my readers who have so soon forgotten what it used to be like, I remind you so you can be grateful--like I am feeling!

When Mama has only a one- and three-year-old, she's barely starting to see the first child learn obedience, she's wondering if she's doing anything right as concerns character development--are any good or bad behaviors flukes or the result of good/bad parenting?--and she's starved for rational conversation or a companion who can ever sit still. And this is typically the time when a Catholic mama accepting babies as they come will conceive her third baby, which can lead to a time of great doubt and darkness as her parenting is at a real point of difficulty, she doesn't have much visible record of success to look back on (although reality is there is much success), and God is sending yet another bundle of joy.

Joseph (16 months) now climbs the ladder and descends the slide by himself,
so my time of sitting in a chair to supervise is over for about the next six months.

Mamas of such little ones are doing 100% of the homemaking duties themselves. Just a few years later, I have such big helpers! For example, on Thursday I clean bathrooms, and nowadays I send the seven-year-old to clean one bathroom by himself and the five-year-old to clean the other bathroom herself, while I do the third one: it takes about 15 minutes. But this Thursday, I had to clean all three bathrooms by myself with a one-year-old and a three-year-old who kept pestering me, following me about, and getting into mischief, so took even more than the expected 15 minutes times three. It took a lot more time and patience, trust me!

For several days, I had no one to help me with emptying the dishwasher, clearing tables, laundry, making beds, vacuuming, and the list goes on.

To mamas of those five and under . . . in just a few years, you can assign your chores to each day of the week, split up chores among you and your older kids, and fly through the jobs!

Daddy and the kids found this neat field of satellite dishes in Virginia

Mamas of such little ones have tots hanging on their ankles all the time. Boy, have I been reminded of this. Say I had to strip the sheets and take all the bedding downstairs to launder. Normally I'd just do that and leave all the kids upstairs: the baby wouldn't even notice I had disappeared for 60 seconds and, if he did, he wouldn't care because he'd be playing with his siblings. But with only one- and three-year-olds, the baby won't let me out of his sight. I can't carry a bundle of bedding and a baby down the stairs safely, so I have to trap the baby somewhere--where he wails piteously--while I dash the bedding down and dash back up to get the baby. And that reminds me of having to do that with a big ol' pregnant baby while waddling during pregnancy #3, which was certainly straining.

In just a few years, kids five and seven can provide a good deal of occupation and babysitting while mama dashes here and there throughout the house.

Going on walks with Margaret to smell the flowers

Tots of such a young age aren't very interesting. Now, I say that with love. Clearly I found them interesting enough to spend those early years reading approximately a zillion books on young children and writing a blog about their antics. But even a bright three-year-old can converse about only so much. I remember feeling so anxious to get to read 'real books' to my young children.

Now that I have a five- and seven-year-old, we are currently in the midst of reading "Black Beauty" (listening on CD in the car), the Lambs' children's version of "Hamlet" (read in the afternoons in the den), "Treasure Island" (read a chapter at bedtime) and "Mary Poppins" (also read a chapter at bedtime). (Clearly, I'm teaching my children my scattered habit of reading many books simultaneously! Now that is interesting. Sometimes my eldest asks such sophisticated theological questions, I have to pass on the inquiries to my priest! Many more interesting things start happening with a bit of aging from the children.

Margaret (3 years 3 months has decided she wants to learn her letters, so this week began asking me how to write each letter. She can copy almost every letter, which tells me she's primed and ready! I love this stage. She's "writing letters" to family members and leaving pages with random alphabet letters all over the house, just like Mary used to do.

Mamas of such little ones have a different schedule. With half my family gone, I found myself going on errands, in the morning no less! This reminded me that I spent a good stretch of years going out on spontaneous errands in the cool morning weather with bright-eyed tots. No longer, believe me! I now live by the rule that we do not leave the house in the mornings because we have to be home in order to homeschool. If we don't school in the morning, there's no way we're going to get to it in the afternoon. Plus going on an errand with four children is quite exasperating and I try to avoid doing it. So, now, my husband does most of our errands for us, which is a gift to me but also makes me yearn to see the outside of these four walls more often. Taking kids one and three on errands is relatively easy, they're interested in the happenings, and they're sweet as long as it isn't meal or nap time.

So, mamas, enjoy your many errand outings during these earliest of years! I hear errands become easy again when mama has teenagers as built-in babysitters.

Gratitude, Humility, and Meekness

Four months ago during Advent--a mini-Lent--I had a deeply meaningful morning retreat during a time I was struggling with anger, resentment, and impatience much more than I am currently. Motherhood is most definitely not all about apple pie, sunny days, and roses. I have let the following reflection percolate all this time, but share it now in hopes that it is useful to other mothers.

* * * * 

It took me a few hours to find out why I was at an otherwise good, fine, and orthodox Advent half-day retreat for women but one from which I wasn't perceiving any profound or particularly meaningful message.

I certainly needed to be on retreat. My priest says carefully, "Katherine, you need to work on achieving meekness." I try, try again, and stumble, trip, and fall.

On the one-hour drive to the retreat, I listened to a sermon on the radio. It was quiet and I valued getting to listen to another adult speaking without constant interruption and general loud noise. The preacher spoke on meekness, explaining that it was patience in the face of injury. He said that meekness is the opposite of sudden anger and vindictiveness. (That part pierced my heart.)

The two men in the Bible most known for meekness were Moses ('the meekest among men') and Jesus ('I am meek and humble of heart'), both men known for strength and authority, not weakness (so often confused with meekness). This gave me much on which to meditate, as I struggle with understanding how one is supposed to be a parent with authority and a human being with meekness.

I arrived at the retreat and sat in back, letting my baby crawl around, while listening to the first of two reflections given by the priest. As I said, it was fine, good, and orthodox, but no 'lightening' was being set off inside of me and I hoped the very rare investment in a half day away from my familial duties would be worthwhile.

I was the only woman at the entire women's retreat who had a baby on her hip, when normally there are many of us. I felt out of place and wondered if my baby was a disturbance. During the coffee break in between talks, I was seated at a table at which apparently none of the women had children at all. I kept trying to make conversation with the women but the lack of common ground made it awkward.

One woman--appearing likely to be beyond childbearing age--commented on my cute baby and asked his age, so I replied and asked the natural question of whether she had children. She answered, "I had a daughter your baby's age when she died."

image source

I offered my condolences just in time before I felt the breath go out of me.

God in his providence allowed that this woman experience motherhood for ten months and never again. Meanwhile, has allowed me to experience motherhood for seven years and counting to four children so far. Yet I struggle with anger, resentment, and impatience.

How I can have exactly the life I wanted and prayed for, how is it that I am immeasurably blessed, but the reality is that this life requires heroic patience and detachment from my own will moment by relentless moment? That remains the mystery: how to be meek even amidst this whirl of blessings that do things like require tremendous household chores that are never completed, make messes, disobey, escape, hurt each other, and make so very much noise.

Thoughts raced through my mind as I sat limply in my chair with my cherubic baby charming all the childless ladies at the table, including the mother whose baby was dead.

God hasn't taken any of my children from me.

Yet I am so ungrateful.

In the following days, I was allowed in rapid succession to remember the tenuous nature of life, that all my children are on loan to me from God.

Over the weekend, Joseph gave me a scare. I had been washing dishes and walked away to tend to one of the many matters that pops up suddenly and urgently in a family with many little ones. Often such a matter pops up one after another, such that Mama remembers after a while what she was doing in the first place. When I made it back to the dishes, I discovered that I had left the bottom cupboard (with its baby latch) wide open and Joseph was playing with various bottles of dangerous cleaning supplies, and had dumped out a pile of Comet (bleach powder). Amazingly, our ten-month-old didn't put any of the powder in his mouth before I got to him! How differently that day could have ended.

On Monday, my fright was over our firstborn, John. We were leaving the doctor's office for John's seven-year well-child check and I was relieved at having managed all four little ones very well. We would be loading into the car to go buy milkshakes as a reward, and we were carefully navigating the peaceful parking lot: I was wearing the baby, pushing the toddler in a stroller, and had Mary walking immediately on my right, John walking immediately on my left. I don't know whether I heard a noise or sensed John looking over his shoulder, but I turned to the left to see a maroon van driving way too fast and bearing down on us, such that I grabbed John by his sweatshirt and yanked all of his fifty one and a half pounds off his feet and out of the way of the van. I literally felt the air of the van whooshing by me as I saw the male driver swerve wildly and then speed up as he drove out of the lot. John asked me, "Why would a person be so dangerous and mean?" How differently that day could have ended.

Tuesday came and I was given a poignant, if not dangerous, reminder of the gift that are children. I received news from a mutual friend of a woman I had met two years ago. This woman and I had been at a conference together, me with my baby (Margaret, at time of this writing two years and nine months), her with her baby (one month older than my Margaret). Well, Tuesday was the morning that that mother found her daughter deceased, while my daughter has been charming and mischievous and singing "Signing Times with Alex and Leah" on a loop for hours all day. How differently that day could have ended.

That leaves Mary, my five-year-old, and I pray that God sees no need to use her as his fourth and final example to me since she gives me frights regularly with all her climbing, leaping, and falling from heights!

Ask nearly any parent if she'd do anything for her child and she'll answer a resounding, "Yes, of course!" We like to think we'd do anything for our children . . . but we don't really mean it. I think it's because we don't think our "anything"--the vice we're supposed to quit, the action we're supposed to take, the virtue we must foster--really matters. As if it won't really have ill effect if I raise my voice and use an ugly tone of voice. As if Jesus wasn't quite clear on the sermon on the mount when he said we are to be perfect as our heavenly father is perfect (Matthew 5:48).

Gratitude will lead to Humility.

Humility will lead to Meekness.

"Mommy, Somebody Needs You" by Megan

I feel that I have very little useful or inspiring writing to craft myself, but I come across wonderful gems to share far and wide among my mommy-friends. Today I share with you a blog post written by a woman named Megan which is one of the most beautiful pieces on motherhood I have read in as long as I can remember.

Megan failed to give a "Kleenex warning" at the start of her blog post, so I will give one for you.

"Mommy, Somebody Needs You"

Ever since we brought our new daughter home, her older brothers have been the first to tell me when she is crying, whimpering, or smelling a little suspicious. “Somebody needs you,” they say. I have no idea how this little saying started, but at first it sort of annoyed me. I could be enjoying a quick shower… “Mommy, somebody needs you. The baby is crying.” Or, sitting down for a second, quite aware that the baby was beginning to stir from a nap…. “Mama, somebody needs you!” Okay! I get it already! And not to mention that the newborn’s needs pale in comparison to the needs of 2 little boys. Somebody always needs a snack, a band-aid, a different sock, ice cubes in their water, a NEW Paw Patrol, a stream of snot wiped, a hug, a story, a kiss. Some days never seem to end, and the monotony of being “needed” can really take its toll. Then, it all started to hit me, they need ME. Not anybody else. Not a single other person in the whole world. They need their Mommy.

The sooner I can accept that being Mommy means that I never go off the clock, the sooner I can find peace in this crazy stage of life. That ‘Mommy’ is my duty, privilege and honor. I am ready to be there when somebody needs me, all day and all night. Mommy means I just put the baby back down after her 4am feeding when a 3-year-old has a nightmare. Mommy means I am surviving on coffee and toddler leftovers. Mommy means my husband and I haven’t had a real conversation in months. Mommy means I neglect myself and put others before my needs, without a thought. Mommy means that my body is full of aches and my heart is full of love.

I am sure there will come a day when no one needs me. My babies will all be long gone and consumed with their own lives. I may sit alone in some assisted living facility watching my body fade away. No one will need me then. I may even be a burden. Sure, they will come visit, but my arms will no longer be their home. My kisses no longer their cure. There will be no more tiny boots to wipe the slush from or seat belts to be buckled. I will have read my last bedtime story, 7 times in a row. I will no longer enforce time outs. There will be no more bags to pack and unpack or snack cups to fill. I am sure my heart will yearn to hear those tiny voices calling out to me, “Mommy, somebody needs you!”

          Continued . . .  


Did you ignore my Kleenex warning? Go get your box of tissue, wipe your face dry, and click here to read the complete blog post by Megan.

Joseph's Big Week

In the week after Joseph turned one, he decided to 'turn things up a notch'!

He cut his seventh tooth.

At Mass when he wasn't throwing a tantrum

He took his first steps, taking a single step about a half dozen times so far.

He began speaking his first word: "down"! He takes a toy, throws it to the ground, exclaims, "down!" and cackles delightedly. The joke never gets old for him!

Wearing his new "teacher's assistant" tee-shirt: thanks T&M!

And he threw his first toddler-style tantrums. I've seen glimpses of these tantrums beginning when I pull him off the stairs and he arches his back and screams. But yesterday at Mass, it was unmistakable. He had found one of the parish's expensive missals which I can't let him play with, so I took the hardcover book away: Joseph flung himself to the ground, began logging rolling around, arching his back, screaming in anger, and would not let me pick him up. He just screamed and screamed at me. I tried to put him in my sling and I felt I was hardly strong enough, he was fighting me so hard. I finally got him calmed down by taking him outside into the sunshine (amazing what open sky does to instantly calm babies), but when later we were back in the cry room and again I had to take away a missal from him, he repeated the whole routine. Honestly, seeing this milestone developing for the fourth child in a row, I saw it as an exciting brain development and fell into fits of laughter in the middle of Mass over the whole thing. Too bad I know I won't keep my good humor as toddler tantrums ensue over the next year or two!

Bonus Reading: I was so touched and convicted this week by reading "Idols of a Mom's Heart" by  Ruth Simon.  As Simcha Fisher (I believe) once blogged about, we are to be Christ for our children, to present the Gospel to them in the way we as parents live. If we can't turn the other cheek, if we can't remain calm through our parenting (including teaching and discipline), if we resort to out-of-control anger and screaming, we are not evangelizing our nearest neighbors. We're teaching them something alright, but it isn't Christ. (Please note that I say this not from my high horse, but from my place as a fallen, very humbled mother.)

Simons writes about our many idols:

My daily life as a mom is replete with examples of how I often turn training into expectations, expectations into idols:

"The desire to wake up to a quiet house is reasonable, but has it squelched my ability to respond to my children’s (sometimes foolish) needs with patience?

"Is my need for peace and quiet so strong I’m willing to be unkind in the pursuing of it?

"Does my children’s whining annoy and inconvenience me more than it drives me to pray and train?

"Am I so prideful in the way I perceive my diligence that I am blind to teachable moments?

"One of my favorite authors, Elyse Fitzpatrick, says this from her book, “Idols Of The Heart”:

“If you’re willing to sin to obtain your goal or if you sin when you don’t get what you want, then your desire has taken God’s place and you’re functioning as an idolater.”"

Child Correction Essay and Prayer

A friend of mine gave me a lovely prayer book called "Mothers' Manual" (Aquinas Press). Lately I've actually been successful (radical concept) at morning prayers and night prayers more than half the time (wow!) using this little book, in large part because of the littleness of this book. It is small enough to carry around, the prayers are short enough actually to be prayed during the time the baby is occupied with blocks and in between the two preschoolers breaking out in another fight or getting into mischief that needs mama's tending. We're talking that I might have three whole minutes of on-my-knees prayer time in the morning (in contrast to mental prayer while I work, which St. Paul advises we do all the time).

One section I have found a rich source of meditation and so I thought I'd post it here for my fellow Catholic mamas who might find it useful as well.

This book contains a prayer on child correction. Interestingly, it is the only prayer accompanied by a short essay on the subject. There have got to be nearly one hundred prayers in this book and no other subject comes with a little essay. I reproduce them below and, in a different  color, the questions I ask myself often. My husband and I do not have all the answers (ha ha!), I just ask questions for personal reflection.

Caveat: Of course, a prayer written by an anonymous person is not infallible in a Catholic sense. It is just interesting, food for thought, perhaps written by someone wise, perhaps in line with Catholic teaching. We must always discern these things as best we can.

Essay on Child Correction

The proper correction of a child is one of the primary responsibilities of a parent. "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old, he will not swerve from it" (Proverbs 22:6). Even so, unless it is done in love, discipline can wound and even break a child's spirit.

• So, discipline is required. How many times per day do I ignore moments needing discipline so that I can be on the computer, do a chore, talk on the phone, pursue a hobby, or focus on a seeming virtue--e.g., health food that takes tremendous time to prepare and are my children helping me do it, being occupied in wholesome work, or am I ignoring them or putting them in front of the TV so I can work in the kitchen alone and efficiently?--that I am elevating above my children's souls? 
• What is the balance of time?
• Discipline can be done well or poorly or something in between. It is not that the more/stronger the discipline, the better, or that the more absent/weaker the discipline, the better.

God has chosen you from all eternity to raise and nurture your children. Since your discipline will affect your child's character for the rest of his or her life, it is very important to carry out this responsibility wisely and appropriately.

• How many of my day's tasks will affect something for the rest of one's life? Is decorating the house or sewing something lovely or making a gourmet meal going to affect anything for the rest of one's life?
• If not, am I putting those things ahead of discipline, which will affect my child for the rest of his life?
• Does that mean I can never do anything I want to do because I'm focusing solely on my children?

Your child needs positive eye contact, physical affection, focused attention (one on one time), and appropriate discipline from you. The key to your child's heart is to stay in touch with him or her and not allow a wounded spirit to develop.

• So, I need a key to my child's heart? Why do I need to have a key to his heart? Does having a key to his heart aid in his response to my discipline?
• How often am I staring at a computer screen when my kids ask me a question, not looking in their eyes? Do I find ways to give hugs, tussle hair, and tickle throughout the day? How do I give one-on-one time with each child, albeit very short, when I have three very young children needing nearly constant attention and a husband who travels often for work?

Obedience is the great virtue of childhood, as Jesus showed us: "He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them" (Luke 2:51). Insist on obedience and respect from your children, and treat them with proper dignity in return.

• And, let's not kid ourselves, obedience is the great virtue of adulthood too. All Catholic writing and the Bible agree on that. So, if we are to insist on obedience and respect, that means that--unless we've had a miraculous child born unto us--we parents are going to have to take action: probably a lot of action. I know that around here, insisting on obedience and respect isn't a simple, easy, momentary task. When we do not insist on obedience or respect this time, that instance, or X percentage of the time, what effect/result does that have? Can I get away with not insisting sometimes?
• What do I think it would mean to treat a child in an undignified manner? Does a child merit the exact same treatment as I would give an adult? Do I give all adults the same treatment (friend, stranger, acquaintance, the pope, the president of my country) and, if not, why not? Is there a way to treat children with dignity without treating them as if they were adults?

It is a mistake to correct a child, or even worse, to strike a child, out of anger. When you need to discipline, do so with self-control and dignity, and your child will be far more likely to respond.

• I see that the author is not saying that it is a mistake to correct a child or a mistake to strike a child. (Just quoting with the language 'strike,' which is probably an old-fashioned usage that jars our ears. What does 'strike' mean to me?) The author is saying that it is a mistake to do those things out of anger. What do my husband and I think of that?
• Do our opinions match with the Bible and with Catholic writing? Does an examination of Catholic writing over a couple of thousand years reveal the same line of thought about discipline or great variation? Has it changed recently? Have we always been wrong, or are some writings now wrong? 
• Do I behave with self-control? With dignity? Could I behave with self-control and dignity if a police officer were correcting me? And, if the answer is yes, why do I sometimes behave like a child out-of-control and throwing a tantrum when my children challenge me? 
• What does it communicate to a child when I lose my self-control so easily that I am screaming? Or worse, if one were to swear or say unkind things to the children? How is a child, with far less experience and maturity than me, supposed to maintain his own self-control when I cannot?

Only God can give you the patience, wisdom, and courage to discipline your child properly and lovingly. A moment of prayer or deliberation can defuse a fearful or angry temper and give you the grace to administer a prudent and profitable discipline.

• I find it easy to think that a parent needs patience and wisdom to discipline properly. But it is an interesting idea that one needs courage to discipline properly. That implies that proper discipline--which is what? effective? not useless?--might be difficult for the parent, even cause fear for the parent: the parent needs courage.
• And, do I ever pray before I discipline? Do I pray at the beginning of each day for moments of child correction that will come all day? Do I ever take even ten seconds to pray before administering a specific correction? Do I think that might help me?

If you do fail, ask forgiveness and try again. Be encouraged! God is more concerned about your child's development than you are, and He will help you!

• God truly is more concerned about my child's soul than am I, so I need to look to God for help often.

Prayer for the Grace to Properly Correct a Child

Dear Heavenly Father, all authority comes from You. In giving my husband and me the gift of parenthood, You have also conferred on us the holy and serious responsibility of not provoking our children to anger, but of bringing them up in Your training and instruction.

• Do I believe that all authority comes from God? If not, why not? If I believe that I have authority that does not come from a Being higher than me, what does my ultimate authority look like? And then who has authority over me?
• If I believe all authority comes from God, then what does that mean for me?
•  What does it mean to not provoke our children to anger? If discipline is necessary, requires courage, must be effective, yet we know that the slightest correction usually causes a toddler or preschooler to fly into a rage, then what does it mean to not provoke them to anger?

Help me not to shirk this duty, but to fulfill it according to Your Will. May I always remember that in giving correction I stand in Your place. Help me to discipline in a calm, motherly manner, with a firm but caring hand.

• Discipline as duty! Do I believe it is a duty? Or do I think I've been given children with no duty to discipline them?
• My standing in the place of God! Is the way I am behaving forming certain visions of God for my children? Right perceptions of God or wrong? Perceptions of God that will draw my children closer to Him or further from Him? Is God merciful and just? Only merciful? Only just?

Help me to remember to pray before I discipline. May may child actually draw nearer to me through appropriate discipline and grow into the person You have created him/her to be.

• I find it a radical concept that a child would draw nearer to the parent through discipline. What does that say of the manner of discipline? Is it a drawing nearer to the parent in the moment? If so, I suspect the discipline is not actually being effective because most normal children, burdened by Original Sin as we all are, are not happy and thrilled in the moment of being denied what they want to do.
• So, is the child drawing nearer to the parent through discipline in the long-term? How long?
• Second, the above implies that children are not born already formed to perfection. They actually need forming to grow into what God intended. From whence does that forming come? Do I parent in a way that assumes children are born perfection, tainted only by the world to which they are exposed (a radically anti-Christian concept)? Or do I parent in a way that assumes that children are born needing character formation?

Dear Mother Mary, please help me, a mother like you, to lovingly guide and discipline my children. In Jesus' Name. Amen.

Patience in the Moment

Motherhood challenges the patience in serious, frequent, and unremitting ways. Five years into it and I feel like I can say just a tiny bit about it, although still have so much to learn.

As a Christian, I am to fulfill the duties according to my God-given vocation (which, in my case, right now, is being a wife and a mother-of-children [versus mother-of-adults]) in a thoughtful, diligent, patient manner. (I'm not taking the time to cite Scripture, Church tradition, saints, or the Catechism, but I don't think people would disagree with me.)

One aspect of this (perhaps deserving its own blog post) is fulfilling the duties of my vocation . . . not the duties of another person's vocation, and of my vocation right now, not my vocation at another time. I don't know about other mothers, but sometimes I feel desires to "escape" by doing things outside my vocation that would make me feel more glorious or more appreciated. For example, sometimes I dream of serving food at a soup kitchen for homeless people instead of serving food at my own kids' dinner table because other people would see my serving at the soup kitchen and think I'm a really fabulous Christian, but there doesn't seem to be as much glory or as many witnesses in my serving mac and cheese to my own children.

But, back to patience. A couple of years ago, I taught myself a trick of resignation (a word that has an inappropriately negative connotation outside of Christian literature) that has helped me grow my patience (from infinitesimal to something more than that). Having read "Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence" approximately a zillion times so far, I've begun making some minute progress in actually surrendering to such providence. We are to praise God in good and in bad (cf. Job). Therefore, the trick I came up with to help myself was that when the plans change awry in an instant, I tell myself, "Oh, so this is what God wants me to be doing right now!"

• I'm trying to serve dinner and Mary pours a cup of chocolate milk on the floor: "Oh, so God wants me to be wiping up chocolate milk!" or ". . . to be teaching a three-year-old how to wipe up her own milk!"
• I've got all the children loaded up in the van and buckled, engine started, when a child announces he needs to use the potty: "Oh, so God wants me to take a child to the potty and be late to our appointment!"
• I want to be writing a blog post but the children break out in a fight about playing Ring Around the Rosey: "Oh, so God wants me to focus on my kids and teach them how to negotiate play nicely and fairly!" (Ask me how I thought of this example.)

And so on.

Maybe such a trick won't help other mothers, but it sure has helped me to stay calm more often instead of busting a gasket.

Then a few days ago, I heard a wonderful perspective--to me like a bolt of lightening--from a mother-friend at a meeting at which we were studying the virtue of Christian patience. She was describing her impatience and audible groans when the children need her attention yet one more time. To paraphrase her as best as I can remember, she said:

"I've realized that it's wrong of me to say, 'I don't have time for this!' The reality is that this is why God has given me time. I have time so that I can teach things to my children . . . over and over and over again."

Whether it is teaching how to tie shoes or how to exercise patience in waiting for attention instead of throwing a tantrum or how to negotiate peacefully instead of hitting your brother, this is why God has given time to us mothers. It is God's providence when to create life and when to end life, so it is with His good pleasure that we are alive right now--and to what purpose? God entrusted these exact souls to these exact parents (mother and father) for us to raise -- not to allow them to grow up passively, like letting a plant grow wild in the garden, growing according to capricious sun and rain.

I've been parenting for only five years and only three kids, so the one thing I am sure of is not being an expert of any sort. But I have found one trick that has helped me in my walk of Christian motherhood for the last couple of years and now a second trick I am going to employ, so I wanted to offer these to my sisters.

1. "Oh, so this is what God wants me to be doing right now!"
2. "This is why God gave me time!"