Advent Lessons from Small Children

"Its the most wonderful time of the year" as the song goes.  The tree is trimmed, the lights are hung, the Manger scene is set up, the candles on the Advent wreath are getting low, and the Jesse tree is getting full.  And then there are the questions, "How many more days?"  "Is it almost Jesus' Birthday?"  "Do you think Santa saw me be kind to my brother?"  "Do you think Santa saw me being mean?"  "How much longer is Advent?"  Ah. Waiting.  That's what this time is about. Waiting and Preparing.  Most of us go overboard with the preparing  (I baked 8 dozen cookies in one afternoon alone! ) and still don't find the time in our harried sprint to Christmas to prepare our hearts.  This is where we can learn from our children.

In our house Advent and the Christmas Season are fodder for a lot of funny stories.  The kids' interpretations on Christmas Carols alone are hilarious!  ("Feliz Mommy Nut" and "Oh Come all he Faith - Lull, Joy for the Tried Elephant" being among this year's favorites)  The children are so excited!  They know Santa is coming, and if you have taught them, they know that Some One else is coming too - Jesus.   Around here the days have been filled with "Advent Adventures" (a video series provided for free by a Homeschooling Family - my kids love it!) and with daily Jesse Tree readings, the O! Antiphons, and preparations for "Baby Jesus' Birthday."   Its taken me until now to really put into perspective the "Christmas Crazies" as I used to call them.  That's because of my children.

Sure, Baby Jesus has taken a few rides on the Polar Express around the tree, and I've had to superglue on the Angel's wings a few times, and repair St. Joseph's hands and the Shepherd's foot, and Mary and Joseph were MIA for 4 days until we found them embedded in the Christmas Tree, and again in the doll house (apparently the stable was too cold), but that is par for the course at this time of year with small ones running around excitedly.  "Why do you think we decorate for Christmas?" I asked my 5 and 6 year old one day.  To my surprise, my 3 year old answered, "Because we're going to have a party!"  "A party?  What party?"  I asked.   "Baby Jesus' Birthday party!"  the 5 year old answered.   Then it really clicked for me.  Perhaps all the decorations and lights and tinsel could be used to help us prepare for Christ's Birth.  Perhaps it didn't just have to be secular trappings of an overly commercialized season.  I nodded slowly.  "When we look at Christmas decorations what do you think we should be reminded about?"  My daughter, who is 6, answered, "We can remember to get ready for Jesus!"  "Right!"  I exclaimed, "the decorations can remind us to get our hearts ready, just like we get our house ready!"  My kids thought this was a great idea, and just like that all the decorations had a brand new context, all the madness and the "getting ready" had a new light shone on them and I could see Advent in a new Paradigm - one in which everything points us to Christ's coming.

As I mused about this I realized that this is so appropriate to the season.  Even the happy snowmen decorating my counter top have now become a means by which we are reminded to prepare our hearts for Emmanuel, the Christ Child.   The Snowmen have been sanctified.   The Santa Claus statues and dolls on the shelf silently remind us to get ready for the upcoming birth of the Savior.  They are St. Nicholas, pointing the way to Christ, not to the toy shop.  How appropriate that even the non-religious decorations of the season have now been "redeemed" - how appropriate and allegorical that is.  Just as God used a Star, a star - one of many stars that no one ever really paid attention to, to guide the Wise Men and silently announce the Birth of the Savior of the World, our Christmas decorations can point us towards His birth too.

Now don't get me wrong, my kids are expecting Santa to come, and have been working hard to that end, but they know Santa comes to bring us presents for Jesus' Birthday to help us celebrate.   They know that Santa only gives you gifts if you have gotten your heart ready for Jesus, and they know that you get your heart ready by making sacrifices and being extra kind to everyone you meet, and everyone in your family.  In this way, Santa remains very much St. Nicholas, again pointing us towards the birth of Christ.

This time of year can seem so harried, so rushed and manic.  I have found myself needing to take a step back and remember that its not supposed to be a mad dash or a sprint until December 25th when we all collapse from exhaustion.  I am thankful that the excitement and innocence of my children brings me back to reality and refocuses me on what is truly important about the season.

When they gaze with wonder at twinkling lights, when they turn off all the house lights so they can see the Advent Wreath and Christmas tree glow, when they look expectantly at their empty stockings...these moments fill me with the joy and true Wonder of the Season.  As we made Christmas cookies this year my children were sure to make the best and biggest ones each for Santa and for Baby Jesus.  Poor Santa is going to have a sugar coma after he ingests the icing and sprinkle-covered masterpieces that are going to be left for him!   The kids decided that Baby Jesus will be too little to eat a cookie but they will leave Him one to see and then they will eat it.  They are also leaving Him special "Gift Papers" with all of their sacrifices and good deeds written on it.  Those get left under the tree for Jesus.  These little touches can be so easily get overlooked, but they teach in a tangible way the reason for Christmas and Who, not What Christmas is about.

Then of course we come back to the waiting.  Anyone who has or has raised small children knows that its really hard to wait when you are in single digits, age-wise.   The impatience of our children and their noisy complaints, willing the days to go faster can give us a glimpse into what Advent is about too - waiting for what C.S. Lewis called the "Grand Miracle."  How impatient the Israelites must have been - waiting for their Savior - and they didn't have nifty Advent calendars or Jesse Trees to help them count down the days!  How impatient Mary must have felt, knowing she was carrying the One Who would save us.  Was she anxious on the road to Bethlehem?  Was she impatient to get there?  How impatient the Wise Men must have felt, following a star and not knowing when it would eventually lead them to the King of Kings.  Did they ever doubt its meaning?  Advent is all about waiting.  Our children's impatience can be a great reminder of the impatience of those who waited long ago - during the first very long "Advent."   How fortunate are we to know that our days of waiting are numbered by 4 candles in the Advent wreath.  How incredible it is that we know the end of the amazing story - the Story of our salvation, a salvation that was given flesh in the Incarnation of Christmas.   When we think of our 4 weeks of waiting compared to the centuries that God's Chosen People had to wait ever since Adam and Eve ate the apple, it doesn't seem like such a long time!   When we think of the tests and tribulations that the Israelites had to endure as God prepared them for their Savior, listening to a few impatient children doesn't seem so terrible.  When we think of the wonder of that Holy Night, and realize that today it is no less Glorious, no less incredible, no less Miraculous than it was more than 2000 years ago, we realize we are blessed indeed.

Baking Cookies

Christmas Crazies!  

It is my Advent wish for you, dear reader, that your children will be a source of joy and give you many moments to reflect on the wonder and awe, the anticipation and excitement of the Birth of the God-Made Man.  Emmanuel, our Savior and King.

Heroic Virtue?

Motherhood requires heroic virtue.  I've heard more than one well respected Catholic thinker/speaker/writer types repeat this mantra.  It usually makes me shudder.  Heroic virtue?  Seriously?  Couldn't God have made things a little easier on us poor schlubs out here?  Not that I am a schlub.  I am really an incredibly attractive mother of 5 who looks the same as I did when I graduated High School - skinny and toned, with hair that would make Jennifer Aniston jealous, immaculately groomed eye brows, eyes that sparkle with a well-rested glow, a wardrobe to put Miss America to shame and an overall demeanor that purrs with peacefulness, calm, control, and quiet intelligence.  Then I wake up.  An I realize that I'm probably closer to schlub material.  Especially on days when I am sleep deprived (which is distressingly often), sick, or my kids are sick, or both.

So heroic virtue, huh?  See, when I think of this phrase I immediately picture the young Virgin Martyrs - St. Maria Goretti, St. Philomena, St. Lucy - staring piously and angelically up to Heaven while meeting their mortal demise.  Or I think of St. Francis jumping into a thorn bush to beat back his own concupiscence.  Or John de Brebeuf, Isaac Jogues and the other North American Missionary Martyrs who met horrible tortured deaths - and some with great humor!  To me these are the men and women of Heroic Virtue, not little ol' schlubby me who can barely make it through some days without wishing I could have a toddler-style meltdown of my own.  And yet, I am called to heroic virtue.  We are called to heroic virtue.

So what is it exactly?  And how do I get it?  Can I just order up some 'heroic virtue' during prayer time and hope for the best?  Unfortunately it has been my experience that you just don't "get it" (unless you are one of the rare and blessed people to have a blinding"Saul-to-Paul" moment of extreme Grace).  Nope, for most of us schlubs out here in Mommyland Heroic Virtue is cultivated and practiced.  That means when your first little blessing is born you get extra Mommy Grace, and then well, you grow and tone your virtue muscles much like you tone those never-been-used-before-muscles that hold up the baby's head while he or she rests in your arms for hours because you're afraid to put him or her down.  Virtue is a "good spiritual habit" and just like other good habits its learned.  This is good news for those of us who shudder at the sound of it - we can achieve Heroic Virtue!  The not so good news is that its not exactly going to be a piece of cake.  Then again, nothing heroic ever is.

Maybe, though, this can give us a different perspective during those hard to handle Mommy times.  Chances are you more heroic than you think!  What else but heroic is calmly walking and bouncing a colicky newborn for 3 or 4 hours?  What else but heroic is staying up all night with a feverish child, and then handling the next day like you aren't completely sleep deprived?  What else but heroic is getting very little sleep for months on end, and not drinking caffeine because your need-to-eat-every-2-hours baby can't handle it?  What else but heroic is driving all over town bringing your kids to practices and rehearsals, lessons, and classes, and still having a hot meal for them at dinner time?  What else but heroic is welcoming a new life into your family, even though the world tells you to stop at 2 kids?  What else but heroic is listening to the entire  Disney Princess Sing Along CD for the 7th time in a row instead of the news in the car?  What else but heroic is the task of making sure Santa Claus makes it your house this year, and the Easter Bunny doesn't miss your door?  What else but heroic is coming home from date night 2 hours early because little "Johnny" had a nightmare and needs a Mommy hug?  What else but heroic is watching PG movies and TV shows (pretty hard to do these days) even after the kids go to bed because you know that your kids will try to listen or get a peak at the screen?  What else but heroic is reading that same book at bedtime for 4 months in a row, with the same amount of enthusiasm as the first time you read it?  What else but heroic is tackling piles of laundry daily, so your kids have clean clothes to wear?  What else but truly heroic is forming your children's consciences, helping them to become the men and women God created them to be?

You maybe thinking, but this is just what us moms do.  Well, yes, it is, but doing those things (and really I just scratched the surface) with love in your heart, a smile on your face, and without bitterness or resentment - that, dear friend, is heroic.

For years the Church recognized very few married men and women as Saints, but during the Pontificate of Pope John Paul II, more lay Saints were canonized than in much of recent Church history.  Pope John Paul II wanted to give us Saintly examples of men and women just like us who exercised "Heroic Virtue" in every day life.  (For a list of all those who were Canonized under John Paul II, and their biographies, see http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/index_saints_en.html )

Dear friend, you are a mother, and that means you are called to be a hero.  You have been given the tremendous task of raising up Children of the Light.  You have been given the Grace from the Father of of All to exercise Heroic Virtue in your every day family life.  It is my prayer that you will draw strength from the knowledge that you can and do have this saintly calling.  Your children and the world need your strength, patience, courage, modesty, perseverance, temperance, prudence, justice, faith, hope, and love.  This Advent may you grow in God's love and Grace so that you may truly embrace your heroic calling.  God Bless you, Mom!

**I would like to dedicate this post to all the beautiful, heroic women whom I have been blessed to have encountered in my life.  Most notably my own mother, my mother-in-law, my dear friends, and the women of the Confraternity of Christian Mothers and Holy Family Home Schoolers of Sacred Heart, Winchester.  Your examples touch the lives of more than just your children, and I am privileged to know you.  

Bedtime/Jail Time

You'd think that bedtime would invoke peaceful thoughts of night time slumber.  Not in this house.  In this house telling the kids it is time for bed is akin to telling them that its time for them to get locked up in the slammer.  I LOVE it when the kids are in bed and my husband and I get some much needed "adult time."  I HATE actually getting them there.  Its like my own personal purgatory time every night at 7:30.  It starts with the warnings about the warnings, "Five minutes until I'm going to tell you its time to get ready for bed." Somewhere in some parents magazine I read that giving children warnings helps them to transition from one activity to another.  I think perhaps the authors of the article need to meet my kids.  As soon as the aforementioned warning is given the complaints start, "I NEED to finish my picture!"  "I'm NOT tired!"  "I still have to finish cleaning."  ( I should mention this is the ONLY time they will willingly mention cleaning anything.)  "My dolls are not ready for me to be done playing with them."  And from the one year old, "Uh uh." (shaking his head and running into the corner to "hide.")

After the dreaded five minutes (sometimes, I will admit, its more like 3...or 2)  I tell my reluctant slumberers "OK, its time to get ready for bed now."  In a way its almost like the stages of grief, playing out every night at my place at bedtime: shock and denial, bargaining and anger, depression and guilt... my oldest son has the whole denial thing down pat.  He will just sit there coloring away completely ignoring the fact that its time to put on his PJs while his other siblings are experiencing the more vocal forms of bargaining and anger.  "But I was going to draw a picture for you, Mom.  Because I love you so much."  And there we have the guilt.  Only its mine.

Eventually they're all in Pajamas and their teeth are cleaned.  My three year old likes to "blind me" with his sparkly white teeth and grins a ridiculously huge grin at me as he emerges from the bathroom.  I of course am "temporarily blinded" by the flash of dentally clean brilliance in front of me - which it turns out gives just enough time for the 3 year old to run into the toy room and attempt to bury himself in the toybox.   Hmmm.  Maybe I'll have to tone down the blindness  in the future.

After extricating the 3 year old and throwing the toys half heartedly back into the toybox, we settle down enough for prayers.  This is where I feel like I sometimes get a glimpse of my kids' budding spiritualities.  The oldest, my daughter, kneels (or sometimes sits) very reverently.  She piously folds her hands into perfect little points "So the prayers go straight up to God."   She bows her head, closes her eyes and concentrates - a true Carmelite in the making.  My oldest son settles comfortably in, hands folded, and recites his prayers very meticulously.  He then implores God in his own words to help him be holy and get a train of his own someday.  He asks God to bless his mommy and daddy and his siblings.  Then he asks for help to do his homeschool work better.  Ah, my little Benedictine.  The 3 year old exuberantly jumps around saying his prayers.  More often than not he shouts his prayers very happily while waving his hands up at God.  I sense the charismatic renewal may be a part of his life later on.   He then proceeds to decide that his clothes are an encumbrance to proper prayer so he removes them and joyously finishes his prayers by declaring, "I love, God, YOU ARE MY FATHER!"  Yup, Franciscan all the way.   The 1 and 1/2 year old is the wild card - he finally learned to fold his hands and keep them that way for the entirety of a prayer.  He loves to shout, "Amen." He also loves to kiss every single picture or statue of the Blessed Mother he sees - so perhaps I have a future Mariologist on my hands.

After prayer time its actually bedtime (all the preliminary fanfare completed) and the battle begins.  Actually its more like a war - on two fronts.  The older ones are in their room - and after negotiating how many toys they can have in their beds and how many books they can read I get them their respective cups of water and kiss them good night.  The second front is the room occupied by the younger two boys.  The 3 year old wants the door wide open, the 1 and 1/2 year is gearing up for a night of crib climbing.  After saying for the umpteenth time that the door will NOT be opened all the way, and putting the required amount of ice in the water cup the 3 year old seems ready for bed...after he reads some books that is.   The 1 and 1/2 year old is a different story.  Yes, this is Noah - the star of the earlier post On the Trail of an 18-Month-Old.  He has perfected the art of crib climbing.  He kisses me very nicely and gives me a mischievous little grin as I place him in his crib.  I know I'm in for it.  The night is far from over.

After several more trips into the older kid's room asking them to be a little quieter, getting more water, assisting in a bathroom trip after the consumption of said water, and fixing blankets, the oldest of my progeny are ready for slumber.   The three year old reads a book or two, asks for more ice and falls asleep without even touching it.  Noah - well he is at the top of his game.

I hear little feet running into the living room.  "Noah," I say, "Its time for bed."  "Poop,"  he says very seriously, grabbing his diaper.   I sigh.  This is his own version of crying wolf.  Every night he climbs out of his bed and insists that he has soiled himself.  Almost every night it is a cleverly constructed ruse to stall the inevitable.  Every once in a while, its actually true.  One time I was so tired of the his "Crying Poop" that I refused to change him and just kept plopping him back in his bed.  Unfortunately some time during the course of that night he actually did do what he said he did and ended up with a raging rash the next day.  The guilt from that incident alone compels me to check his diaper now every time - just in case - and even if I just changed him.

He tried this tactic 4 or 5 more times.  Then as if he can sense that I am wearying of this battle tactic, he changes his approach.  He climbs out of bed and peeks out of his room.  He laughs.  I look.  He smiles his biggest, cutest smile, and runs back into his room.  I obligingly go into his room and locate him.  In the dim light I can see that he is standing in the corner with his face pressed into the corner - so I can't "see" him.  I walk closer.  He hears my footsteps and starts fidgeting.  I get closer and he can't take the anticipation anymore.  He shrieks and laughs and throws himself into my arms.    "Noah," I insist, "Its time for bed!"  He laughs again and I realize that he has got a lot more antics up his little sleeves.  I place him in his crib and exit.  As I am closing the door I hear him begin to climb out.  I swiftly open the door and hiss, "Get back in bed!"  He flops onto his mattress and lays there.  I close the door.   We repeat this scenario about ten more times before I go into his room, lay him down and cover him with his beloved blanket.  He sticks his fingers in his mouth and I think I may have finally succeeded!  I quietly close the door and tip toe out to the living room.

As I sit on the couch, careful not to make any discernible noise, I muse about how I feel like a jail keeper.  Then I realize that that might actually be easier. Jail cells have shackles.  They have locks.  They have bathrooms.  They are devoid of anything on which an inmate could harm himself... The fact that I am actually thinking about this makes me laugh, since I would never ever actually shackle my kids to their beds or lock them in their rooms.  I realize that a combination of lack of sleep and lack of relaxation are taking its toll on me.  Especially when I picture myself wearing a sheriff's badge and my fuzzy slippers, wielding a big round key chain.  I pull myself together just as the little Houdini escapes once more from his bed.  He runs to me, arms outstretched, "hug hug."  He insists, as if that was the sole reason he left his cozy bed.  I scoop him up as he circles my neck with his arms and buries his face into my neck - giggling.  I take him back into his room and tuck him back in.  Satisfied with his latest accomplishment he removes himself once more insisting this time "Kiss kiss."  I pick him up as he lavishes kisses all over my face.   As frustrated as I am, I can't help but smile.  The little bugger is just too darn cute!  I once again get him settled down and wearily trudge back to the couch.

I woefully glance at the clock.   Its way too late already.  As I start to feel sorry for myself two things happen.  Noah runs out again, lips puckered, making kissing noises, and my husband walks in the door - finally home from a late night.  Dear hubby looks at fish-faced Noah, who now has a 'deer in the headlights' look about him as well, and then he looks at me.  Once glance is apparently all he needs to know that I'm done.  He scoops up Noah, allows him to give me a few kisses, and then takes him to his room, talking softly.  As I watch them go through the doorway I see Noah circle my husband's neck with his arms and give him a big kiss.  I smile.

As it turns out, dear hubby had the magic touch tonight.  Noah stayed in his bed and eventually drifted off to dreamland.  I got some relaxing "grown up time" after all.  As I check on the kids before crawling into my own bed, I take a minute to look at each of them.  They all look so angelic.  So peaceful.  So incapable of the bed time mayhem they so routinely create.  In those moments though, after I've had a few minutes of not having to be "Mommy" - on call every second - I feel like I see my kids in a refreshed way.  I kiss them lightly on their foreheads and adjust the covers.  I pray over each of them silently and ask God to help me be a better mommy.

As I climb into my own bed, my mind fresh with the sleeping faces of my children, I completely forget about the bedtime craziness.  I am oblivious to the fact that the craziness will likely repeat itself the next day, and I am thankful.  Thankful for my children, thankful for my husband, who so often swoops in and saves the day, and thankful that I'm not really a jailer after all.

All Hallows Eve

Its that time of year that leaves kids all a little loopy from a cocktail of excitement and coma-inducing proportions of sugar.  Its also the time of year that leaves many Christians uneasy about the "proper" way to celebrate this "holiday" that has been co-opted both by neo-pagans, and wiccans,  Walt Disney, and Mattel.  It can be intimidating to try to navigate the costumes and altar-egos that dominate the day - why is it all of a sudden OK to totally sluttify your child???  And since when did witches wear mini-skirts?  Is it a bad thing to give in and let my kid dress up like the devil???  Its a quandary that would put any good mom ill at ease.


Before my daughter was born I swore that I would never do Halloween.  I'd do All Saints Day.  My kids could dress up like saints or biblical personalities every year and we'd boycott the day of evil and filth.  This lasted until my daughter was 3 and didn't want to be Mother Teresa...again.   She wanted to be a princess.  Every little girl wants to be a princess, and to have a day that gives you an excuse to dress up like one and go out in public, well that's almost every little girl's dream!  I saw my Halloween boycott going down the drain.  What was I to do?


My daughter and I reached a compromise that year - she dressed up as Queen Esther - in all her regal glory (never mind that her outfit resembled that of a medieval queen, rather than a Bible-times Jewish wife of King Ahasuerus!  I still felt as though I had achieved a small victory. ) The next year though, my Queen Esther rebelled, and my St. Francis wanted to be "St. Francis before he got holy."  By then I had a pint sized Padre Pio who didn't know any better and thought his fake stigmata was pretty cool.  So, I gave in.  Again.  Queen Ester didn't want to be St. Margaret of Scotland either so we settled for Snow White.  I told my 'bad-boy St. Francis' he could pick a costume that he wanted as long as it wasn' t evil.  He was very happy with being an astronaut.  (I think he liked the jumpsuit.)  My pint-sized Padre didn't want to give up his stigmata, so that's how we hit the town that Halloween.  It made me do some soul-searching and thinking.


I realized that Halloween in our family seemed to be more about my hang ups than anything.  My kids were innocent - they just wanted to dress up like something fun and get candy.  How could I allow them to do that without "giving in" to the evil undertones that seem to creep into the day?


I did some research and discovered that Halloween actually comes to us from...drum roll please......the Catholic Church!  No, I am not making this up!  There is a lot of Halloween lore out there, but the name Halloween comes from the ancient Celts  - "Hallow E'en" as it would have been called in Ireland meant "All Hallows Eve" - hallow meaning "to sanctify."   It was the eve of one of the greatest Feasts in the Liturgical Year - All Saints Day.   In ancient times - before Christianity - this day was called Samhain  (sow-en), the Celtic New Year and the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter.  The druids celebrated a fire festival.  Contrary to modern belief, it was not a festival of the dead or evil.  It was believed that on this night spirits would come back and try to visit, control or inhabit the Celtic people.  So the ancient Celts dressed up in costumes to scare away the spirits.  Then they would extinguish the fires in their dwellings so that they could light them anew from the Druidic fire that always burned as a symbol of the start of the new year.  When Christianity came to the Celtic lands, the traditions of preparing for Samhain, morphed with the Feast of All Saints, and so it became the practice to dress up to scare away the evil spirits in order to prepare for the Feast of All Saints.   It is only since the advent of the neo-pagans and the beginning of what we know as Wicca that Halloween became a "sacred" day for witches and the like.  It has also become a big festival for those who worship Satan and who believe they practice "Dark or Black Magic."  (Magik).  In a way this makes sense.  All Saints Day was, for centuries, a Great Feast in the Church.  Why wouldn't Satan try to co-opt the day for his own evil purposes?   


Learning all this gave me some great food for thought and I decided that instead of boycotting and decrying all things Halloween, I'd take a page out of history!  The next year (when we had added a little pumpkin to the brood) I took a few days to teach my kids the history of Halloween.  I taught them how Catholics many years ago dressed up to "scare the devil away" to prepare for the Great Feast the next day.  Then we discussed what really scares the devil away; namely prayer, Jesus' Holy Name, holiness and all things good and beautiful.   I then asked my kids what we should do on Halloween.  They decided that their costumes should never be something the devil would like - that they should choose good things to dress up as.  Then we decided that we would hand out prayer cards with the candy!  


I thought this was a purely inspired idea!  This year, we took it one step further and handed out cards to those whose houses the kids trick-or-treated at.  Why not?  If I've learned anything from the history of the Church its that Catholics don't just slide over and let the devil move in - oh no - we go in and redeem - In Christ's Holy Name!  What better way to reclaim this Eve of All Saints?  When else do you get such a great opportunity to evangelize your neighbors?  What other day of the year do complete stranger open their doors and smile at you as your cute children say "Trick" (and hand them a prayer card) "or Treat" (and hold out their smiling pumpkin buckets)?   I've yet to encounter a person who has balked at or turned down the prayer card.  Most people smile and seem delighted that these kids are giving something to them before sweetly demanding candy.  


The rationale is simple.  Its a great opportunity to spread the Love of God to our neighbors - door to door evangelization - the Jehovah's Witnesses don't have to have a corner on that market - us Catholics can just do it undercover!  We can move in and sanctify just like the actual translation of the word Halloween suggests!  


This year my evangelists in disguise hit the streets dressed as a princess (because, as my daughter said, the devil hates beauty), a train engineer (a holy one, I was told by my train-loving son), a dinosaur (because in 3 year old logic, nothing will scare the devil away like big teeth saying Jesus' Name), and a 1 year old happy pumpkin (because he looks so darn cute and chubby).   They are armed with their smiling pumpkin buckets and a supply of Padre Pio prayer cards.  They also have a good understanding that this night doesn't have to be about evil and ghosts and scary things.  In their own words, "that's just the devil's way to distract us from God and the Saints."  They now ignore that part of Halloween and dismiss it as distasteful.  Instead, they focus on the fun, the innocent, and the Holy.  


They enjoy this Eve of All Saints, without the creepy or the scary.  My kids enjoy having a truly Happy Halloween.  In our family at least, we have redeemed and sanctified this night, and that makes Mommy pretty darn happy too!  

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If you want to be an All Hallows Eve Evangelist, here are some of my favorite prayer cards to hand out, and a few ideas to help you Sanctify the Night: 


~Try to hand out cards that are colorful or cool to look at - this gets people's attention 
~Try to find ones that have short prayers, this will make a non-Christian, or someone who           doesn't like to pray more likely to try it out.
~if you live in a largely non or anti-Catholic area and don't want to come on too strong, hand out "Our Father" prayer cards - almost everyone recognizes that prayer


Other Cards I like to hand out specifically on Halloween are:

~St. Michael - especially if it has a picture of him spearing Satan. 
~Padre Pio- a man who literally fought with demons
~St. John Vianney (the Curé d'Ars) - he fist-fought with the devil
~A little card with 5 things about the Catholic Church (says stuff like, Catholics don't worship Mary, Confession is Biblical, etc.)  Its great if you live in a largely Protestant area
~Anything with a "standard" Blessing on it - folks will be more likely to hold onto something that seems "harmless" and "nice"


For a few years we handed out Bl. Gianna Molla  (she was Blessed at the time) cards.  I had acquired about 500 of them for free.  I figured that the card - which pictured a modern looking Gianna on the front - might make people curious enough to Google "Gianna Beretta Molla" which is what was printed on the front.  It was my hope that her courageous and amazing story might inspire and touch some of the people we handed the card to.  


I have gone back and forth over the years over whether or not to hand out blessed cards. (cards that have been blessed by a priest) I will leave that up to your judgement.  My concern is that if I hand out cards that have been blessed they may end up in the garbage or desecrated in some other way.  For this reason I do not have the cards blessed.  On the other hand, a blessed prayer card is a sacramental that carries with it a special blessing for the bearer of the card.....so you see my dilemma.  I leave it to your judgement.  


Make sure to celebrate the Feast of All Saints the next day (it is a Holy Day of Obligation, although when the Feast falls on a Monday you are usually excused from Mass - check with your parish priest to be sure).  Have a Saint Party or do something special.  After all, All Hallows Eve is the preparation for All Saint's Day!  


Have a safe and Blessed All Hallows Eve!  

On the Trail of an 18-Month-Old

The birds are chirping, the coffee pot is gurgling, and my 3 oldest children are coloring and giggling quietly at the table.  Sigh.  Peace and tranquility. (imagine soft violin music playing in the background to complete the picture).  Gurgle gurgle, Chirp chirp, giggle giggle, FLUSH.  Huh?  The violin music screeches to a stop on a discordant note.  The birds scatter and fly away.  The coloring and giggling pauses.  FLUSH.  ZOOM! Who left the bathroom door open!! All of a sudden I am transported to reality and uber-focused.  I am on the trail of an 18-month-old, who from the sounds of it, broke into the bathroom to wreak havoc.  I imagine myself in khaki shorts, with a khaki photo vest, socks pulled up to my knees, binoculars around my neck, jungle-safari hat on my head.  Yes, sir, I am hot on the trail...

I approach the bathroom with trepidation.  There is the unmistakable sound of water running, and from the sounds of it, its coming from the sink and the bathtub.  I hear the sound of water being dumped and then another flush.  As I peak around the corner and into the bathroom, I see him.  There he is, all 2 and 1/2 feet of him.  A little pint-sized tornado.  Or in this case, hurricane - as water is splashed everywhere and overflowing out of the toilet.

Noah!!!!  (the irony of his name strikes me as my voice gets shrill...the first famous Noah had his own flood to deal with, and now mine seems to be trying to recreate the experience of his namesake in my bathroom).  He turns form the toilet and looks at me with his big gap-toothed grin.  "Bath!" He says happily.  "No bath!" I respond, "you don't take a bath in the potty!"  "Potty!" he parodies back at me and reaches for the handle to flush it again.  "No no!" I say sternly, as I slip-slide across the floor to grab my little pint-sized-perp.  I scoop him up, soaking my shirt as he gives me a soggy hug. "No no!" he tells himself and gives his hand a little whack.  Then he laughs and tries to smoosh my face with hands.  They.  Smell.  Awful.

I have given up on washing his hands.  I have resorted to cleaning his hands off with the Clorox Disinfectant Wipes - especially when he has been doing anything bathroom related.   I know, I know, it can't be good for his skin.  In my defense, he is the 4th child.  He is also the grossest.  I can guarantee you that whatever he has been into that requirers a Clorox Wipe is far worse for him than the heavy duty cleaning agents needed to clean off the grossness.  Still, since I try to not use many chemicals in the house (really Clorox wipes and Lysol are my only caveats)  I try to limit the clorox hand wiping...anyway I decide that this situation calls for one such wipe.  After he has been adequately disinfected I put him down and turn to tackle the bathroom.

I decide that this requires rubber boots and rubber gloves.  Cleaning up the amazingly disgusting and very soggy mess takes a bit of time, but when I deposited Noah in the kitchen with the other kids he happily tottered over to the table to observe the coloring.  I figured I had a few minutes to clean the only bathroom in the house, since its somewhat of a necessity to have it available for use (if we had more than one bathroom I would have totally locked the door and awaited my dear husband's arrival home before shamelessly flirting with him until he gallantly offered to clean it for me. Oh well.)  After cleaning I surveyed the newly disinfected and washed down bathroom.  Subconsciously patting myself on my back I decided to change my soggy clothes.  Wait a second...what is that sound?  It sounds like sand running through a sieve....oh no!  Noah!!!  Once again, I am hot on the trail of an 18 month old.

I follow the sound into the kitchen.  I glance hopefully at the kitchen table - 3 coloring children, no Noah.  I glance across the kitchen to the cabinets.  There he is.  I take a step closer, not really wanting to discover what is making the sound because its obviously coming from the little guy's direction.  Hmm...what is he sitting in.....I hear the sieve-like sound again and realize that its not sand being sifted, its sugar being dumped into my colander, and then being sifted through the holes onto the floor.  My happy little flood maker has turned into a prospector, mimicking the gold prospectors of the the west while using my 10 lb bag of sugar and my spaghetti colander.  How ingenious of him.  How sweet (literally) how completely messy!  He was sitting happily in a pile of sugar.  I clear my throat and he glances up at me, smiles wickedly, and lays down in the pile of sugar, opens his mouth and licks as much as can.  Noah!!!  He pops up and tries to outrun me, trailing sugar everywhere.  Noah, stop!  I plead.  He just smiles and tries to double his little 18 month old speed.  Now there is sugar in my living room, down my hallway, and in his bedroom.  Sigh.  Looks like vacuuming is in my very near future.

I manage to intercept my sugary little speed demon and haul him into the bathroom.  BATH!! He gleefully yells at me, grabbing my face with his grainy hands.  Yes, I answer, you managed to score a bath afterall.  It occurs to me that maybe this was his plan all along.  I deposit him in the tub and he turns on the water.  He is very adept at that.  I remove his clothes - still soggy from his previous bathroom escapades - and now covered in sugar.  Its amazing how well sugar sticks to wet clothing.  I glance down at my own still-soggy clothes.  Yep, it sticks very well.

Soon Noah is cleaned off, and I manage to at least change into dry, non-granulated clothing.  OK.  time to vacuum.  Its amazing how 10 lbs of sugar can quickly fill up a bagless Dyson.   I manage to suck up most of the sugar before it can be trailed anywhere else.  While I am vacuuming I become aware of the fact that Noah has ceased to be entertained by the vacuum and is now apparently on the prowl somewhere else.  I quickly put the vacuum away and strain my ears.  No unusual sounds.  Maybe he is reading, I think to myself optimistically.  I walk into the kitchen (which is also our homeschool classroom) and see that the coloring has been abandoned by the older children.  Of course they neglected to clean up the crayons and markers...markers???? Where did they get markers?? and why are there several marker tops scattered on the floor??  And is that a glue stick?! Then I hear it, a little voice humming.  And, once again, I am on the trail.

I look under the table and see him.  Covered in green and brown marker sort of like he was trying to turn himself into Swamp Thing.   As I observed the scene underneath the table I noticed that my miniature Swamp Thing was concentrating very hard on smearing something on his lips (well, at least the general region of his lips).  What is that?  Oh.  Its a glue stick.  He thinks its Chapstick - and he smearing it all over the lower part of his face.  Sigh.  I check on the older kids, who are playing happily outside, and then grab my sticky Swamp Thing.  After a quick assessment of his situation I decide that this mess doesn't require a Clorox Wipe, just a lot of warm water.   After using enough to remove the stickiness and the most obvious marker tattoos, I turn him loose once again so I can make lunch.

Making lunch was slightly less uneventful, as he only felt the need to empty the pots and pans from the oven drawer, scatter my tupperware around the kitchen and pull out all the tuna fish cans from the cabinet and hide them in obscure places around the house.  At least this particular bout of destruction didn't require a bath, vacuuming, or Clorox Wipes!

After lunch I got a bit of a reprieve as the 18-month-old whirling dervish took his nap and I was able to do some school work with his siblings.  It seemed all too soon though that as I was explaining that "Lessing" is actually called "Subtracting" I heard the sounds of a one-baby-destruction-unit waking up.  "MAMA!!!!!! OUT!!!!!!!!"  Apparently he wants to get out of his crib.

After freeing him from the confines of the only apparatus that will keep him in one place I attempt to finish schooling the oldest two of my children.  I grab some toys and books and try to interest Noah in playing or reading.  For a while he takes the bait and I manage to read him a book while giving his brother a spelling test and explaining the proper use of "a" and "an" to his sister.

Soon, though, reading became boring and I had to release him to wreak havoc somewhere else.  This of course was soon accomplished.  As we were cleaning up from school I heard the unmistakable sound of baby giggling.  Hmmm.  That kind of giggling usually spells trouble.  Time to follow the trail of my 18-month-old.  I follow his happy sounds down the hallway.  I stand, senses alert, listening.  There it is again, and what is that softer, muffled sound?  Sort of like the sound a sponge makes when you wring it out...a BIG sponge.

I determine that the 18-month-old I am tracking has barricaded himself in the bedroom of his oldest 2 siblings.  I break through the barricade (OK not really, he had just closed the door, but it sounded more adventurous) and I find him on the top bunk of the bunk-bed running back and forth giggling.  But what was that squishing sound?  Upon closer inspection I discover that the squishing sound is actually the mattress - and it appears that a large amount of water has been dumped on it.  The sopping wet shirt that my son is now sporting leads me to believe that he is responsible for the dumping.  "Bath!"  he gleefully yells at me.  "Did you give yourself a bath?"  I ask.  "Uh-huh!"  he responds.  I decide to try to not concentrate on being annoyed that my oldest son's bed is now a giant sponge, and instead focus on how proud I should be that my 18 month old has mastered enough communication skills to forgo the appropriate verbal response of "yes" and instead employ the use of vernacular slang by saying "uh-huh" with the correct intonation.

I grab the little squirm and decide its time for a distraction.  "Who wants to dance!?"  I ask.  A chorus of "me me me" follows and even the little guy announces "MEH MEH"  (its as close as he can get to saying it).  So I put on some of their favorites songs.  We are all being silly and dancing around the living room when I notice that my 3 year old is missing.  All of a sudden he proudly appears, bottomless.  "I did it!" he screeches.  This announcement usually means that he has successfully used his little training potty.   I give him a big hug and two skittles as a reward.  It is then that I realize that my dancing destructo has once again gone missing.  I look at the 3 year old, "Did you remember to dump your potty?"  "Ummmmm" was the only answer I got before I took off on a sprint, hot on the trail of my 18-month-old who, instinct screamed at me, was at this very moment fishing in the training potty.  Darn!  I hate it when my instinct is right.

There he was, elbow deep in the plastic training potty that looks like a dog.  Fishing.  "Noah!"  I yell.  He looks at me.  "Potty."  he says very seriously.  "Yes I know, but we don't play in this potty either."  I run over and remove him from the nastiness.  Thankfully its just number one.  "Urine is sterile I try to calmly remind myself."  (its slightly disturbing to me how this has become somewhat of a personal mantra).  I dump the offending fluid and then head to the sink to clean off my adventuresome fisherman.

That done we finish our dance party with my still pantless 3 year old really breaking out the moves.  This must have inspired his younger brother because faster that I would have thought possible my 18 month old had stripped down and successfully removed his diaper, and was now parading proudly around the living room while "Dancing Queen" blared in the background.  He was really strutting his stuff - in all his chubby cuteness.  I decided that they could at least finish the playlist, then we'd re-clothe the youngest two boys.  Bad move, Mommy.

About half-way through the next song my cute little streaker disappeared into the toy room.  I figured he'd reappear shortly since he liked the song that was playing.  It was then that a somewhat offensive odor wafted in from the toy room.  Oh no.  "Noah?"  I called, hoping that my nose was confused.   He toddled around the corner.  "Potty.  Bath."  He announced.  I squeezed my eyes shut. "Why do you need a bath?"  "Uh-oh.  Potty."  he declared showing me his foot, which was smeared with a suspicious brown substance.  "Ohhhhh." I groaned.  "You went potty?"  I asked, already knowing the answer.  He nodded very emphatically then pointed to the cabinet where the skittles are kept.  "This."  he said.  He went potty, now he wanted a reward.  "No, Noah.  You're getting a bath - again."  Not even Clorox wipes would do this justice - he needed the full force of the bathtub and the spray nozzle.   He seemed thrilled to be in the bathtub yet again.

After cleaning and disinfecting my little toy-room-defecator I tackled that smelly mess he left behind - which covered three full room since he managed to trail his yuckiness into the kitchen and living room.  THAT required Clorox Wipes.  Eventually that chore was complete and I realized that it was approaching dinner.  As I headed into the kitchen I discovered that while I was cleaning the latest mess Noah was hard at work making another.  This one involved dried pasta.  There it was all over the floor.  There he sat, calmly sorting it into my measuring cups and then re-dumping.  Since he was so content sitting amidst his latest mess I decided to ignore it for the time being and make dinner.

After dinner the older 3 did their 'after dinner chores' helping me clean the kitchen while I vacuumed yet again.  I could be a Dyson infomercial.   Once the vacuuming was done it was time for the kiddos to get ready for bed.  But the day wouldn't be complete without having to track down the trail of my 18-month-old one more time.  As the older ones were brushing their teeth and washing their faces I became aware of the fact that the youngest male of the family had vacated the bathroom and gone missing.  This spelled trouble.  I mentally put on my safari hat, once more.  I had tracking to do.

As I glanced at the floor I noticed a strange smudge on it.  I got down on my knee to take a closer look.  It smelled minty.  Toothpaste.  And just like that, I had my trail.  I followed random minty smudges down the hall and into the bedroom that  my two youngest boys share.  There he was.  A pint-sized  dental hygienist squirting toothpaste into his bed.  "Noah!"  I said, proud of myself for sounding calm and in control.  "No toothpaste!"  "Tooth!"  he looked at me and demonstrated his tube squeezing prowess.  He seemed proud.  "You're very strong" I said, but we don't squeeze toothpaste into our beds."  I patiently explained, silently wondering why I was bothering to explain this to the same kid who needed two separate baths today alone.

I scooped him up, wrestled the toothpaste away from him, and set about cleaning up the minty freshness in his bed.   I got lucky that he was so mad at me taking away the toothpaste that he through a tantrum which kept him writhing on the floor screaming while I cleaned his bed.  At least I knew where he was!

Eventually all was clean, albeit mint-fragranced.  I gathered the little man into my arms.  "Time for night-night," I told him, myself weary from a day of tracking this little dust devil of a child.  He stuck his fingers in his mouth put his arm around my neck, and snuggled on my shoulder.  Just like that the day's escapades melted away.  I was snuggling with my growing-up-too-fast baby boy.  I forgot about the messes, the vacuuming, the multiple baths, and the Clorox Wipes.  I smelled his extremely clean head and nuzzled his chubby cheek.  Moments like this make donning my mental safari hat worth it.

When my husband came home from his night class I was sitting calmly on the couch reading.  The house was clean, (and very vacuumed).  The kitchen was in order, and the children were all tucked in.
"How was your day?"  my husband asked me.

" Have you ever been on a safari?" I responded.

"Huh?  What?" he looked at me quizzically.

"Oh, nothing," I responded, "It was pretty normal."  I smiled to myself.

"Wow, the rug looks like you just vacuumed...the kids must have been good today if you got extra cleaning done."

If he only knew...

Pro-Life?

This theme has been cropping up since we first heard the devastating news from the ultrasound technician,  "The baby's heart isn't beating."  At that moment I would have traded my own heart if it meant my baby's might begin to beat again.  But that was not God's Will.  As the tears rolled down my face I couldn't help but think that in that very same hospital there might be a woman equally as scared and uncertain as I was at that moment, but her baby's heart WAS beating - and she was about to ask the doctors to make it stop.  This diabolical dichotomy plays out every day in hospitals all over this country.  Women learn that the children they longed to hold won't be born, or if they are born, they are still - the life already gone from their perfect little bodies.  At the same time there are women who are waiting to rid themselves of what this society has termed 'a problem.'  Women who are scared, who don't know or wont admit the Truth about the life they carry - and are about to destroy.  This duality has reaches that go beyond the  political issue of abortion.  

As I waited for my baby's body to be born I went to work gathering information and making arrangements so that we could have a proper burial for our daughter.  As  I went about this task I made some startling and dismaying discoveries.  

I learned just how fortunate I was to have a hospital that would honor our request to bury our daughter by releasing her remains to a funeral home.  I also learned how incredibly fortunate I was to have contacted a compassionate funeral director who would do whatever he had to in order to obtain the very important Certificate of Fetal Death (also known as Certificate of Fetal Demise).  

You see, in most states, unless you are at a private hospital (and even then it might not matter), babies still-born under 20 weeks of gestation, or any fetal remains of a miscarriage or D & C must be treated as medical waste.  Yes thats right, if I had been in some other hospital when I delivered Claire's beautiful, intact body, she would have been discarded as medical waste.  In many places it is next to impossible for parents to obtain the remains of their babies or have them released to a funeral home for a proper burial.  Since Life Insurance Policies do not cover Miscarried or Stillborn children the costs of a funeral and all the necessities are often too high for a family who wasn't expecting to have to bury a baby.  (Granted, there are Churches like mine who have Cemeteries and who offer discounts for situations like ours.  Likewise, the Funeral Home offered its services free of charge, and only asked that we pay for the Vaulted Coffin - which is required by law - and the headstone.)   This leaves women the option of miscarrying at home, which is often what happens before 12 weeks anyway, but in cases like mine there are greater risks of complications.  Actually two different people - one a physician, and another a nurse - remarked that I risked my life by waiting to deliver my baby!  

Claire was around 14 weeks old when her heart stopped beating.  I was over 18 weeks when I finally checked into the hospital to be induced.   Why did I wait?  The advice I got at the first ER visit was to have a D & C (Dilation and Curettage - which usually ends up being a Dilation and Suction).  The doctor warned me of some of the risks of waiting 'too long' -  the risk of infection and hemorrhaging (which I have a history of when it comes to delivering full term babies).   Then I saw the ultrasound picture.  There was my baby.  She was perfect.  Her body was perfectly formed and totally intact.  (Sometimes the body begins to break down.)  In my heart I knew there was no way I could do a D & C.  I had absolutely no peace with that idea.  I saw my daughter.  She deserved to be treated with dignity.  I've read the Theology of the Body too many times to be able to delude myself into thinking that our bodies don't mean anything.  She was made in the Image and Likeness of God and I would do everything I could to treat her body with the respect she, as a child of God, deserved.  The ER doctor told me I could try to wait it out and prescribed some uber-pain killers if I went that route.  Just getting handed a prescription paper for Vicodin and Percocet made me shudder.  This was going to hurt.

Two days later I ended up back in the ER because I felt like I was in labor and I had other 'symptoms' on the "Come Back to the ER If..." list they had given me the first time I had been there.  I sat in the waiting room for 5 hours - all the while my labor like pains were intensifying.  By the time I was taken into an exam room I couldn't talk through contractions and I felt just like I did every other time I'd given birth - intense pain that made me pretty much wish for death.    The nurse tried to help as best she could.  She was just out of nursing school and had no children of her own.  She looked at me mid-contraction (they were 2-3 minutes apart lasting 90+ seconds, and were of course, in my back.  Back labor is a specialty of mine...)  "So how bad are your cramps?"  I tried to stay relaxed and whispered, its not a cramp.  Its back labor.  Breathe, I reminded myself.  "Ok, um.." she tried again, "so on the pain scale would you say you're at a 5 yet?"  That actually got me to open my eyes.  I looked at her and tried my best to not cop an attitude.  No, I answered, I'd say I'm at about a 12.  "Oh.  And where exactly do you feel the cramping?"  I exhaled as another one geared up.  I do not feel cramping, I tried to explain.  I feel like 2 giant knives are being stabbed into my lower back and slowly dragged around my sides towards my belly button.  Then the knives get mashed around my abdomen, and down towards my legs.  "Oh" she said with wide eyes, "Is that what back labor feels like?"  I tried not to look like I felt at that moment - like a giant science experiment.  It does for me, I answered.  "Well," she said uncertainly, 'the doctor will be in soon."   Half an hour later the doctor waltzed in.  "You're not in labor. You're cramping.  You only go into labor with real babies."  Thankfully for him I was in the middle of a particularly painful contraction, otherwise I think I would have kicked him.  That was when the chills and nausea started.  I secretly hoped that I WOULD puke and in my mind, I aimed it right at him.  How dare he say that my baby wasn't real!  "My baby is real!" I hissed.  "She isn't alive anymore, but that doesnt make her any less real or less loved."  He scribbled away on his notepad and ordered some kind of medication be given to me.  He said once the meds kicked in he'd do an exam.  Well, those meds, whatever they were, made me higher than a kite, and they also stopped the contractions.  His exam proved disappointing to him, because he "couldn't easily grab anything out."  Boy did THAT comment make me want to run for the hills!  He eventually handed me a cup and baggie.  "I'm sure this will all be over by tomorrow.  Just catch as much as you can and put anything resembling a fetus in the cup.  Make sure the lids on tight and bring it back after you're done."  He tried to insist one more time that "it wasn't a real baby." Lucky for him I was still a little loopy from the drugs.

We headed home dazed and infuriated.  I knew one thing for sure, there was no way I'd put my baby in a cup and no way I'd ever give the body of my baby to that man.  So we hunkered down at home, scared out of our wits because of my history of bleeding too much.  I found a beautiful wooden box and took out my wedding handkerchief.  Along with those items I placed a bottle of Holy Water and Holy Oil.  Then it was time to pray and wait.  "Baby Claire," I would pray, "just let me be able to honor your body and bury you.  Show me what God's Will is in all this, and what I should do."  

During the next week we waited and prayed.  I worked with the Funeral Home and they talked me through some of the finer points of my situation.  I spent hours upon hours on the phone with various departments of the hospital trying to obtain a Certificate of Fetal Death so I wouldn't have to go back or bring Claire's body into the hospital to be "officially declared dead."  After two days of maddeningly fruitless phone calls - no one seemed to know what to tell me or who I should talk to, I called the Funeral Home in tears, terrified I wouldn't be able to bury my baby after all.  The extremely kind gentleman assured me to not worry and said that he would take care of obtaining the all-important certificate. What a blessing to have that weight off my shoulders.  That was when I learned that it is actually Abortion Law that makes it illegal in so many places to obtain the remains of a miscarried or still-born baby under 20 weeks for burial.  The Abortion Laws have decided that under 20 weeks, a baby isn't a "real baby."  The Abortion Laws make it necessary for a Funeral Home to file a Certificate of Fetal Death if you want to bury your child in a Cemetery, and they are hard to get if the baby is less than  20 weeks.  The sheer lunacy of these 'laws' made my head spin.  I was terrified that I would have to fight to be able to bury my baby, or worse yet, not be able to.  I was even more scared of experiencing complications at home.  

I was stuck in an extremely uncomfortable, crampy, latent labor-like state and was beginning to get concerned about infection and sepsis (of which I only later learned I was at extreme risk).  I finally made an appointment with the OB listed on the ER discharge papers.  He was the first medical professional who actually listened to me long enough to understand my situation, my concerns, and my desires.  He did his own exams and ultrasound and pretty much discounted what both ER docs had said.  He immediately recommended an induction.  Thank God for this man who worked out the details and got me on the hospital schedule.  

That was how I ended up in Labor and Delivery holding my tiny baby after 7 hours of labor.  The Funeral Director came personally to the L & D floor and I was able to give my baby, baptized and anointed, wrapped in the handkerchief and laid in the wooden box to the extremely compassionate nurse, who in turn gave her directly to the Funeral Director.  At that moment, I felt more peace than I had in weeks.  A few days later we had a burial service for our daughter Claire.  A small group of family and friends gathered at the cemetery and our Priest celebrated the Rite of Christian Burial for our dear little baby.  As we drove home, I felt extremely sad, but I had an even deeper inner peace.  

Now that I've had a few weeks to digest and ponder all that has happened I can't shake the idea that some of the frustrations I encountered are because our society, and most notably the medical community is not encouraged to be Pro-Life.  I actually had a doctor tell me that I wasn't carrying a "real baby!"  I mean, how can you even say that, unless you have skewed understanding of what Life is?  

I think what makes me furious is that my story is far from unique.  I've had a couple of people tell me I am brave for "risking my life" so that I could bury my baby.  It sounds like I should feel like some sort of hero.  I mean heroes risk their lives, me?  I'm just a mother who desperately wanted to do right by her child.  I felt like the only thing I could do for her was bury her.  I'm no hero, I'm not brave.  I'm furious! If I had been 14 weeks pregnant and walked into a Planned Parenthood Office asking for an Abortion would I have been treated the way I was in the ER?   Would I have been given the brush off?  No.  I would have been swept into an office and "cared for."  (At least thats the way they try to make the women who come into their offices feel.)  

What if I had been in labor with a full term, healthy baby?  Would I have been forced to wait in a waiting room for 5 hours?  Would nurses have tried to convince me that I wasn't in labor?  Would my baby have been dismissed as being "not real?"  Of course not!  

What if I had delivered an extremely premature baby?  Wouldn't the doctors have done everything they could to save him or her?  Wouldn't that baby be given special care until he or she was healthy and strong?  Would any doctor say that a tiny prematurely born baby, fighting for life wasn't a "real baby?"  No way!  

Why then, did I have the experience that I did?  Why do women all across our country have similar, or worse experiences, when all they want is medical care during a scary, uncertain, extremely sad time.  Why are their babies dismissed and discarded as "medical waste?"  Why is it so hard for parents to simply bury their children?  

We need to be more Pro-Life, and truly Pro-Woman.  The biggest deception that the pro-aborts have forced upon us is that they truly care about women.  Women have a "right to choose" they like to tout.  They like to float these phrases "women deserve access to quality medical care."  Yeah that sounds reasonable, but all they really mean is "access to abortion."  When it comes to truly receiving medical care - do you think we get it?  You know what?  WE DON'T.   We don't have the "right to choose" to bury our babies if they die in the womb before 20 weeks.  Women often do not have the right to quality medical care and supervision during a miscarriage - not if they want to be able to bury their child or their child's remains.  Do you call being dismissed and handed a cup "quality medical care?"  I was appalled to learn just how at risk I was of some severe and life-threatening complications.  Is that quality  care?  How is forcing women to choose between receiving medical care and being able to bury their babies an advancement for women?  How is that protecting a woman's right to choose?  Why can't women choose to receive quality care AND be able to bury the remains of their babies?  

It is a Pro-Life Issue, because it is abortion that has muddied the waters of medicine.  Abortion, which is supposed to be so freeing and liberating to women, is tying the hands of the women who just want to honor the babies that they will never hold.  

Its abortion that has perpetrated this fraud upon us - telling us that if your baby dies in the womb "Its not a real baby."  How else could abortion survive?  The minute the medical community admits that "its a real baby" at conception, abortions' days are numbered.  When the medical community finally gets its act together and treats all babies with respect - born, pre-born, still-born, or deceased in the womb - abortion is finished.  

This is perhaps an untapped portion of the Fight to be Pro-Life.  We (and rightly so) concentrate so much on abortion that we,  as a Pro-Life people, often overlook the smaller battles of the same war.  Until I lived through the nightmare of losing a baby I had no idea that women and parents all over the country were silently suffering because they were denied the right they have as parents to properly mourn and bury and their children.  In a country that likes to brag about how tolerant and accepting it is, this is a travesty that simply cannot be excused, because to put it one way, parents who lost a baby in the womb are discriminated against.  They have no rights.  In this "great and progressive country of ours" you have the right to murder your child.  But not to bury your child.  

Yes my friends, its about being Pro-Life.  Perhaps as a Pro-Life people we should seek to correct this egregious wrong.  In doing so we will be advancing the Pro-Life cause, securing the right of parents to bury their babies' remains, regardless of gestational age, and therefore witnessing to the fact that the babies themselves have a Right to Life, and should they be taken to Our Heavenly Father because it is His doing, they also have the right to be buried - to be treated as the beautiful tiny persons that they are.  

 

Open to Life

This phrase gets bandied around quite a bit by Catholics who are trying to explain that they aren't contracepting, and who truly believe that God gets the final say on their family size. Generally these Catholics, like my husband and I, believe what the Church teaches about the great responsibility that comes with our gift of fertility, and that it takes a concerted and prayer-filled effort between both the spouses and God to come to an understanding of what His Will is for one's family.  

My husband and I were married at age 21 and felt led to not wait to begin growing our family.  We both were eager to experience this "openness to life" that we had talked about during our rather long engagement.   Four children and 6 years later we learned that openness to life means occasionally being surprised by the generosity of Our Heavenly Father!  Now its been 7 years, and 5 pregnancies and I am just fully grasping and internalizing the REST of what being Open to Life means.  

Claire's death taught me that when we are "Open to Life" we must be entirely open to God's Will for that Life.  That Life is His.  He gives us the tremendous gift of caring for the children He gives us, but they are ultimately HIS.  He may call them to Himself when HE chooses.  Being open to Life means being open to death, and understanding that Death is really just a birth into Eternal Life.   This revelation has led me to  a greater understanding of just what it means to say "Yes."   I have always thought that the Marital Act is a way of saying "Yes" to God - much as Mary did.  It is saying with our bodies the words spoken at the Consecration "This is my body, given up for You."  In the language of the body, and in our hearts, we say this to God, we say this to our spouses, and if we conceive, we say this over and over again to our unborn child.  But we must be willing to allow that "Yes" - our own personal Fiat - to include the possibility that God may want our child in Heaven with Him - before we are even able to hold him or her.  This makes saying that "Yes" an even greater act of Faith.  It also makes it mirror the Fiat of Our Heavenly Mother much more perfectly.  Mary's Fiat was lifelong - from the Visit of the Angel Gabriel, to Simeon's Prophesy of the Sword Piercing Her Heart, to the Way of the Cross, the Foot of the Cross, the Tomb, and the Resurrection and Ascension.  Mary's "Yes" was all-encompasing, total surrender to Our Loving Father.   A surrender to His Will not only for herself, but for her Child - the baby she carried under heart for nine months, and wrapped in swaddling clothes.  As mothers, this is what God asks of us as well - total surrender, and a real Openness to Life, and God's plan for that Life.  

Life

Its been a few weeks now since I learned that my beautiful baby Claire was never to live outside the womb.  Its been just over 2 weeks since her burial, and I find that my heart is so full, and that I cannot stop pondering over this thing we call "Life."   I am all over the place with my thoughts, thinking of so many things, some sad, some happy, some bitter.....and yet I keep returning to two main themes in my ponderings.  (I should mention that I've been battling a bought of insomnia so I have had a LOT of time to ponder things when I should otherwise have been sleeping!)

The first theme I can't seem to get away from is what it truly means to be "Open to Life" and the second theme I can't seem to escape is really more of a question, "Just what does it REALLY mean to be Pro-Life?"  In between these musings I have had some profound revelations about the Communion of Saints and our Sorrowful Mother.  (September, I just learned, is the month dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows, which seems so appropriate right now, that  I made sure to start a novena to Our Dolorous Mother to last for all of September.  One of my intentions is to pray for all those mothers and father who have ever lost a child - whether through abortion, miscarriage, stillbirth, or circumstances that arose after the child was born.)

In the next few posts I will muse and ponder these themes, but before I begin I want to once again thank those of you who have been praying for our family.  Your prayers have truly blessed us - while we are heartbroken and sad, we have felt such a showering of Grace and Peace, that I know God's Will is being accomplished, and His Will is perfect.  

Thank you and God Bless you.  

Our Sorrowful Mother

I am sitting here procrastinating packing.  I have to pack for the hospital.  Normally this is an exciting thing for women - packing to head off to the labor and delivery ward.  Not this time.  I've actually never given birth in a hospital.   My first 3 children were born at a birth center (yes, that means sans pain meds) and my 4th child was born at home (au natural, my friends).  This time though, for my 5th child, I am going to give birth at the hospital, and I will take whatever pain medications I am offered, because this time, my my baby will not be alive when she is born.  She is in Heaven - rejoicing with the angels, communing with the Saints, and visiting with my grandfather and my husband's grandmother - along with our other friends and family who have already made it Home.  Most of all I hope she is looking down on us and smiling.  I hope she is laughing at her silly siblings, and sending me a hug with her tiny arms.  I hope she is proud of her Daddy and knows that she is a "Daddy's girl," even in Paradise.  

I have been doing a lot of thinking about Our Lady lately.  Normally when I am pregnant I have a hard time connecting with Mary.  I've been in labor enough times to know that its the worst, most unique pain one will ever experience, and since Mary didn't have to do that whole 'original sin' thing, most theologians agree that she didnt do the while labor pains thing either.  (According to the Revelations of St. Bridget, Mary was in ecstasy when she gave birth...NOT my experience...)  This always made it hard for me t go to Mary when I was pregnant, in pain, or approaching labor.  This time though, its different.  Mary DID cradle her Son after He had died.  She walked the way of the Cross with Him, and she was there to hold HIs body.  She knows the pain of losing a child.  This time, I have turned my eyes to Our Heavenly  Mother, and have found such comfort in her quiet, humble strength and deep sorrow.

I am quite apprehensive as I head off to the Labor and Delivery ward.  I know there is a good chance that I'll be the only women there who will not come home with a baby in my arms.   I am nervous about what is to come, and yet I also know that if I turn to our Blessed Mother she will hold me and show me how to mourn and how to Trust.  Mary said "Yes" to God her whole life, and she is teaching me to do the same.

I miss my dear baby Claire Elizabeth-Ann.  I also look forward to when I can meet her in Heaven.