Loving Your Family First

Conversion Diary Jen called me today to wish me a Happy Birthday. She asked me about my Christmas. I said going to church on Christmas Eve was reverent and beautiful.

But by 10 AM on Christmas morning I was in tears because the day was so crummy. The kids got too many presents from their grandparents. They became agitated, started fighting with one another, and demanded immediate assistance to assemble all their barrage of gifts. I mediated fights between my father and my brother over differing film criticism of "Lawrence of Arabia". All I wanted to do was take my sweet future nun back to church on Christmas but that became impossible because it didn't fit the agenda of the day.

So I didn't go to church. I didn't feed a hot Christmas dinner to the homeless. I didn't sing Christmas carols to the elderly in my late grandfather's nursing home. I didn't pray my Daily Office.

Jen agreed that when you celebrate Christmas day with family that are not really practicing Christians, you need to make sacrifices. The day is more materialistic than you'd like. It's a day more about penance rather ran "refreshment in the Spirit."

During my Christmas morning whine about missing church and missing serving the poor with Jesus, I felt him laughing at me. "Forget about spending long hours in prayer in front of the manger scene, this is how I want you to spend my day--being extra unselfish." He sort of told me in my heart that I can't go out and spread love to strangers on Christmas Day until my own extended family is fully saturated with the love of Christ. Otherwise helping the homeless is a selfish means of escaping on Christmas Day rather than a true act of charity.

So after the sun went down on Christmas Day, I turned off the replay of the Papal Mass on EWTN that I'd longed to see all day and instead, accompanied my siblings and my children and my husband to see the movie Tron. (Bad sci-fi is real penance!) I think my heart made the right call.

Happy 36th Birthday To Me!

 

I'm over the stomach flu. Miss Tess and my husband have so far been spared. Yesterday, Miss Tess also decided after 3 MONTHS of me begging to refuse eat formula and prefer to nurse. Of course, this happens that exact day that I'm dying from the stomach flu. My husband kept telling me "I'm so sorry to do this to you, but she won't eat from the bottle." Ironic timing is everything.

For my birthday present my boy bought me a new (real) wedding ring set! It is SO pretty! On Dec 31, 1999, I prayed to our Blessed Mother to let me help her bring more peace into the world. Rather than send me off to join the UN as I intended, she send me a lonely, sweet boy to love. Nine and 1/2 years of marriage and one NICU stay later-- I'm so much more in love with him then when we started.

 

It's My Party . . . .

and I'll pick up yucky towels if I want to!

Stomach flu hit the Benjamin house at 1 AM this morning. So far 3 kids are down. I'm waiting for the joy to hit me. (My one prayer right now is "Please don't make Tess have to go to the Emergency Room.)

Tomorrow is my 36th Birthday.

I've already canceled my fun Kings Day Party on Sunday. I don't think my fun pilgrimage plans are going to happen tomorrow.

It will be a birthday party to make Mother Teresa proud (i.e. Forgetting of Self and Service to Others). Won't you leave your prayer intentions in my comment box so I can at least feel socially connected to the wider world on my big day?

Because I'm to lazy to do my own internet research. . . .

I need advice about finding a new wedding ring online. I'm one of those girls whose ring size goes up and down a ridiculous amount while she's breastfeeding. For example, last week I got sized at Kay's at at 6 3/4. Tonight, I was a 8 1/2.

My original wedding ring and engagement ring are a size 5. They are out of the picture, so I don't have a sentimental attachment to any wedding jewelry.

I have a nice diamond wedding band that is a size 6. It will cost about $80 to size it. Because I'm secretly hoping that Tess isn't my last baby, I'd like to hold off on changing my "good" band until menopause.

So that leaves me entering in the world of finding a cheap wedding band, that doesn't look cheap. Any advice?

I'm totally fine with cubic zirconia.

I need a real metal in the ring, however, either sterling silver or white gold.(I did the $8 costume jewelery thing over Christmas and my ring finger turned brown).

My husband wants a big, fake "bling" ring set. I think that having a huge ring--even if it's fake--looks a little ridiculous on a poor Carmelite. A compromise is something in the middle.

If worse comes to worse I can get a 2 mm white gold ring at Kay's for $60.00. It's an okay solution, but worn solo the thin band looks a little ridiculously small on my finger. I'm hoping to find a much more dignified solution at or around $100 online.

I also don't know what size ring to get. Jon also suggested finding 2 cheap silver rings at size 7 and a size 9 that I can trade off during the day. We went to Kohl's tonight but didn't see anything special.

Anyone have any solutions or suggestions?

(Thanks for helping Jon select my birthday present!)


Hmmm. . . thinking now about this option A or option B. What's a normal carat size that doesn't look laughably fake?

 

 

 

 

 

Holy Family Homily

This is a beautiful homily from my Carmelite friend, Father Dan, on how we can use St. Joseph as a model to "protect our families from danger".

Merry Christmas!

I'm about to leave for Christmas Eve Mass! Merry Christmas everyone! You all will be in my prayers!

When I Count My Blessings . . . .

 

. . . .during this Holy Advent. . .

 

I count you twice, Miss Tess!

 

Proof that life with four is easy!

 

I did not have happy, live-in babysitters for any of my first 3 babies!

A Dramatic NICU Success Story

We're doing the happy dance at our house tonight. Baby James is the son of a blogger buddy who ended up in the NICU at the same time as Baby Tess. After his birth, little James went 61 minutes without a heartbeat. His Mama recently got back his latest MRI results and at 3 months old, his brain has completely HEALED!

Prayer works! We give thanks to God, the future Saint Fulton Sheen, the wonderful doctors, nurses and staff of the NICU and for Catholic Mamas like Bonnie who somehow keep going in faith when all signs look bleak.

A Social Network Christmas

Ht: Father Dan G.

A Special Prayer Request

Sarah, a reader of this blog from the United Kingdom, is scheduled to have an emergency c-section on Christmas Day. Because her baby is only at 35 weeks gestation, Mama is understandably nervous about her baby facing a long stint in the NICU.

Can you all show her some love?

Please leave some prayers and encouraging words in my comments section for Sarah to read. Thank you!

Christmas Card Update

As of tonight, 70 out of our 80 Christmas Cards, have been mailed.

I've still got all the Sisters (nuns) to mail out. It's so ironic because my desire to chat with all the Sisters about the miracle of Baby Tess is what drove the whole Christmas card project in the first place. But it's all good!

I wanted to shout out to my friend, Conversion Diary Jen, (who is so together she sends photos of 4 smiling children AND a newsletter AND a personal note before the end of Christmas) that I took her idea of free 250 business cards from Vista print and ran with it this year.

I made the cutest "spiritual bouquet" cards for my family. There is a flower on the logo and it says "Jon and Abigail will pray for you". In the contact listing we wrote out slots for our different prayers. Now I can simply list off the number of Divine Mercy Chaplets, Rosaries, etc. that I will do for a person and put the a tangible sign of our prayers inside our Christmas card. So great for all of priests and religious friends.

Another Cute Photo

 

She is just so smilely! (And very, very bald! :-)

Tess

 

Tess at 3 months, wearing her special pin from the Poor Clares

A Work in Progress

The home school assignment was to draw a picture of an Inuit Igloo so that I can check off my Social Studies obligation to teach the concept that "Native People use different materials from their environment to build shelters."

My oldest daughter, Hannah, obediently starts the assignment at once.

"You can't see my drawing until I'm finished!" Alex pouts.

"Okay," I say.

After 10 minutes of great secrecy, Alex hands me a stunning example of portraiture. "What is this?" I ask.

"It's a picture of Tess!"

"That's a great drawing!," I say telling the complete truth. "We'll save that one for our Art section. Now we've got to do our Social Studies project now, honey, so Mommy has something to show your teacher."

More secrecy, more furious scribbling.

A second drawing is passed my way. There is a teeny tiny igloo in the center of a circle, a dark bridge crossing the circle with wavy lines (which I optimistically assume to be the frozen Arctic waters above). On the top is a pattern of strange circle patterns between vertical hatch marks.

"Interesting depiction, Alex! What are these?" I say, pointing to the weird pattern. "Is it Inuit carvings on walrus tusks!" I say enthusiastically.

"NO!" Alex answers. "That's the NOT sign."



That paper says how much I'm NOT going to do my igloo homework.

I counted up 18 NOT signs from my illiterate first grader and started howling with laughter.

Yeah, If anyone asks me in the future WHY I'm homeschooling, I'm showing them Alex's igloo drawing and saying "its because I still have too much pity for any teacher who'd have to pull work assignments out of my smart son."