Mama-luia

I leave the baby for a few short minutes now, and he backs himself under the couch, where he is incapable of freeing himself without someone's help. The giggles this elicits from his older siblings, I fear, will further his desire to trap himself on a regular basis. I tend to think of this photo as a symbolic representation of our February. We experienced an aggressive stomach flu, coupled with a chimney fire -- while Patrick was out of town, naturally -- and a suspected (but thankfully ruled out) case of carbon monoxide poisoning for the kids. Thus, we backed ourselves further and further into the abyss until it became actually laughable how "stuck" we were. Like innocent babies jammed under an IKEA couch. We're through the worst of it, though, and are regaining our equilibrium. The big kids are back at school, and Anna is back to vacillating between wanting to "help" me with everything (like gift-wrapping the potatoes for the oven, one of he...

Some years, simply being a family takes priority over being extra liturgically-minded. There are babies and young children who need to go to bed at predictable, early hours. The long church services are simply too much for them. Dying eggs on Holy Thursday morning But isn't our faith learned first and foremost in the domestic church anyway? Lamb chops and grape juice for Holy Thursday dinner Around the kitchen table, where food is prepared lovingly and conversations take place? Especially at so young an age, Making paschal candles the faith must be "caught", not taught. So we spruce up our homes, as best as we can Our new "little oratory" in the living room And don our most handsome attire for the one Mass we can all attend together. (Although this almost-six-year-old made it to the 2.5 hour long Vigil {which he slept through in its entirety}. He was so proud to go out just with Daddy.) The...

So, Lent. (I need to remember to take these sorts of pictures before it gets dark.  The shadows make it look unintentionally somber and extra Lent-y.) I am embracing a "gentle Lent" again this year. My spiritual director says, "We choose our penance, but God chooses our Lent." You know what God chose for me this week? A (rather funny) doozy. Please be forewarned:  if you have a weak stomach, or are otherwise squeamish,  scroll down to the photos of my kids.  I took the kids to the dentist, an hour away from here. It involved lots of driving and complaining from kids about the length of the car trip. Then a dentist visit-tantrum from one child resulted in only one getting his teeth checked. After we ate lunch at the nearby McDonald's, I realized I had forgotten water bottles. So I took them to Shopper's to buy new water bottles, then drove home. I was already exhausted when we walked in the door. Then the power went out just whe...

Every year, as Lent approaches, I find myself dreaming of all sorts of interesting penances or disciplines I'll take on. This year, I think, I will de-clutter the entire house! I will get up at 5am and pray and exercise! I will abstain from meat, dairy, nightshades, sugar, caffeine and vegetables with the letter 'o' in them! And then see how holy I will become! (Can't you almost hear my immense ego cackle?) And every year, somehow, God reminds me how petty these plans of mine are, and how very much more He wants to me focus on one thing -- drawing closer to Him. All my Lent-plans are always about me -- who I want to be, what I want to push myself into doing or being. I was so touched by this  post: What if, this Lent, instead of swearing ourselves off all food or motorized vehicular transportation, what if we challenged ourselves to do one thing – one teeny, tiny, small thing solely for the love of God or our neighbour.    And what if we didn’t just...

Happy, happy, happy Easter  to the wonderful handful of people who read Mamaluia! I am delighted it is Easter, finally, as the Lent that just passed felt like the longest one I can remember. But somehow griping doesn't suit the joy that we're experiencing during this holy Feast. So today I just want to share a few snippets of joy from the last 40 days in the life of my little family. Before Lent began, Patrick and I were discussing what we were giving up for Lent over dinner with the boys, and Noah chimed in and said "I want to give up my little table." His little table is where he plays with toys, does colouring books, and occasionally he eats his snack there with his brother. (In reality it's simply a coffee table we bought at a church flea market for $15, but with a few kid-sized chairs, it does the preschooler/toddler trick.) So on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, we had one last 'fancy' snack there, and then we placed it in Daddy's office...

Well hello happy readers. Long time no see! I hope you are having a wonderful Easter. We sure are. I hope you didn't miss me too much over Lent. Here's a brief overview of what happened for us these past 40+ days: We ordered an 8th of cow, and it arrived the first Friday of Lent. Patrick and I thought that was so funny that we took a picture of all the delicious grass-fed beefy goodness. And tucked it away in our deep-freeze 'til the Solemnity of St. Joseph. Sigh. Speaking of which: We did the St. Joseph altar for the first time. There are three tiers representing the Holy Family, and of course the Blessed Trinity. Various feasting foods including fava bean salad (it's a tradition with the Sicilians in honour of St. Joseph blessing their fava crop after a time of serious drought), rolls in the shape of carpenter's tools, wine and of course the long-awaited steak from Getaway Farms. Yum. Oh yes, and cream puffs. So good. (In the interest of you r...

Well here's my pre-Lent silliness. I'm not always serious, people! (Oh poor Patrick has no idea I'm using his face in this way. Also, if you don't get the joke, allow me to NOT hyperlink to the variety of downright-creepy photos saying "hey girl" with Ryan Gosling.) And now, I'm off! Time to make a big Alleluia banner to hang in the kitchen tomorrow. Then we'll bury it in the yard on Ash Wednesday, and excitedly dig it back up on Holy Saturday. We have lots of plans on how to observe Lent this year, and I do love a good liturgical season craft that drives home the point, but given the ages of the boys, and the other more pressing things that need to get done (planning a CLC conference {!} and Noah's first "real" birthday party) I am trying to remind myself to make Last Things first. Lent is about coming closer to Our Lord and taking up our crosses, whatever they may be. Stations of the Cross colouring pages are really, real...

I never really "nested" in my first pregnancy. I had hoped to be one of those women I hear about who suddenly gets superhuman energy and scrubs every surface in sight. I did get oddly obsessed with organizing our 'library'; I did bake a quadruple batch of pancakes with dried cranberries in them, in hopes they would keep us fed after our baby's birth (one wonders why I didn't make casseroles or meatballs or something more... substantial... but I couldn't be reasoned with!); I did cut out fabric to make our baby a quilt, which never materialized, of course, because I realized I have no idea how to quilt! But get down on my hands and knees and SCRUB things? That simply never happened. I rationalized myself out of intense housework because, after all, I was pregnant so that should exempt me, right? (That, and the intense back pain that carrying a baby gives me... Thank God we found a chiropractor for me this time!) Then I used the same logic when after ...

I can't believe we're in the Easter season already. It has been an amazing Easter for our family, as it was Noah's first out of the womb (mind you he was born during the Octave last year). We began Holy Week with a lovely potluck with a group of families on Palm Sunday after a beautiful Mass that morning**. We get together every month to say a Rosary, share a meal and have fellowship (by the way, I detest "fellowship" as a verb. Ugh). It was wonderful for Noah to see all these children -- some 25, I think -- all happily playing and praying. He loves studying other kids. Holy Week continued as an holy, ordinary week in our lives -- Lifesite-writing, dish-washing, diaper-changing, meal-eating. Yet we knew something powerful was happening. Holy Thursday was wonderful. It started off awkwardly as we left in plenty of time to go to Mass at our parish, only to find out the time in the bulletin was wrong! We were there at 7:20 for at 8pm Mass, and it turns out, M...

Lent is here, my friends, and I am quite happy about that. Happy, you say? Why, isn't Lent about wandering around tragically, being deprived of all that is good and enjoyable, feeling miserable, and looking dour? No, no, no and no (although I assume you gathered that; that was an obvious straw man of an expression). In case you did think Lent was about these things, let's recall Ash Wednesday's Gospel. "And when you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by men but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you." Ah yes, being pleasant about our Lenten penances. So back to me being happy about Lent. Here's a secret: I've always liked Lent. No, I don't like penance (I see it's ...

I said I wasn't going to buy any more tea or tea-related substances before Easter. . . but we've run out of milk. The few tea bags we have left will NOT do without milk. It's not breaking my fast to buy some milk, now, is it? Can milk really be considered a tea-related substance, given how multi-purpose it is? Plus, don't pregnant women need their calcium? Or am I just trying to justify myself? It's sort of sad that I find myself screaming inside my head at the injustice of it all, when I remember why we adopt some trivial, silly "penances" for 40 days.

I think the moment we've all been waiting for is here! No, I'm not in labour! But I think I am nesting. I hope so, at least. I say so because I found myself suddenly needing to organize the pantry. I got up on a chair (a precarious preggo position) and sorted and went through each shelf, dusting and then ordering into neat categories: pasta-related products, baking needs, spices (because I lack a spice rack! The INJUSTICE of it all!), canned goods and tea. I gasped at the section for 'tea' (and if I could get my digital camera to co-operate, I'd post a picture of it so you could gasp, too). We had 14 different kinds of tea! And we actually had two different kinds of Chai (really! Two kinds of chai?! ) and two different brands of peppermint! I now have actual proof that my tea takes up more space than my canned goods and spices combined. What is the sense of that? Anyone will tell you that me and the DH are inveterate tea drinkers. Indeed, I first fell in love with h...