Mama-luia

{Welcome to a chatty, scattered capture of life with a newborn. Consider it old-fashioned blogging, capturing my daily life but without the need to tie my reflections up with a big bow to make A Point.} Clara is five weeks old now. A friend of mine who has seven of her own children said, "I tend to find that by four weeks, it's starts to get really real ." Indeed. Both in terms of the highs and the lows. The highs -- a beautiful child who actually smiles at me and coos in response to my sing-song-y greetings. It's an unmatched high. She is a delightful little human. But, a baby who is not on a predictable routine yet, but who doesn't sleep nearly as much as when we counted her life in days, that's challenging. You know, especially while juggling everyone else's needs. The casseroles dropped off by neighbours are but a fond memory. Life goes back to normal for everyone else. Yet here we are, still grappling with how to create a new sens...

Today I took my youngest two children to the library. On a whim, while I was there, I signed up Elijah for his own library card, and I introduced the library staff to Clara, whom they oohed and ahhed over. You see, at my local library, the staff are on a first-name basis with us. When Noah placed third in our township's public speaking contest, the CEO of the library passed along her congratulations. When I walked in today, she complimented me on my haircut. These staff members are genuinely invested in me and my family, and in our community. I love accessing the library as a 'third place.' Being a stay-at-home mom, especially in a rural community, especially in a place where winter sprawls, bitterly cold and vicious, for months, having a safe, fun, low-cost place to bring my children is gold {also: note I said "low cost" and not "free;" I am notorious for returning my library books late and despite my best intentions to change my ways, I rack up o...

via GIPHY {I couldn't resist dropping an Adele reference in the title. You understand, right?} Well, friends: This post is long overdue. But here goes. On April 5th, 2019 our sweet baby girl joined our family. Clara Margaret Mary  8 lbs. 4 oz. I suppose it is fitting that I am so overdue in posting about her arrival, given that she was rather overdue in MAKING said arrival. 7 entire days, as a matter of fact. Given my previous babies' timely arrival, I was not expecting that. So I wallowed in self-pity, physical discomfort and tears for each subsequent day post-date.  I was a de-LIGHT to be around. via GIPHY Our parish priest even looked anguished at the sight of me waddling about, huge and strained beyond what I believed to be my body's capacity. He promised prayers. My parents made dinner and occupied the kids for days on end. Patrick and I studied spinningbabies.com to implement the proper exercises to move the posterior baby in...

"So when are you going to have that baby?" I get asked over and over, really whenever I leave the house. And my temptation is to say "maybe never?" It certainly feels like that. Thankfully I understand best practice well enough that I know my medical team would not allow that to happen. Mere biology wouldn't allow a woman to gestate indefinitely. Yet I found myself texting my godmother yesterday, my due date, that I may very well be the first woman in history to be pregnant forever. I will be a circus sideshow, right next to the bearded lady. The thing of it is, at least when I went overdue with Elijah (by a paltry two days, mind you), I had prodromal labour for two entire weeks leading up to his birth. At least that made it seem like things were happening... or would soon. His was a tidy, quick labour and even relatively easy given how big he was at birth. This time, I have no indication that I will ever deliver this baby. My body has taken no interest...

This is the fifth time I will be pregnant during the holy season of Lent, yet the first time I will deliver my child before Easter arrives. I was recently struck by the significance of this in a circuitous way. Patrick mentioned while we were prepping breakfast for our family that “it didn’t really feel like Lent.” Immediately I assumed, wrongly, that he castigating me for having taken on no penances at all, and in my sensitive state, I nearly burst into tears right then. I'm fragile these days, what can I say? Seeing my face, he quickly corrected himself and said he meant he was thinking of his own Lenten sacrifices. Instead, he suggested, I was let off the hook, so to speak, for this year. That comment didn’t sit well with me, though. For someone who has a serious temptation to laxity and sloth, being patted on the head and promised the freedom to an even greater state of apathy seemed just plain wrong. But is that why the Church absolves pregnant women from the obl...

In just a short matter of weeks, our family will welcome a new member. I am absolutely in awe, but to some degree, in a bit of disbelief. Of course I have a round belly, and nightly sessions of kicks and flutters, to remind me that a real live human is growing inside me. But the reality that our life as a family of six will forever be changed, that a unrepeatable human is about to take centre stage and be ooohed and ahhed over by all who meet him or her, it's mystifying to me, really. This pregnancy has not been as hard as some of the others. For one, my morning sickness ended more swiftly and never reached the fevered-pitch it did with some of my children. I have had short bouts of swollen ankles and feet, but because this is my wintry-est due date, I think I've been spared the excess of that. When I was pregnant with Anna, who was born in October, August and September were just brutal for this affliction. I don't cope well with hot weather, even when I am not being i...

7 Quick Takes:  Bringing  the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd  into the home At the end of November, a friend of mine and I launched the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd program in our parish. For those unfamiliar with the program, I believe this brief video captures it beautifully. We've had several sessions now, learning about the liturgical year and its colours, modelling how to slowly and reverently make the sign of the Cross, how to walk purposefully and quietly in the atrium -- in general, how to comport ourselves to be better equipped to participate in the Mass. We've also directed them with Montessori 'practical life' activities, such as pouring, scooping, threading beads, using tongs to pick things up to sort, and so on. They have eagerly learned about the globe and the land of Israel and have enjoyed being able to identify where Christ was born, lived and died and rose again. The delight with which these children receive these lessons is so gra...