Parenting – Page 4 – Susanna Spencer

Eight Great Things About Having Three Kids Four and Under

I am the mother of three girls (so far) aged ten months, 2.5 years, and 4.5 years. When I go places with my three little girls, people say things like, “You’ve got your hands full!” And honestly, I do. But this does not mean that I am not enjoying it. Life is very busy and at the end of most days when the kids are asleep, I scarcely remember what we did in the morning. There are so many negative things on the Internet about having children, how babies are hard to take care of, cost lots of money, and how your life will never be your own again. And while this may the case, I am okay with that. I have heard from older moms that where I am is the most difficult time in parenting. “The third is the hardest,” they all say. (Though I have heard from moms of larger families, that the first six are the hardest.) Despite the difficulties of having lots of little kids, there are many wonderful things about my life these days.

Here are just eight of the many great things about having three kids aged 4 and under:

1. They are all at home: Once the oldest starts kindergarten or preschool, things change a lot. We are going to home school. In fact I am starting to do what I consider to be real schooling this Fall, where we sit down and “do school” for an hour each morning. I realize that this year is the last year where the expectations of schooling are going to be so low. This is a time to savor, where things are simple and happen at home.

2. They are close: My oldest two never stop playing. They play from the moment they are awake to the moment they fall asleep at night. They are each others’ constant companions and they love it. We give them a break in the afternoon for nap/quiet time, but otherwise they are at a loss without each other. It is beautiful to witness.

3. Quiet evenings at home: I never have to stress about what I am doing on a Friday night. In fact, my husband is thankful to the kids that he can use them as an excuse to stay home every evening if he wishes. Maybe we are homebodies, but I love the quiet 2-3 hours of time with my husband after the kids 8 o’clock bedtime. Someday they will go to bed later, and things will not be the same.

4. Quiet/Nap time: It is a fight most days, but once I get the kids settled into separate rooms for their afternoon quiet/nap time, I have an hour or so to regroup, relax, blog, or make important phone calls. I am wondering how long I will be able to get away with this. Though once the kids are reading on their own, I bet I can make it reading time for the older kids.

5. We can still fit in a sedan, and a minivan has extra seats: This is another thing to savor for now. If God keeps on blessing us with children, there may be a time when a minivan is not enough. But for now, I am happy to drive a “smaller” car.

6. I never have to sit still at Mass: I don’t know about you, but sitting still at Mass has always been difficult. There is always someone to hold om my lap. It is great to be able to get up with a fussy baby and pace around in back or take out the toddler to the restroom. When we first had kids, I was a little annoyed at having to leave the pew so often, but now it adds to my ability to focus on Mass. If I have the rare Mass without kids, I am at a loss for what to do with my hands.

7. The baby is the easy one: When my eldest was born, everything was new. The last newborn I had lived with was my brother who was born when I was three years old. With the third baby, everything comes naturally: feeding, diaper changes, rocking, holding, etc. It is nice to be able to enjoy a baby without worrying if I am doing everything right.

8. All children are gifts from God: Being a parent of three little kids is never easy, and it is often overwhelming. But they are gifts from God. We really do not have control from the beginning over whether we will be able to have kids, and now that I have three I still have to rely on God’s blessing to have any more. God gave them to us to take care of, to love, and to raise to love Him. We cannot “plan” our families the way society wants to tell us we can. So enjoy your family now, as it is, and remember to find joy amidst the craziness of raising little children.

The Right Baby at the Right Time

I have been thinking a lot lately about the personality and temperament of each of my children, and one of the things I have noticed is that each child’s temperament fit with the time of life that I had them in perfectly. It seems like God knew the kind of baby that I would need at each time and gave that child to me.

For example, F (9 months) is the most laid back baby I have had. She is happy to play alone for long stretches, and in fact gets upset sometimes when others interfere with her solo play. She was born right after we moved to a new city and then we decided to start house hunting when she was three months old. Things were supposed to slow down after we moved into our house this June, but with the leaky pipe and the long wait for repairs to be completed in the basement, things are still fairly high stress in our home. F is teaching me to be more like her with her laid back, patient, simple personality. She also goes to sleep really easily which is exactly what I need when there are so many other things making life stressful. A baby that sleeps makes it all a lot simpler to a busy mom.

Not the current baby… 🙂

L (2.5) was my baby at a time when life was fairly settled. I had established a good support system of friends in Buffalo and she fit right into our family life. She was a very high strung baby, but also very cheerful. She made life joyful, so her mood swings were not stressful but just taught me to attend to her based off of her personality and not panic when she screamed at the top of her lungs about small problems.

G (4), my first baby is more like me, and maybe that was best for me with my first baby when I knew nothing about taking care of babies. Our moods often fit and reflected each other, and with her I learned how to be a mom. I still am learning how to be a mom with her as we encounter all of our firsts. And with such a laid back baby sister, our first year of more serious preschool home schooling should be easier to tackle.

God really does provide in a growing family, giving the right baby at the right time.

Seven Quick Takes-July 26

1. We made it to end of July, and it is the weekend my sister and her family were supposed to visit. We delayed it because of the basement water damage, and we learned this week that the the damaged floor tiles that were under the carpet that was ripped up are asbestos tiles. Oh boy! This means we have to get those taken care of before repair work begins. Which means another week of work to get the whole job done. Thus, the whole summer is being taken up by a stupid leak in a pipe…

2. My sister and I spoke yesterday about their upcoming visit and decided no matter what state the basement is in we are going to make this basement happen. It just means that we will have six girls and four adults between three bedrooms. That is not so bad. We might even let the four girls who aged six, four, and two and a half share one room: a cousin sleepover! It will also give F a chance to practice sleeping in a pack n play before we visit St. Louis later in August.

3. M has been teaching a class this summer two nights a week from 5:30-9:30 pm. This means that I have to get the kids to bed alone. It has not been so bad except for that L (2.5) will not stay in her bed for about an hour after I tuck her in. Our bedtime routine consists of her coming out of her room about 30 seconds after each tuck in, and me trying not to lose it with her. When M is home he takes care of the older girls at bedtime, but he is also having the same problem. We have decided to give them about 15 minutes with a dim light and book at bedtime to give them time to settle down in their beds. It worked last night. I hope it continues to work and the time they get to read books is about as long as it takes to get F to fall asleep, so it might work great in terms of timing on the nights M is gone.

4. As I predicted last week, F (8 months) is on the move. The legless army crawl is her motion of choice. She needs her PT aunt and godmother to come and get her up on her knees. Remember my musings of last week about where she would end up once she could crawl? It is not at my feet as I cook. She is making her way to various rooms of the house. I caught her heading into my bedroom earlier.

5. I have gone back to making my own yogurt again, since I can make 8 cups of Greek yogurt for about $3 instead of spending .85 on 6 oz at Aldi. I have never made it plain before, usually flavoring it with vanilla, but I did this time. I am now addicted to a breakfast of Greek yogurt flavored with our homemade jam, and granola. The girls prefer their yogurt with Grape Nuts.

6. I really want to take the kids raspberry or blueberry picking this next week. I think they might be in season by now. I just need to find a good picking place. Anyone reading this in the Twin Cities who knows of a good place?

7. I have seen this vine growing in our yard for a few weeks now.

M saw it today when he was out playing with the kids and thought it might be a pumpkin vine. There was a smashed pumpkin in the yard after we closed on it (hidden under the snow when we first saw the house) and we can’t remember where it ended up to decompose. A quick image search of pumpkin vines showed me several like our vine, but also other varieties. Anyone know anything about pumpkins? Is this really a pumpkin vine? We might be able to tell once it takes over the yard. It would be pretty cook if we inadvertently grew a pumpkin plant. 🙂

And now I am linking up with Jen who hosts the Friday Quick Takes.

A Letter to my Four Year Old

Dear G,

Today is the big day; you know the one when I leave you at “school” and trust you to people I trust. Home schooling was supposed to prevent this day from coming so soon, but then our parish announced Vacation Bible School in the bulletin and that there would be a group for four year olds. Are you really old enough already to join the big kids? I have been nervous for a month, and today I said goodbye (for three hours) as a teenager, who I am sure is awesome with kids, whisked you away to color with the other four year olds. It has only been 90 minutes, but I miss you. Thank you for being such a great kid, and one who loves her sisters and has great conversations with me. Thank you for being your sister’s best friend; I am not sure what she is going to do with herself with you not here. Thank you for being so excited to learn about the Bible and Saints with other kids at our parish. I can’t quite pinpoint this feeling I am having about you being on your own at VBS, it is one I have never had before. You are going to be doing all the “firsts” for me as a mother, so I better get used to it. I know you will be your best self, and be kind to all the other children, and I hope you will remember to listen to other adults.

From the moment you were born, our lives have been separating further and further apart. You were inside me, and then you were outside me but always in my arms or next to me, then you sat up and played with toys, then you learned to feed yourself with your own hands, then you started crawling, then walking, then talking, then playing independently. Now you get yourself your own snacks, spend a morning on your tricycle out in back, and can go off with other kids your own age and learn more about the Bible and God which we have taught you about since birth. But you will always come back home and our family is where you will learn to be you and learn to love. And that is what I will remember, that no matter where you go to learn from others, you will always have the foundation we have just barely begun to give you. I love you and am praying for you always!

Love,
Mommy

Feeling sad about the way the world is changing…

I keep on asking M if things are really that much worse than they were when we were kids (just a short 10 years ago really), and we look at the state of things and agree, yes they are getting worse.

I read this article the other day “A Boy’s Life with Unisex Scouts” by Anthony Esolen, and several things about it struck me. He talked about the world a boy should grow up in, as he learns about man-hood, and he said that we do not live in a “healthy” world anymore where we can trust other adults to teach our kids the right things or where perfectly normal activities are no longer “allowed.”

It makes me sad to think about my children growing up in a world where women to go topless in public and disrespect a bishop. I think what these women did was evil, but I know there are many that would commend them. And then there is the anti-bullying program at the school in New York. The persecution of the Church is happening now, and it is probably only going to get worse. Those of us who stand for the Truth are going to be outcasts and there are those who are going to seek to limit our freedom to share and live the Truth.

Esolen also spoke beautifully on the “time-transcending, child-making thing”, which is of course in reference to what man and woman do to become mother and father. The contraceptive mentality is so polluting on our society, and I keep on looking for ways that children are welcome and loved, but it seems that the society does not really care for them at all; they just want to train them to think like liberals. The contraceptive mentality has even polluted the Church, for example when people complain about children misbehaving in Mass. Mass is not for my own private prayer or you private prayer it is for the all Catholics to participate in the Sacrifice of the Cross being made present on the altar in your church. Please welcome me and my children in Mass and at the grocery store and wherever we are. I am doing my best to raise virtuous, holy, disciplined children, but kids are in a state of being formed and not always perfect. And this is why I am sad about the world, because it is becoming a place where it will be harder to form my children in accordance with the Truth.

Thanks for listening, and for the record, while I am saddened, I do have hope. I have hope when I read my children the stories of the young martyrs, and see their faith. I have hope when my five month old gets to spend her first warm Spring afternoon giggling in the sunshine. I have hope when my two year old asks to kiss her statue of Our Lady. I have hope when my four year old listens to the priest’s homily. I have hope when my husband leads our family in prayer. I have hope because I know that no mater what happens we will always have the Church.

Seven Quick Takes–What my kids have put in their heads

What would you put in your head?

1. Guzzled Body Oil: When G was one I used to use essential oils mixed with jojoba oil as a skin moisturizer. I stored it in a 1 ounce container with a tip just right for sucking on. One afternoon M caught her in the bathroom chugging this oil mixture. When we called poison control they said she would be fine, but to give her milk and watch for orange poop. The people at poison control are really helpful and friendly.

2. Swallowed Floss: When an adult who shall not be named as visiting us, two year old G was playing with a container of floss. She managed to get a 14″ piece off and swallow it. The nurse said she should be fine. On the plus side she had really minty breath.

3. Peas in the nose: L has a fascination with sticking things in her facial orifices. The first time it was peas. She was 18 months old and bored at dinner. We tried to get them out ourselves and when we could not, I took her into her doctors after hours urgent care. He got it right out, and found it fairly amusing. The best part about this one was that it was billed as “surgery.”

4. Hair ties in a different nose: G as our oldest child is really good at imitating behavior of others, even her younger sister. One day when she as three, while in time out, she decided to shove one of those little plastic hair-ties up her nose. M had the car at school, and had to come home and bring her to the doctor. By the time we got her there, it had gone all the way back and she had swallowed it.

5. Eating Chapstick: G is very oral; that is the nice way to say it. One day during her “naptime” she got ahold of some flavored lipgloss and ate most of a melon flavored one. Poison control was helpful here as well. I just figured it is so easy to call them, and they can find all the info I need.

6. Coloring inside Ears: L at age two put a colored pencil in her ear and the tip broke off; I did not notice it for days when we noticed blue coming out of her ear after a bath. She has really waxy ears so it was not really bothering her. They got it out with the ear sprayer technique almost immediately. Every since then she likes to pretend to spray water into her and if I am not careful she will try to stick long thin objects down her ears.

7. Foam stickers: L and G were using these cool Easter and spring foam stickers when L complained to me that one was in her nose. So, of course G puts one in her nose, also. I got G to blow her’s out almost immediately and decided to try to perform my own “surgery” on L to avoid a doctors visit. M arrived home from work as I was laying her under a light. He thought maybe she could blow it out like G did. Instead of prying around in her nose, I held one nostril shut and had her blow (while sobbing) for five minutes and it finally came out! I feel like I have achieved another level of parenting when I don’t need the doctor to get foreign objects out of my kids noses…

I suppose I am lucky that there are only seven incidents to report here, but we have only been parents for four years, so I expect many more.

Quick Takes are hosted by Grace at Camp Patton this week. Please say a prayer for Jen and her new baby boy in the NICU.

The Easter Morning Sprint

It had been a two hour Mass. A beautiful two hour Mass with a full orchestra playing a Mass by Haydn and the propers chanted by an all male choir. We took two trips down to the restroom. Once during the epistle and again during the Creed. I knew a third time for a potty training kid was probably an excuse to get out of Mass and go somewhere were she was allowed to run. I paced around in back with her for the second half of Mass, took her outside the couple of times she decided to express her displeasure at not being allowed to get down with shrieking. She almost made it away from me up the aisle twice when we “knelt” during the Eucharistic prayer. When we went up for communion she insisted on being set down and skipped while holding my hand. I had to hold her in back again afterwards, but brought her to the pew for the Last Gospel as the people coming in for the next Mass were filling the back of the church. We were only four rows from the back. I set her down in the pew and then made the mistake of moving G to the inside of the pew and leaving the free-spirited child on the aisle. We almost made it through all of Mass, the priest and servers were almost processed out of the church when she saw her window of opportunity.

The empty aisle beckoned to her. It said, “Run, run, run away!” She heard the call, slipped into the aisle and ran. I noticed that she had gotten away too late. She was about six pews in front of me, and her sprinting pace is only slightly slower than my quick (but of course reverent because we are in church pace and all the pews are full because it is Easter and everyone is seeing my child run up the aisle and I have to chase her down because there is nothing else to be done) walk. She glanced back towards her parents about half way up the church and saw me following; then I saw the smile on her face meaning “It is a game!”. What was I to do? I picked up my pace, but she sprinted on ahead, her doily veil flopping up and down and her heals kicking out behind her in her pigeon-toed run. A nun in the pews saw her and smiled; what is more joyful than a two year old savoring her freedom? She approached the front of the church. I wondered what I would do if she decided to climb past the altar rail up into the sanctuary, but am so thankful that I did not have to find out. She veered to the right. Maybe those Baptismal graces kicked in at that point. I caught up with her as she started her way down the side aisle. It was over, we were going back to our pew, and I was trying not to laugh. This child will put us through it all, I think…

Happy Easter!

Random Tuesday Post Because I Have Time to Blog

I like to write nice, neat, and tidy blog posts and I have been sitting at the computer for an hour waiting for the baby to be ready for her nap so that I can put her to bed and write something. She is almost ready and I have accomplished commenting on and checking Facebook a billion times, reading a few short emails, and finally getting L to stay in her bed and go to sleep…

Now I will entertain myself by writing a narrative:

G comes out of her quiet time a few minutes after L has fallen asleep telling me that she has to go to the bathroom. I send her in and tell her to be quiet and not wake her sister who is on the other side of the wall from the bathroom. About 10 seconds later I hear a huge crash and G start to yell/cry (not exactly quiet, huh?). I rush to the bathroom, primarily to get her silent, secondarily to find out what is wrong. She had fallen into the bathtub while climbing on the toliet. I really don’t want to know exactly how it came about and work on calming her down, praying that L is not woken up. G asks me why I came running into her when she fell, and I explain that I love her and that she is my precious child and I don’t want her to be hurting. I have been trying to emphasize to the children how they are loved lately since I realized that when I am stressed I forget to do that. She appreciates what I say and gives me a hug. We get her off the toliet and I carry her back downstairs.

After I come back up I start to write this and the baby is finally ready to go to sleep. It is great when I just be patient and wait for her nap to overtake her because then I can get her sound asleep within 10 minutes as opposed to 45 minutes. I pick her up to go to the bedroom, but pause a moment to watch the college student from the house next door attempt to drive is little blue Mini Cooper down our unplowed-8inches-deep-in-snow street. I leave him with his wheels spinning. I change the baby, rock her, and nurse her. She is out like a light. I lay her down and slip out of the room. G comes up to ask how much longer she has of quiet time. I tell her and then come back to my seat on the couch. The Mini Cooper is gone; I guess he made it. Maybe I will have 45 minutes of silence or so. It is golden I tell you.

Tonight I am making a new recipe. We are meatless again this Lent. I think I am going to combine this and this one. I hope it will be enough food though. M shoveled snow and is walking to and from school up hill both ways in snow from work today (1.5 miles each way). He is going to be hungry! I am trying to think of a way of supplementing the meal from the empty refrigerator. I am supposed to go to the store tomorrow. The snow-plow just ineffectively went barreling down our street. I really wonder why they don’t plow this city and still have school when most of the other schools cancel. I am really hoping that we get that house in West St. Paul we put an offer on yesterday. I am trying not to give up on finding a good house. The first one we offered on was not right for us after the inspection made us realize we know nothing about houses. The second offer was outbid, and this one has not been responded to for longer than a normal offer is out. At any rate, hopefully we will know soon. No response is better than a negative one right? Anyway, I will tell you all about the house we finally settle on once there is an offer, acceptance, and positive inspection…

I think I have said enough for today. Have a happy Tuesday. 🙂

This Month in Girls-February 2013

I have decided that I want to copy my friend Mary and keep a record of the kids each month. She has all boys so I stole her title and made it girls. I hope she does not mind. 🙂 (If you want to see pictures of my kids, though, you need to know me and be a Facebook friend.)

G-
I cannot believe that this girl is going to be four next month! She has beautiful brown eyes and her hair is becoming the long hair she so desires. She is advancing well in her “school”work now that I am semi on top of doing it frequently. Finally sitting mostly still at Mass and knows how to be quiet. She has told us recently that she is afraid that the school kids at daily Mass are going to take her and make her go to school with them. This makes me glad because a few months ago she was anti-home school. Her favorite activities include: pretending she is Clara from The Nutcracker, mothering one to three dolls at a time, watching me cook, cooking her own food, talking for at least an hour after bedtime with her sister, and singing and dancing. She is a mostly kind big sister, though disputes over toys are frequent. Lately she had been pulling the baby onto her lap which makes her mother nervous. She likes to discuss the books she has had “readen” to her and recognizes almost all her letters.

L-
Another pair of beautiful brown eyes with eyelashes so long I am not sure how she holds her eyes open for so long at night and at nap resisting sleep. But that is two for you, right? I think she is missing her babyhood as she asks constantly to be held or hugged that is when she is not following G around playing along. She mothers many dolls and whenever a friend comes over she pulls out her doll and proclaims, “I got it for my birfday!” She is trying to count and learn her letters since she wants to be like her sister. She has been seen lately playing with a small glow-in-the-dark plastic statue of Our Lady. Mary has many adventures to the family altar, bookshelves, and where ever L decides to play. She also has a great devotion to Baby Jesus so we pray to him to help her stay in her bed.

F-
Big brown eyes. I have always been a sucker for those big brown eyes. She is babbling a lot, rolls to her side, and grabs things above her on her play-mat (whatever it is called). She also has the baby muppet smile on her face whenever she catches anyone’s eye. She sleeps wonderfully on her back in her cosleeper all night (that is 10:30pm-6am) most nights. Sometimes she even falls asleep on her own. She is a great third baby. It must just be that the third daughter is the best at everything…

Letting the Kids Into the Shining Barrier

I recently reread A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken. I read it for the first time when M was on Crossroads and we were considering becoming engaged soon. The book is about the love story of Sheldon and his wife Jean (Davy). The started off as pagans when they met, and had a great love of beauty. When they first fell in love they decided that they wanted to preserve the springtime of their love with what they called the Shining Barrier. The Shining Barrier was preserved by the sharing, of all ideas and things, and they wanted to defend against what they called “creeping separateness.” To do this they had regular talks about the “state of their relationship” and called each other out to have total trust. They decided also that having children would destroy the Barrier and cause a creeping separateness, so they weren’t going to have children.

When M and I first read this book, we loved all the elements of it (except for the no children part). Our common studies and subjects made the sharing easy. When Sheldon and Davy converted to Christianity they had were unsure of how to incorporate God into their inloveness, but M and I never had that problem since our common faith was the base of our inloveness. We went to daily Mass together and Adoration daily for our whole 18 month engagement, and we prayed several of the hours together a day. We discussed everything that we read and read many of the same things. In my mind I always felt like we had that inloveness preserved.

Then we graduated and got married. I felt that we still had the strong bond with each other. My favorite time of day was the evenings after dinner when we would sit and read silently, read a play together, play cards, just be together. Then we had our first child. It was an adjustment, but once she was a few months old, she went to bed before us. We still had our evenings. We continued daily Mass. The same thing happened with our second child. We still had our evenings. We have been very possessive of our evenings together our whole marriage. I felt that as long as we had our evenings everything would continue happily. But children get older, don’t go to bed as early, and we had our third child. What used to be three hours of evening alone time has been reduced to about one, once the older kids fall asleep. And the kids are having trouble sleeping at night, unhappy a lot of the day, and begging us for attention. And I realized that Sheldon and Davy were right about kids ruining a Shining Barrier. We cannot continue as we had before. It is surprising to me that it has taken until the third kid to see how we have not loved them as we should have.


G running to the light.

I am not saying that I do not love my children, and I am really happy that I have three beautiful girls. I am just realizing that I lack the enthusiasm to be with my children and devote time to them that I’ve seen holy mothers that I know. I am not in the habit of giving all my time to them, and in fact I am a little afraid to let go of everything and just love them with my whole life. I know it has to happen, but it is hard to be a mom and a wife and give everything. It also is okay that it did not happen naturally for me; I know that. If it were a purely natural thing, it would be much easier. But to lose oneself for others is a supernatural thing and it requires God’s grace. So I am surrendering to graces urgings and letting go for my children and my husband so that His grace will be the Shining Barrier of our family.