7 quick takes – library books

Tags

7 quick takes, mommy memoir, parenting, picture books, Prayer

::1::

The city where we’re living right now is trying to bribe us – well, me – to stay here f.o.r.e.v.e.r. Boy, do they have me pegged. When I swung into the library last Saturday for a quick book drop-off and oh, okay, I’ll check out some more even though we are the Very Last People in the library and the librarians are all counting the minutes until Part II of their cruelly divided weekend can begin, one of the librarians came up to me and said, “By the way, they’ve just raised the borrowing limit from 25 books . . . to 100 books.” She watched the stunned look on my face and added, “I’ve been telling everyone who I know keeps their card close to the limit just to see the reactions.” (Make that two cards – M(4yo) has one in her name, too . . . let’s just say that she’s not the one watching the occasional PG-13 movie that shows up on it.)

::2::

The only thing more ridiculous than carrying on a conversation via IM or texting with someone in the same room when there’s no need for silence or privacy is Skyping with someone in the same room anytime. As my husband and I just did.

::3::

One of the parts of growing up is realizing that the cool superhero-inspired inside-joke Skype handle that you gave yourself back in your carefree pre-kids days might not be the best option for professional conversations. Fortunately, Skype seems to be aware of this phenomenon and you don’t even have to come up with a new e-mail address to add a new handle for business purposes. Nice. After you set the new one up, though, you will want to make sure that it comes up correctly when someone else tries to find you, so it’s handy if your wife – er, someone – is there to do a search with her account for your new Skype name. And then, of course, you have to Skype with each other. To the great delight of the 18mo, who was on his Daddy’s lap, and the 4yo, who was giggling her head off with Mommy. All in the same room. But we did have our backs to each other because our desks are in opposite corners, even if we could hear each other at least as well not over our computer speakers.

::4::

My library book pick of the week – French Twist: An American Mom’s Experiment in Parisian Parenting by Catherine Crawford. I’m enjoying the recent “French parenting” trend (see Bringing Up Bébé by Pamela Druckerman; her spin-off, Bébé Day by Day: 100 Keys to French Parenting; and French Kids Eat Everything by Karen Le Billon). I’m enjoying the trend chiefly because it basically confirms the way a) my husband and I were raised and b) we’re raising our kids. (Except for the minor detail of the amazing French food . . .) Daddy and Mommy are in charge; boundaries (which means being comfortable saying – and meaning – “no”) help kids feel safe and taken care of and maintains household sanity; snacks are an exception; dinner is made at home and eaten together, the same basic meal for everyone; adults are not just tall playmates, nor are responsible for having something fun (or organized) scheduled for every moment of the day – independent free play is a Very Good Thing.

So, for me, the books are a combination of “You were doing what before?”; the cozy adult recognition that my parents were right all along; and the relief that I no longer have to feel guilty for not having my children’s day divided into Enriching Activities or for not carrying snacks in my purse (which aren’t missed, for the record). 

::5::

Let me clarify that there are still plenty of ways in which I am not a “French parent” (or even an American “French parent”). It would be easy to get the impression from the French parenting books that their approach and, say, the attachment-parenting approach are mutually exclusive. (And, frankly, the extremes of each are mutually exclusive.) But so far things seem to be going well with our Brooklyn-meets-Paris, extended-breastfeeding, parents are parents and kids are kids approach.

::6::

My children’s library book pick of the week is Queenie Farmer Had Fifteen Daughters by Ann Campbell, in honor of Mother’s Day – and in honor of my mother. Now, my father is still happily married to (and living with) my mother – he did not disappear a la Mr. Farmer in a futile search for missing cows. But the baking, crafting, creative love for her fifteen daughters (and fifty assorted grandchildren) that Queenie Farmer displays reminded me immediately of my own Mom and her baking, crafting, creative love for her three daughters (and assorted grandchildren). Gorgeous dresses (Christmas, Easter, prom, bridesmaid’s . . .); baptismal gowns; our special birthday desserts (my daughter is already plotting baking time with Grandma for my birthday this summer); and the many favorite photos of my children that were taken by their photographer Grandma. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of my Mom’s creative talents. Thank you, Mom! Happy Mother’s Day!

::7::

Finally, this is Day 1 of the Pentecost Novena, or the nine days of prayer between the Ascension and Pentecost. The Pentecost Novena was the original novena; the idea of a novena has since become to pray a prayer or set of prayers daily on the nine days leading up to a feast. There aren’t particular prayers set by the Catholic Church for the Pentecost novena. There are short options (the “Come, Holy Spirit” prayer, for instance) and Very Long options (the Novena of the Seven Gifts, for instance). I happen to like this Pentecost Novena, which is somewhere in-between.

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen over at Conversion Diary!

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7 quick takes – holy water and easy readers edition

Tags

7 quick takes, catholic church, education, Prayer, Rome

::1::

The Resident Theologian and I spent our first (school-) year  of married life in a cottage-y little townhouse in the beach town of Santa Marinella (featured in pics 1, 2, and 5 of this post of Mama needs coffee. [Thanks, Jenny, for the trip down memory lane!]) Santa Marinella attracts a lot of student family ex-pats because, as a beach town, it has a lot of rental properties available during the school year that are either used by their Italian owners or rented out for three times the school-year rent during the blazing Italian summers. We loved our drafty little nest, our landlords were wonderful, and though I’d had to leave all of our wedding presents in storage (read: my long-suffering parents’ basement) in the States, I feathered our nest through the year with comfort-making things like an IKEA tension-rod-mounted shower curtain, a pot lid (lots of pots, no lids when we moved in), bigger drinking glasses, and even a stick blender that a friend of ours gave us because she never used it (hello, spinach hummus!). And at some point that year, we had our first little home blessed by Fr. Luke Buckles, OP (so wonderful to run into him in this post over at Catholic All Year – if only I could run into him in person again now!).

::2::

At the end of those two semesters, we’d figured out that we’d be back in the fall for one more semester, so we packed up books and a few personal things that we didn’t want to cart back to the States for just the summer and we stashed them (with our landlords’ blessing) in a crawl space in our rental. We knew our landlords were renting the place to vacationers over the summer, and we were rather familiar with the habits of summer renters (our landlords’ sheets and an antique linen bedspread had walked off the summer before we first moved in). We were expecting some . . . attrition . . . and had an IKEA run planned for soon after our return to fill in any gaps.

::3::

But the night we re-entered our home after a summer away . . . Well, the box of stuff we’d left was intact, still sitting in the crawl space. But our sheets, blankets, shower curtain and tension rod, stick blender, pot lid, drinking glasses, and even our collection of spices – along with other things – had been taken during the summer. I was six months pregnant with our daughter, expecting to give birth before we returned to the States, and I felt like a mother bird whose nest had been torn open and plundered. Our home had been a place of peace and comfort when we’d left. Not now. I wasn’t prepared for the feelings of insecurity and violation. Or the darkness of the anger and frustration. But from somewhere in the middle of the black cloud that I was wrestling with as I tried to fall asleep that night, I remembered the bottle of holy water that had been in our crawl space box of stuff. I went downstairs, dug it out, blessed myself, and then sprinkled it around our house, in every room. And the evil left, and peace returned, and I slept. That’s not to say that the hurt and the anger completely disappeared then – they didn’t, and took some time to heal (finding the 1-euro yellow spray bottle that I’d gotten in Florence and discovered hadn’t been taken helped) – but the sticky ugliness of that black cloud, and the feelings of exposure and violation and peace-less-ness left that night with the holy water.

::4::

And this was what I remembered last Saturday, when the kids and I were in foul moods all day. Pretty much our worst ever collective day – but one that we, as a family, had been building up to for a few days. (The Resident Theologian was out at an event on this particular evening, due back sometime after the kids were in bed.) Right before getting dinner together, I really wasn’t sure how I was going to make it until the kids were in bed. So Many Tears. So Much Drama. And a black storm cloud over my head, too. SO Frustrated – and then in the middle of my mental storm, remembered our bottle of holy water. Got it out, silently blessed each of the kids & myself with it, dashed a bunch around the house… Placebo effect? Not so fast – I didn’t say anything about what I was doing to either of the kids, who’ve never seen me do this before – but their moods changed (even in different rooms). And mine definitely did. (And the Resident Theologian made sure to bless himself with some as soon as I told him about it, which was pretty much as soon as he walked in the door that evening.) Neither of us has any idea what was going on except for lots of evil flying around the country that week (Boston bombing, Gosnell trial, etc.), but the tears and drama left our family that evening after a good dousing with holy water. Thank You, Jesus. Love, me.

::5::

Now for an entirely different topic. Easy readers. I naively thought that a Level 1 easy reader would be a book containing only words that may be easily sounded out by one who knows the most basic consonant and vowel sounds. Ideally, two and three-letter words with no blends or diphthongs, focusing on the short vowel sounds. Hat, bed, pig, jog, fun. English has lots of these words. I was wrong. So dreadfully, dreadfully wrong. Easy readers (with the sole exception of the mind-numbing BOB books) are just books with short sentences and relatively short “familiar words.” No matter if there’s not a chance that the new reader could sound out any of these words by herself. She’ll get them by osmosis…er…worksheets…er…by hearing endless repetitions of “sound it out” from her parent or teacher. When. She. Can’t. Because sounding them out requires knowing too many rules all at once.

::6::

So, like the Little Red Hen, I am going to do it myself. I already fired off one story (with a plot! and dialogue!) containing only two and three letter words, no blends or diphthongs (except limited use of the word “the”) before lunch one day a couple weeks ago.

::7::

Pictures are a bit more of a hurdle. But we will figure something out.

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen over at Conversion Diary. (She’s back!)

Tablet Reading – links for April 24

Tags

book list, Downton Abbey, food, Prayer

photo of the week by Florin Garoi

Some links on food, some good food blogs, a post on prayer, some book list links, and a Downton Abbey (parody) fix. Bon appétit!

:: Want to Forage in Your City? There’s a Map for That (NPR via Nourished Kitchen)

Avid foragers Caleb Philips and Ethan Welty launched an interactive map last month that identifies more than a half-million locations across the globe where fruits and veggies are free for the taking. The project, dubbed “Falling Fruit,” pinpoints all sorts of tasty trees in public parks, lining city streets and even hanging over fences from the U.K. to New Zealand.

The map looks like a typical Google map. Foraging locations are pinned with dots. Zoom in and click on one, and up pops a box with a description of what tree or bush you can find there. The description often includes information on the best season to pluck the produce, the quality and yield of the plant, a link to the species profile on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s website, and any additional advice on accessing the spot.

:: Are Happy Gut Bacteria Key to Weight Loss?  (Mother Jones)

The very qualities that improve palatability and lengthen shelf life—high sugar content, fats that resist turning rancid, and a lack of organic complexity—make refined foods toxic to your key microbes. Biologically simple, processed foods may cultivate a toxic microbial community, not unlike the algal blooms that result in oceanic “dead zones.”

In fact, scientists really do observe a dead zone of sorts when they peer into the obese microbiota. Microbes naturally form communities. In obese people, not only are anti-inflammatory microbes relatively scarce, diversity in general is depleted, and community structure degraded. Microbes that, in ecological parlance, we might call weedy species—the rats and cockroaches of your inner world—scurry around unimpeded. What’s the lesson? Junk food may produce a kind of microbial anarchy. Opportunists flourish as the greater structure collapses. Cooperative members get pushed aside. And you, who both contain and depend on the entire ecosystem, pay the price.

:: The 2013 Best Food Blog Awards (Saveur via Simple Mom)

In Saveur’s ongoing mission to chronicle a world of authentic cuisine, we find what we’re looking for more and more in one place: online. Of the tens of thousands of nominations that came in this year—blogs great and small, visual and textual, humorous and profound, technical and amateur, exuberant and austere—we found not just great writing, great photography, and a great commitment to the importance of food to storytelling and community-building, but also some blogs that truly spoke to us. We’re thrilled to shine a light on the sixty-eight unique blogs that are finalists in the fourth annual Saveur Best Food Blog Awards—and even more delighted to announce the winners in each category. Congratulations to all!

:: The Time I Almost Stopped Praying… And Then God Showed Off (FOCUS.org via New Advent)

I took those thoughts home with me and spent the next several months grappling with them. I began to get specific and did my best to be bold in my asking, “I want another child Lord! Bless us again!” And the more I prayed the more I began to have peace, but not peace that made me feel confident that my prayers would be answered, rather peace with “any answer.” My heart’s desires began to change and so did my request. I no longer just wanted another child, I wanted God’s Will for the growth of our family. My heart began to conform with the heart of my Father, I started to want only what He wanted, all because I started to really tell Him deep down what I wanted. I had found the grace to be open to His grace and was ready to accept His plan for our family, whatever it might be.

:: Some updates, and five amazing books to make you feel better about your crazy life (Conversion Diary)

As I bounce along this rocky road of health recovery and adjusting to having 50 or six or however many kids there are in this house now, I continue to find books to be a huge stress reliever. In particular, I love true stories of people who have gone on wild adventures and lived to tell about it. Maybe it’s because I am the least outdoorsy person in the world, but any time I read of people staying strong while being tested to their physical limits, it always fills me with amazement at the indomitability of the human spirit…and makes me really, really, really glad to be sitting in my house, no matter what kind of craziness happens to be playing out in my own life at the time. For those of you who could use a little escapism right now, here are a few books I recommend for this purpose.

:: Twitterature – April 2013 Edition  (Modern Mrs Darcy)

This is the place to find short, casual reviews of what people have been reading lately.

:: Watch Downton Abbey Resurrect Matthew in Musical Parody Performed by Broadway Stars (Vanity Fair)

The long wait until Downton Abbey’s fourth season seems less bleak today thanks to a musical parody that has found its way to the Internet. Directed and co-written by John Walton West and featuring music and lyrics by Jason Michael Snow, the production, filmed at Studio 54 in New York, depicts the cast and creator of the costume drama as they develop a musical episode à la Greys Anatomy or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The result features one thrilling tea-centric duet between Carson and Mrs. Hughes, a gloomy mourning number by Mary, and a hen-fest parlor-room sequence featuring the Dowager Countess and Martha Levinson.

Tablet Reading – April 10

Tags

book list, food, Prayer, relationships

photo of the week by Anita Berghoef

Three links about relationships – with friends and family, God, and your significant other (-to-be). A book list. And another good reason to do your own cooking.

:: How Not to Say the Wrong Thing (Los Angeles Times)

Susan has since developed a simple technique to help people avoid this mistake. It works for all kinds of crises: medical, legal, financial, romantic, even existential. She calls it the Ring Theory.

Draw a circle. This is the center ring. In it, put the name of the person at the center of the current trauma. For Katie’s aneurysm, that’s Katie. Now draw a larger circle around the first one. In that ring put the name of the person next closest to the trauma. In the case of Katie’s aneurysm, that was Katie’s husband, Pat. Repeat the process as many times as you need to. In each larger ring put the next closest people. Parents and children before more distant relatives. Intimate friends in smaller rings, less intimate friends in larger ones. When you are done you have a Kvetching Order. One of Susan’s patients found it useful to tape it to her refrigerator.

Here are the rules. The person in the center ring can say anything she wants to anyone, anywhere. She can kvetch and complain and whine and moan and curse the heavens and say, “Life is unfair” and “Why me?” That’s the one payoff for being in the center ring.

Everyone else can say those things too, but only to people in larger rings.

:: I Didn’t Do Anything (Simcha Fisher)

I hadn’t been doing anything, and this is where it landed me.  Sick, hurt, angry, half paralyzed, and looking around for someone else to blame.

Most Catholics will agree that praying does all sorts of wonderful things for us.  But have you ever thought about what happens to us when we don’t pray?  We don’t just maintain some sort of neutral spiritual state until we begin praying again, believe me.  A little neglect leads to a little degeneration, and the next thing you know, you’re a whimpering heap on the table, wishing and hoping for the knife to come and put you out of your misery.  Even though you didn’t do anything.

:: Is Pornography Cheating? (JackieandBobby.com)

Yes.

Oh, sorry…I guess I need to write more. Well, I guess I can explain it a little better.

Girls can usually see this issue for what it is. We guys, on the other hand, rationalize, make excuses, or are just simply too addicted to our lust to admit what is staring at us from the computer screen.

Pornography is cheating on your family, cheating on your spouse, and ultimately cheating on yourself.

I really believe that pornography is the “silent killer” of our generation, stripping men (and a growing population of women) of their vitality and potency to become the men they’re called to be.

:: 7 Books I Read Over and Over Again (Modern Mrs Darcy)

I’ll re-read a book for one of two reasons: because I love it, or because I need it. This list features a healthy mix of both.

:: The Sugar Hiding in Everyday Foods (via Mark Bittman)

We’ve written about the dangers of sugar many times, and we know that sodas are chock full of it. But what about everyday foods? Today we bring you an excellent video by Buzzfeed revealing the astonishing amount of sugar in foods we don’t associate with being necessarily sugary. What do you think has more sugar: baked beans or Monster Energy Drink? You’d be surprised.

Tablet Reading – links for Ash Wednesday

Tags

Ash Wednesday, Fasting, Lent, Penance, Pope Benedict XVI, Prayer

photo of the week by Karen

This Lent was the first time that I noticed that Lent begins with ashes and ends with a flame.*

::Benedict XVI’s Homily at Ash Wednesday Mass (Zenit.org)

“‘Thus says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning’ (2:12). Please note the phrase ‘with all my heart,’ which means from the center of our thoughts and feelings, from the roots of our decisions, choices and actions, with a gesture of total and radical freedom. But is this return to God possible? Yes, because there is a force that does not reside in our hearts, but that emanates from the heart of God. It is the power of his mercy.”

::Lenten Intentions for Our New Pope (Roman Catholic Spiritual Direction)

“In God’s economy, prayer matters. Not because the act of prayer, in and of itself, is efficacious. Not because we are powerful in and of ourselves. But because God has chosen to meet the needs of his people through the prayers of his people. The greatest and most powerful gift we can ever give to others is to beseech the God of Heaven on their behalf. . . . The great gift of prayer is one that we now must bring together to the throne of Grace for the well-being of his Church, our Church, and for the world in its great need. We have the opportunity to be the instruments of God in cooperation with him to affect the greatest possible good for his Church — the selection of our next pope.”

::Wisdom from a mother who’s been through a few Lents – Lenten Preparations (Like Mother, Like Daughter; 2011)

“When the kids were little, we often agreed during Lent to work on getting things cleaned up cheerfully for when Papa came home. That was one big Lenten sacrifice. Do you know how much easier it is to do a chore when it’s for someone you love whom you’re excited to see? Do you know how much children love to see their mother wanting to do something for their father? That is what Lent is for: to work on virtue, especially the virtue of love.”

::From the same source, A Lenten Reading Suggestion for this year (Like Mother, Like Daughter)

“‘Where I can do the most good? As a married woman?’ The Church has an answer for that. At the very least, even if you aren’t Catholic, you could find out what the Church, as an institution that helpfully publishes all her official teachings so that there can be no confusion about what she really thinks, has to say about marriage. You might be interested.”

::For those who still don’t know what to Do For Lent – Lenten Rookie Mistakes and For God, or For Your Bod? Some thoughts about Fasting and Dieting (Simcha Fisher)

“Lent can be a wonderful source of grace. But as such, it can be a real mine field of screw-ups, especially for rookies. Here are some typical rookie mistakes during Lent.”

[*Yes, technically Lent ends at the beginning of the Triduum, not at the Easter Vigil, but let’s not split hairs. You knew I meant Lent+Holy Thursday+Good Friday+Holy Saturday.]