My Heart's at Home Daybook~October 15

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Outside My Window ...
The window is open and the morning air feels crisp.

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Towards a daily rhythm ...
Our weeks and our days have taken on a somewhat predictable pattern. I've noticed that with one exception, my children are staying closer to me than under usual circumstances. My bedroom (and my bed) is usually a bit crowded these days.

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I am thankful for ...
the generous outpouring of friends who are helping Mike and me to care for our home and family and the friends who are too far away to help daily but have found creative ways to send help and made time in their own busy lives for encouraging e-mails and phone calls.

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From the kitchen ...
 patrick has big plans to do some freezer cooking with our friend Joe, who is a chef. since Patrick aspires to be chef if professional soccer doesn't work out, this could be the start of something for him! .
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To live the liturgy...
Today we'll celebrate the feast of St. Teresa of Avila.
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I am wearing ...
one of four new nightgowns my mother sent. This one is green with buttons all the way up the front..

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I am creating ...
a Christmas list.

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Towards a real education ...
Guess what? I know the answer to the perennial question, "How would our homeschooling look if I didn't have to cook and clean and drive people all over the northern Virginia region?" I don't cook and clean and drive. We get a whole lot of narrations done. I can sit here and let them dictate their narrations to me for hours on end and I do. I read aloud a whole lot, too. Without the daily driving and  dishes and dirt-sweeping routines, I am also able to adapt more of a delight-driven curriculum. I have the time to diverge from our Revolutionary War studies for the one child who has a burning interest in Pearl Harbor and desperately wants to stop and take a week for me to read two great books to him. In the afternoons, when everyone but Karoline, Katie and Christian have left for activities, Christian and I can read poilitical blogs and research to our hearts' content. This is my favorite way to homeschool and I do hope that I can keep some balance that includes plenty of it when many more domestic duties are demanded of me.
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Bringing beauty to my home ...
Ever notice how beautiful a house becomes when Mama smiles? I have and I'm endeavoring to make my house so beautiful much, much more often.

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I am reading  ...
Imitation of Christ. I think one of the marks of a great spiritual classic is that it holds a different meaning at different stages of one's life.

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I am hoping ...
for a healthy, happy, holy labor, delivery and recovery. Or at least a simple c-section:-).

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Around the house ...
It was Mrs. Kelly Weekend last weekend. My friend Lynn Kelly swept into my bedroom on Saturday and spruced it up. She focused on the windows across from my bed and added darling red and white checked valances. Then, she switched the bed to the fall/winter quilt and put flannel sheets on for the first time this year.It's so cheerful--she's got a great touch! And Cindy Kelly came up from Florida. She brought a decaf latte and lots of energy. Our schoolroom was suffering from "basket syndrome." The room didn't look terribly horrible (well, maybe it did) but it was terribly disorganized. All the books were in the wrong baskets and all the discarded paper was in no basket at all. Since Cindy is following the same curriculum we are, she knew exactly what went where and she restored peace and order. At least for awhile...

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One of my favorite things ...
whipped cream. Pumpkin pie with whipped cream, apple crisp with whipped cream, fresh strawberries with whipped cream, chai lattes with whipped cream....

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A Few Plans For The Rest Of The Week:
I think I'll just hang out in bed all week.

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Here is a picture thought I am sharing~
 
   
This is the nook Mike and I created at my bedside. He has all the wires for computer, phone, cellphone, and such under the table. The actual computer is under the bed so that if something spills all is not lost.

We can do this

We can do this

Once upon a time, about 16 years ago, when I first contemplated writing a regular column, I worried that I’d run out of things about which to write. A seasoned columnist told me that once a person starts writing, she looks at everything in life as a potential column and as long as I kept living, I’d keep looking for and finding fodder for columns.

Ordinarily, my life is full and busy and active. I am out and about in the world and there’s plenty to observe. A couple of weeks ago, though, my world became very still and my environment grew much, much smaller. After a stay in the hospital, I came home to total bedrest for the rest of my pregnancy. God willing, my “world” for the next eight weeks will be my bedroom.

Today, I recline in front of the computer my husband has rigged at my bedside and ponder the possibilities for writing. I am not in the slightest bit interested in sharing obstetrical details. I can’t write about politics because it’s against editorial policy to endorse a candidate and I cannot keep my opinions to myself (thank goodness for my blog). How to reflect upon my world in print? My “world” right now is my family in a more profound way than ever before. Read the rest here.

My Heart's at Home Daybook~October 6

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Outside My Window ...It's dark as I write this morning. I can hear the cars heading towards Starbucks work. It promises to be another beautiful Virginia autumn day.

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Towards a daily rhythm ...
Everyone is adjusting to the new normal. Karoline is sleeping much better and the weather is truly a blessing. They are spending hours and hours outside and hitting the hay hard at the end of the day.

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I am thankful for ...the generous outpouring of friends who are helping Mike and me to care for our home and family and the friends who are too far away to help daily but have found creative ways to send help and made time in their own busy lives for encouraging e-mails and phone calls.

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From the kitchen ...
 Its apples, apples, apples. Nicholas' godmother took everyone apple picking on Friday so we have lots of apples for eating and baking.
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To live the liturgy...
Tomorrow is the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary
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I am wearing ... one of four new nightgowns my mother sent. This one is peach with a crocheted lace inset.

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I am creating ...a new booklist for the revised version of Real Learning.

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Towards a real education ...This week's only interruption during the school day is a doctor's appointment early this morning. Katie is looking forward to doing a Cajun infused mini-unit this week, compliments of Cay. Everyone else will plug along at previously planned lessons. Patrick's curriculum will undergo a major overhaul. MODG is just not working for him.
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Bringing beauty to my home ...Mary Beth will work on the October mantle today.

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I am reading  ... The Love Dare. I figured that if I couldn't go see the movie I might as well check out this book.

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I am hoping ... for a peaceful productive week.

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Around the house ...  I'm fairly certain the house is trashed. I will go downstairs this morning on my way to the doctor. I will breathe deeply and remember that this is all temporary.
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One of my favorite things ... Goodnight phone calls when Mike's away. They're sort of bittersweet, but I'll take 'em.

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A Few Plans For The Rest Of The Week: Monday Night football tonight. Drew Brees will do very well because he's my fantasy football quarterback and so far this season, I'm looking like a genius of a general manager. Linda is going to take the little guys to Cox Farms. We're looking forward to seeing the Ashwells and then Friday everyone has a little arts and crafts action in the plans. The weekend holds soccer tournaments in Pennsylvania and Virginia Beach. Mike will head north with Patrick and my dad will head south with Stephen.  I'll be right here:-)

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Here is a picture thought I am sharing~
 
   
Linda took this picture of Katie at the orchard. Linda is a great photographer and she has a great camera. Just as soon as I figure out how to properly download (instead of copying the image from my email), I'll replace this with the sharper image and upload some more to Blossoms and Bees.

He is Knitting; It's His Creation

I'm a big advocate of low-tech pregnancies and low-tech births. With my first baby, we had one quick sonogram during the first trimester to rule out twins and then we never saw him again until he was born. We didn't even know he was he. With my third baby, we had a sonogram at sixteen weeks (again to rule out twins) and they saw signs of Trisomy 18. They told us we may never take him home from the hospital. They took another look at 24 weeks and all was well. That was probably the longest pregnancy of my life until now. And that was also when I began to look with skepticism at the world of perinatology. It's amazing how negative perinatologists are.

The baby I am carrying is easily my most scanned baby ever. She has been followed so carefully through ultraound that I really do know what she looks like. I've seen her gymnastic antics in action. I know she loves to touch her toes to her forehead.  My growing series of sonogram pictures brings to mind the verse from Psalm 139~ For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. Isn't that an amazing image? God didn't just snap His fingers and create us. Instead, He carefully knits us; we are an artistic process at His hands. Week by week, I watch her grow. Week by week I marvel at His artistry.

With every sonogram, after the baby has been properly praised (we have had four separate sonogram techs in four different places comment on how extraordinarily beautiful this baby is to scan--it's weird really), the talk turns to placenta and cervix. And every time, they affirm that the placenta is not in a good place. Then there is talk of very high tech delivery, banking 6 units of blood, hysterectomy, and whatever else the perinatology gloom and doom guys can think to throw in there. To their credit, they always add: or it could just move up, away from the old scar and you could have a VBAC at term.

I am left to wonder, until the next sonogram, what has become of my prayers. Ever since the beginning of the St. Andrew Christmas Prayer last year, I have prayed every novena for the intention of a happy, healthy, holy beautiful pregnancy, labor, delivery, and recovery. All through the liturgical year, calling upon each saint as they are celebrated with the universal Church, I've asked the same thing. And I've maintained a perpetual novena to St. Therese and to Our Lady of Guadalupe. I had it all planned out: I'm due on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception but I always go  late (famous last words), so I figured God's poetic timing would have this baby born on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I thought that would be just perfect, really. I even thought that it might be my easiest labor yet. All those prayers, you know.

The high tech scenario just does not sound beautiful to me, no matter how I turn it in my head. Of course, delivering a healthy baby, no matter how one does it, is a very beautiful thing. But a bloody mess in the operating room does not sound like a thing of beauty to me. When I was in the hospital, every nurse who took care of told me about a remarkable woman who had been there for six weeks on total bedrest for the same condition. She had nine homeschooled children and somehow she and her family endured six weeks of hospital bedrest and went home with a healthy mom and baby. She had a messy delivery. But she survived it well and baby was perfect.

She left a legacy in that hospital. In an astounding turn of events, her daughter-in-law had the same midwife. The younger woman wanted the older one with her during labor. So, the midwives brought her down to the Birthing Inn, still on bedrest, and she was a labor coach.  It is truly  testimony to this woman's faith and extraordinary grace that all the nurses who knew her have commented on  how much they learned from her. They came away with a living example of faith. From what I understand, they also came away with armloads of books and lots and lots of conversation. It sounds like a beautiful pregnancy to me, despite the bedpans and bad hospital food.I want to be that kind of witness to this life of faith. Still, I wrestle with my fears and my aversion to bloody messes.

Around the time of the 28 week sonogram-the one that indicated that this placenta thing was stubborn--three separate friends told me that they were taking my intentions to St. Anne. Two of them live at opposite ends of the United States and one lives on the other side of the world. This seemed to me to be more than a coincidence. So, I began a novena to St. Anne. I was five days into that novena when I was admitted to the hospital. It was a scary day. When I was all settled late that evening, before the second scary episode began, I took up the novena to pray the day's intention. It was an act of sheer  will. Certainly my heart wasn't in it.

One thing I love about praying novenas is how, unfailingly, they change me during those nine days. It's truly a remarkable phenomenon. I never know at the outset where it's all going. But now, I know, it's going somewhere. The fifth day of the St. Anne novena I was praying read:

Great Saint Anne, how far I am from resembling you. I so easily give way to impatience and discouragement; and so easily give up praying when God does not at once answer my request. Prayer is the key to all Heavenly treasures and I cannot pray, because my weak faith and lack of confidence cause me to fail  at the slightest delay of divine mercy. O my powerful protectress, come to my aid, listen to my petition. (request) Make my confidence and fervor, supported by the promise of Jesus Christ, redouble in proportion as the trial to which God in His goodness subjects me is prolonged, that I may obtain, like you, more than I can venture to ask for. In the future, I will remember that I am made for Heaven and not for earth; for eternity and not for time; that consequently I must ask, above all, the salvation of my soul which is assured to all who pray properly and who persevere in prayer. Amen.

This week, the sonogram showed us the hair on the top of Baby's head. I could see little tiny wisps of downy newborn hair! They were knit there by the Father whose Word reminds me  Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and not one of them shall fall on the ground without your Father:  but the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore; ye are of more value than many sparrows. Matthew 10:29-31
God has this all well in hand. He has not overlooked a single detail. I know. I saw those hairs and I am assured that each one of them is intentional and numbered.

I have asked myself on countless occasions what God's plan is in all of this. I've asked myself why this scenario seems to be diverging from the one for which I prayed. And, I've been granted plenty of time and space to pray for the answers. I want that beautiful, healthy birth. I want my will to be united to His even more. And I am assured that if I persevere in prayer, with faith, I will receive more than I can venture to request.I lay here, still while He knits, and push away fear in order to make room for  hope and to look with anticipation to what the Knitter has planned for us.

My Heart's at Home Daybook~The New Normal

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Outside My Window ...I can hear children at the bus stop and traffic bustling by, but all I can see are the rooftops of the houses across the street and the very tops of a redbud tree.

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Towards a daily rhythm ... My goodness!We're working out the kinks. Elusive rhythm has been the challenge of the past few days since returning home from the hospital. Thanks to the generosity of my friends, I think we have a schedule of help in place. I've long been a proponent of going TO children in order to get them to obey or to listen. I'm not a call them to me type at all. That's changing due to our circumstances and I  definitely think the go-to-them method is far better. I like to be alongside them and I think it makes all the difference in both relationships and outcome. Going to them also allows for inspection of anything I expected them to do. My children are just ordinary sinners--inspection is crucial. They are also in crisis. Poor Nicholas doesn't want to go apple picking because he doesn't want to come home with all those apples and "not work with Mom in the kitchen to make all the stuff. It won't be fun without Mom." Karoline's entire world revolved around my holding and carrying and nursing her. Now, Karoline and Mary Beth share a world and it's a strange, new one for both of them.  As I said, we're working out the kinks.

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I am thankful for ...the generous outpouring of friends who are helping Mike and me to care for our home and family and the friends who are too far away to help daily but have found creative ways to send help and made time in their own busy lives for encouraging e-mails and phone calls.

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From the kitchen ...
 I haven't seen much of the kitchen these days...but the kitchen is dedicated to birthday and feast day goodies this week.
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To live the liturgy...
Our week of super celebrating .
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I am wearing ... a Laura Ashley nightshirt my Mom gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago, a medal necklace I made with the Miraculous medal, St. Therese, a scapular medal, and St. Gerard.. 

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I am creating ...a St. Anne chaplet, rosaries for my girls, and a new rosary for me. Have the beads, but still waiting for a few parts. I'm also making chaplets for the everyone in the family for the St. Andrew Christmas prayer.

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I am going to breathe deeply ...This is the exercise note. Hmmm. Christian is going to bring three pound weights up from the basement so that maybe I can work my upper body a bit. I'm drawing alphabet letters in the air with my feet, mostly to entertain my toddler and keep from getting blood clots. I lost five pounds in the hospital. I 'm fairly certain that's all the muscle I had managed to build between this pregnancy and the last. Perhaps the spring will see blog entries dedicated to returning one's body from absolute jello-ness.
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Bringing beauty to my home ...Today's project is my bedroom. In all my earnestness to have the house in order should I be on bed rest, I never gave a moment's thought to the fact that I'd be stuck happily ensconced here for hours on end. I ordered some candles from Trish and some new sheets. Megan and I will brainstorm some other ideas.

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I am reading  ... these meditations every day. And this stack.

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I am hoping ... to get through the next few weeks without sinning against faith, hope, or love.

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Around the house ...  I am assured that everything is neat and tidy and in order. I'm highly skeptical.
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One of my favorite things ...My sweet baby rolling and kicking in my belly. There is nothing in the world more comforting.

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A Few Plans For The Rest Of The Week:  The perinatologist. Then, the Ashwells are coming to co-op on Thursday and Nicholas' godmother is going to take everyone apple picking on Friday.

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Here is a picture thought I am sharing~
 
   

 

It was crucial to figure out a way to eat dinner as a family. I have a couple of children, in particular, for whom the deviation from family routines has been very, very difficult. So, we threw a blanket on my bedroom floor and carefully set the places in the same order as they would be on the table. We gave it its first try on Sunday night when Michael was home to celebrate his birthday. This is my view from the bed. Michael took the picture.

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