Happy Mother’s Day to My Five Favorite Girls

I am a boy mom.

A very happy, totally fulfilled boy mom.

God gave me five sons, no daughters, and I can say with complete honesty that I never felt I was missing a thing.  I've blogged about this topic numerous times over the last decade-plus (it's one of my favorite subjects, I guess), but I'll just bother you with one link, to this old post (if anyone reading this one thinks it isn't long enough already and wants some bonus reading!).

I adored my boys, and I thought that having a houseful of them was a unique privilege and honor (not to mention very high on fun and very low on emotional drama!).

I was not one of those mothers who looked at her toddler-aged old boy, filled with angst, and worried, "Someday, another woman will become #1 in his heart.  He'll get married and I'll lose him."  I'm so thankful that that's not the way my brain was wired.  (And I do tend to be a worrier; so I'm very grateful that I was not plagued with those particular sorts of anxieties about the future.)  I just enjoyed my passel of boys at all of the various stages of their babyhoods and childhoods and young adulthoods (even the teen years, which don't have to be a nightmare--so don't let anyone make you believe, and even assume, that will be the case!).  I loved having them all living under our roof, but I knew they would eventually grow up and leave me. And I knew that I would no longer be the #1 woman in their lives, once they got married and their wives took that spot.

BUT!  (And this is a big but, and I cannot lie...)  #sorryaboutthat  #acomedianiamnot

Moms of boys: be not afraid of the girls who will supposedly “take your boys away from you”—it doesn’t have to be like that!  If you've raised them right, in a loving, stable household with your strong marriage as a model, chances are good that you're going to love and approve wholeheartedly of the girls they choose.

Trust that they will choose well.  Support their choices.  Think of those girls as true daughters.  And if you’re as lucky as I am, you won’t even have to try very hard to think of them that way.

I should have said up there at the beginning that I was a boy mom.  Because now I have five girls, too.  And I can no longer imagine what our family would be like without them.

Our five sons and five daughters.  (And one photo-bombing grandson.)

I was just about to share a link back to another ancient post in my archives, one written in 2013 after the birth of our oldest son's third daughter (the first two were twins, born less than two years earlier).  But if you want to skip reading the whole thing, I’ll retell the part that ties in with this post today:  

My husband and I were still living in NH at the time; we'd flown out to CO to help with the twins while our son and his wife were in the hospital with the new baby, and then we stayed on for about a week after they got home.  On the last night of our stay, our daughter-in-law Regina's mom flew in to help out for the week following our departure, so we overlapped for one night before our flight out the next morning. 

Although I have always had a wonderful relationship with Regina, and I knew how grateful she was that my husband and I had come out to help, when her mom arrived, I was struck by the strength of that beautiful mother-daughter bond between them.  How precious that relationship is, especially when a daughter has become a mother herself.  When I went to bed that night, I was plagued by the thought that in some ways,  I had become a bit irrelevant.  I was no longer the most important woman in my son's life; that woman was now his wife--which is absolutely as it should be, and I'd be concerned if that wasn't the case!  And the most important woman in my daughter-in-law's life was, of course, her own mother.  So where did that leave me?

I felt weepy as I got ready for bed that night.

Well, I think Regina must have been a mind reader or something, aware of my need for some sign--some words of affirmation, perhaps--proving that I still had an important role to play in the lives of our children.  On the way to the airport, our son drove and my husband sat up front with him, while I was in the back seat (still brooding about becoming irrelevant).  With no fanfare ("Oh yeah, Regina said to give you this"), my boy handed a little gift bag back to me.  What was this? 

Inside the tissue paper I found a small rustic wooden sign with these words painted on it: FIRST MY MOTHER-IN-LAW, NOW ALSO MY FRIEND.   Well, dear readers...if I said there weren't any tears over that unexpected gift, I would be lying.

And there have been many more happy tears shed in the ensuing years, brought on by the sweet words and gestures of not only Regina, but the four other girls who eventually joined our family.  These amazing gals have all become dear friends and so much more.  They are outstanding wives to our sons and devoted mothers to our 22 precious grandchildren.  They visit us often and generously share their children with us.  They make it very clear that it is important to them that their kids' grandparents are a big part of their lives.  They seem to really like us!  (And if not, they are great actresses!)  Truly, we are inordinately blessed in this regard.

My daughters-in-law text me often (more often than my boys do, to be honest--ha, ha!  Are you surprised?).  If a day goes by and I haven’t heard from at least one or two of them, I get a bit worried (and I miss them!)--that's how often we're in touch.  Most of the time, it’s just random chit-chat, family news, and information sharing; but sometimes, the words are profoundly moving.

Here are snippets from just a few of the texts I've gotten over the years; they warmed my heart so much that I felt the need to screenshot them for safekeeping.  (I used to keep special letters I'd received in the mail stored away in a shoe box...I think of these texts as letters, 21st-century-style!  And I'm storing them here at the blog. )

If you don't come here often: we moved to from NH to VA in 2017
in order to live close to three of our five boys.

After the birth of a new grandchild, we don't need thanks from our girls.
We want to thank THEM, for wanting us to come and meet the baby ASAP!

How blessed am I?!  These girls make me feel so loved and appreciated.  Relevant, even!  (Ha ha!)

I was just getting ready to wrap this post up when another sweet text from one of our daughters-in-law popped up on our family stream.

I didn't "lose" my boys; I gained five girls.  And just like with our sons, they're all favorites.  It's a five-way tie.

Happy Mother's Day to the best daughters-in-law a boy mom could ever ask for.  I thank God for you every day!  XO XO XO XO XO

Princesa's First Holy Communion

One of the great joys of having so many grandchildren is watching them receive their Sacraments.  So many Baptisms!  So many First Holy Communions!  What could be more wonderful?

Last Sunday, our little Princesa, the second-oldest child of our middle son, received the Body and Blood of Jesus for the very first time, and it was a beautiful day.

First of all, the blog name I picked for her surely fits, for she did indeed look like a princess in her lacy white First Communion finery.

Our sweet girl was very reverent and serious while receiving, and then after she got back to her seat, she folded her hands and bowed her head in prayer.

Then she looked up, with a joyful expression on her face--just the sort of expression one should have after receiving Our Lord for the very first time!

Princesa had both sets of her grandparents there for this very special event in her life.  My husband and I count our blessings all the time, knowing that not every grandparent is as lucky as we have been (especially since our move to VA, which makes us practically neighbors to so many of our beloved children and grandchildren!).

Along with her parents and four siblings, and the aforementioned four grandparents, our sweet First Communicant had lots of other family members there to share her big day as well: two sets of aunts and uncles, ten cousins, and one of her dad's cousins (who is also local and came with her hubby and three kids). We actually managed to get a photo of our whole group, which is nothing short of a miracle.

Afterward, we all went over to son #3's house and enjoyed a celebration for her, along with a very good friend of hers who was in her group of First Communicants that day.

I made the cake.  Her other grandmother made some of her famous decorated sugar cookies.

It couldn't have been more perfect.  God is so good!

And in less than two weeks, we'll get to do this all over again, when son #2's oldest boy makes his First Holy Communion.

It's a wonderful life.  Deo gratias!

Our Lady Speaks to Us, Part 2; and a Birthday!

Today is our middle son’s 38th birthday.   He is the most pleasant, easygoing, fun person to know: whip smart yet humble, a sports fanatic, unfailingly sweet to his parents, a devoted husband and father, and a friend to all.

On a dream trip to a football game at Notre Dame, his alma mater, with his firstborn, in 2022.

With his nephew, who shares his name.  Who wouldn't love that face?
(Either of those two faces, that is!)

Our boy's beautiful family.

But that boy of ours has never liked to have a big deal made about him, or to be the center of attention.  So I won’t go on and on about him in this post, because that would make him uncomfortable.  Instead, I’ll turn my attention to one of his precious loved ones, the youngest of his five offspring. When you read this post, you will understand just how special our son must be, and how well he is passing on the Faith to his children.

Happy Birthday, son #3!  We love you!  (Now enjoy reading about your little man.) 

Way back in 2011, shortly after I’d set up shop here at String of Pearls, I blogged about a rather humble garden statue of the Blessed Mother that we had outside our house in NH.  Our across-the-street neighbors were Catholic, but non-practicing and not very religious at all.  So imagine how surprised and touched I was when the mom told me that her 3-year-old boy had stopped in front of our house one day when they were out on a walk and said, "I have to kiss the Lady."  By that he meant that he had to kiss the statue of Mary that we had out in our front yard, not far from the sidewalk!  Here's that old short-and-sweet post, Our Lady Speaks to Us, if you're interested.  It's only been visited by 87 readers in all these years...)

We brought that statue of Mary with us when we moved to VA in 2017, but it had developed cracks and wasn't holding up too well anymore.  So we replaced it with a bigger, better one (a 36-inch faux granite beauty from Walmart).

This is my favorite time of year here in VA,  when those flowering bushes
bloom behind our statue, and this area looks like a "Mary Garden."

Recently, I was reminded of that poignant incident I’d blogged about all those years ago, when another sweet and pure-souled little boy (our 2-year-old grandson, who was visiting us on St. Patty's Day with a bunch of his cousins) was similarly inspired to give our Marian garden statue some love.

He stared at her face.  He patted her cheeks.

He held her hands.

And then he went in for a hug.

It was the sweetest thing ever.

My grandson didn't call her "the Lady," or anything else, for that matter; he still doesn't have a huge vocabulary. But he knew just who She was, I'm sure of it: his non-verbal actions told the story better than words ever could.

This wee fella is a little wild man, into absolutely everything, a real Bam Bam (although you won't understand that reference if you're not old enough to remember The Flintstones cartoon--I'm revealing my age!).  He's a climber (he has a zipped-up tent over his crib now, so he can't escape).  He likes to throw things (and can be very destructive at times).  He's all-boy, hilarious, and about as cute as they come.

But even the wild little heart of a 2-year-old mischief-maker can be tamed by Our Lady.  She speaks to us. And little ones always seem to hear Her voice the most clearly.