A Mother's Heart

I found this not-quite-ready post in my archives, and I decided to finish and publish it today.  Because I'm on a roll here!  I go silent for three months...and then, boom! Back-to-back posts.  You never know what you're going to get at this blog!

I have mentioned this before here at the blog, but I just love the writings of Elizabeth Foss.  She is a homeschooling mother of nine, a grandmother, a blogger, an author, and a well-known Catholic "influencer."  Just like I did, she married her high school boyfriend, so I feel a special kinship with her. She's about ten years younger than I and still has a couple of high-school aged daughters.  But otherwise, she's very much in the same phase of life that I am: her children are grown and gone (or in her case, all but the youngest two are); and therefore, like all of us women with grown children, her heart is repeatedly being torn, scarring over, and then tearing again.  Not to put too dramatic a spin on it...but it does happen. Luckily, the heart it a tough organ.  Especially when it’s a mother's heart.

Elizabeth Foss lived in VA for many years, until a relatively recent move to CT.  She still has a column in our diocesan newspaper here in VA, The Catholic Herald.  Hers is the one article that I never fail to read when we get this paper in the mail.  Foss’s piece from the June 13-16 edition was titled "Note to a grad's mom,"* and boy-oh-boy, could I relate.   It's been a while since our last Pearl family graduation (our youngest son was University of Notre Dame, Class of 2015), but the memories of those bittersweet endings are still fresh.

Yes, graduations are not just endings but also beginnings (it's an overused cliche because it's true).  And there is so much to be joyful about, watching your children spread their wings and fly.  But they fly away from you, you see.  And a mother's heart takes a beating when that happens.  It still beats, sure; but oh, it aches.  The pain can be excruciating at times.

That Catholic Herald column of Foss’s that I mentioned above was inspired by witnessing a mom crying on her husband's shoulder after their child's high school graduation ceremony and party.  Foss writes, "The words of encouragement out there for moms of graduates all focus on a job well done and they pivot to look to the opportunities to pursue their own dreams in an empty-nest future.  And of course, those should be addressed.  Raising a child is no small thing. You deserve a hearty pat on the back.  But most moms don't feel like doing a jig.  Instead, they feel like they ran out of time.  There is a nagging feeling that we have so much more we want to give to the grown child."  

Yes, yes, YES!  This is spot-on--which is par for the course when it comes to Elizabeth Foss's eloquently expressed insights on motherhood.  

She continues, "I think that mothering people in their 20s is the most challenging mothering of all...Those are the things no one says.  It's not all over.  Buckle up.  Here comes the wild ride for which everything leading up to this moment has just been preparation."  I would only amend that last quoted section to read "people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s," because I don't even have any children in their 20s anymore.  (What?!  When, and how, did that happen?!)

Foss addresses this topic again in a June 13 post on her blog, In the Heart of My Home. She writes:

As I watch younger moms juggle babies and toddlers and big kids and try to be all the things for all of them, I want to assure them that it gets easier.  But I can't.  

I don't.

Because I don't think it does get easier.  It gets different.  In a lot of ways, it gets more challenging.  It's as if all the challenges of the younger years are designed to get you fit for the ones to come.

I was talking to an older mom yesterday about the choice we make to be peaceful with the way things turned out or to be bitter.  For some people, it is easy to be at peace.  For others, the choice can be the crucible where holiness is forged.

"The crucible where holiness is forged."  Wow.  That is some powerful writing, my friends.  And something to ponder…even for an extraordinarily fortunate mom like me, whose life has been mostly peaceful, whose heaviest cross these days is having to miss beloved grown children (and their children) who live much too far away.  

Because no matter how hard we moms try to be "all the things for all of them," we don't know what the future will hold for our children when they become adults.  As they say, adulting is hard!  Life will throw them so many curveballs.  And seeing them worry or struggle or suffer, when you can no longer make it all better with a Band-Aid and a kiss, is so painful for a mother.  Yet such is life here in the promised Valley of Tears!  Without faith, how does anyone endure it all?

If you can make it through the Mother-Son dance at your boy’s wedding without tears,
you’re a better woman than I!  (This is my baby, son #5.)

Well, I suppose it's time to figure out a way to wrap this all up.   

In a nutshell: yes, it can be scary having all grown children.  Worries don't magically disappear once your kids graduate from diapers, braces, and college; instead, they seem to multiply.

But so do the joys.  Case in point: check out this picture taken in July of our five boys and the five girls whom they married, and with whom they are raising 22 precious children between them (so far!).  These are ten of my favorite people on earth.  And if I hadn't let my boys grow up and leave me, they never would have given me these five sweet daughters to love.

Aren't these kids adorable?  (Rhetorical question, of course.  There can be only one answer!)

And here are a few pics of that high school boyfriend and me, after 44 years of marriage.  I'm so glad we ended up together; those five beautiful couples above wouldn't even be here if we hadn't!  (There are hardly any pictures of us together taken during the years we were dating, from 1973 to our wedding in 1980, because it was a whole different world back then--before the age of digital photography and home computers--and people hardly ever had a camera with them unless it was a big event.  Having these shots of us by the lake at Oyster Haven is very special to me!)

Life is good today.  And every day that I can wake up and say that, I feel blessed.

*That's the print copy title; online, the article is called "Note to the mother of a graduate."

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

Letting Go (and Dinner for Two)

It's been two months since I posted anything here.  2011 me doesn't even recognize 2024 me!  When this blog was in its infancy, I used to get up pretty much every morning raring to sit down at my laptop and write.  

In March of 2011, when I first decided to dip my toes into the unfamiliar waters of the blogosphere, my life was about to change drastically: my youngest son was getting ready to graduate from high school that June and head off to college after the summer; and my oldest son was three months away from becoming a first-time father to twin girls, making me a first-time Grammy.  I was not technically an empty-nester yet, but I was getting close.  And suddenly, I had more free time than I'd ever had before--so for several years, I blogged almost daily.  But then as, one by one, new daughters were added to our family, and traveling to visit our ever-expanding brood took up so much of our energy, my blog output started to decrease quite a bit.  I loved writing about my family and my life, but I became too busy living it to blog about it as often as I used to do.

In 2017, my husband and I moved away from our "forever home" in New Hampshire, where we had raised our boys, to Virginia, where three of them had settled with their growing families.  So much has changed in the intervening years.  Today, I have five married sons and 22 grandchildren.  Two of our boys live too far away, one in Wisconsin and one in Tennessee; but we feel pretty blessed to have three of them living less than an hour's drive from us.  Life is gloriously busy down here.  We live in a smaller house, with a smaller yard, but I have grown to love our new VA home every bit as much as the NH one we tearfully left behind seven years ago.

As difficult as it was at the time, that move was good for me.  I'd already started having to learn to accept change, to practice detachment, because by then all five of our boys were grown and gone and living their adult lives.  Even our baby was an Army officer stationed in Germany when we made our big move south.  For a person who gets very attached to the things--and the people--she loves, leaving that well-loved house, with all its happy memories, was one of the toughest things I've ever done.  But ultimately, it made my life better!  The blessings we have reaped by living close to so many of our kids and grandkids are countless.  Our 2017 move was one of the best decisions we ever made. 

Just yesterday, I was reading a January 2024 blog post by Elizabeth Foss, and as usual, her writing spoke to me.  Loudly.  She included a quote by Corrie ten Boom (a WWII concentration camp survivor, who'd risked her own life to hide Jews), and when I read it, I knew that God meant for me to see it. "Hold loosely to the things of this life so that if God requires them of you, it will be easy to let them go." And when ten Boom said, "things," she wasn't only talking about material things; she elaborated, "Even your dear family.  Why?  Because the Father may wish to take one of them back to himself, and when he does, it will hurt you if he must pry your fingers loose."

Whoah.  Did I ever need to read those words, to be reminded of the fleeting nature of this life on earth and the need to let go of things, and even of people when the time comes.  It's so easy to say, "Of course!  Yes!  I'm a devout Catholic and I know that this life is short and filled with suffering, and it's the next one, the eternal one with God in Heaven, that matters."  And yet, things here matter to the human heart.  And people; oh, how they matter!  It seems that mothers' hearts break on a daily basis.  Just having a child grow up, leave home, and start his adult life somewhere far from you can do it--even though that's the goal: giving your children wings and then watching them fly away.

I loved it when all of our boys were little, living under our roof.  I loved it when they were gathered around our table for every meal.  I think I'm in need of a short trip down Memory Lane, so bear with me while I share some pictures of those good old days.  (And also, if you're a young mom, remind yourself how lucky you are to have the awesome digital photography of the 21st century always at your fingertips, instead of the grainy, poorly lighted snapshots moms my age have of our kids--ones we had to wait a couple of weeks to see, not even knowing how they'd turned out!)

Those boys: they are my life!  Hang on a minute...I need a tissue.

Okay, I'm back.  

Listen, the last thing I want to do is sound all maudlin and "woe is me."  I'm just feeling nostalgic is all.   And the years seem to be going by too quickly for me these days, the changes coming at me rapid-fire.   At 65, I know that the road of life behind me is much longer than the one ahead, and it makes me think about all the things I love in this world.  

But I would be lying if I said that feeding a passel of little boys was always a complete joy.  We had two in particular who were mighty picky eaters.  When they used to ask, "What's for dinner?", I would put them off with, "I don't know..." or "I don't want to talk about it right now..."  If we ever got through a healthy home-cooked dinner with clean plates and no complaining, I used to feel like I was on a high.  They all loved my baking, so dessert was usually successful; but the main dish was hit-or-miss with some of them.  I wasn't the greatest cook, to be honest (it's hard to get excited to cook when you're not sure people will eat what you make).  I could whip up basic "comfort foods," like beef stew, lasagna, shepherd's pie.  But I wasn't very adventurous with my cooking.

That's one nice part about being an old lady like me: you miss your kids being gathered around your table (picky eaters notwithstanding); but if you made the right choice in a husband, and he's your favorite person to hang out with, dinner for two can really be a joy.  And it's fun to try new delicious dishes together.

This past week, my husband and I had two meals in a row that I thought were so yummy, simple but elegant--and I would never have made them to serve our boys when they were little.  We ate these meals on trays in the family room while we watched Matt Walsh's show together, pushing pause every now and then to chat.  I thought my plate looked so appetizing both nights that I snapped pictures.  And now I'm going to share them--lucky you!

On Monday, we had baked potatoes and roasted prosciutto-wrapped asparagus (with parmesan cheese and bits of French fried onions on top).  It was so good!

On Tuesday, we had filet mignon, cooked by my husband on the grill and topped with sautéed mushrooms, and green salads (his was a bit more elaborate than mine).  I also had some plain yogurt with fruit and granola, in lieu of dessert. Because it's Lent.  (I know some of you probably think I cheated because that sounds like a dessert; but in my book, if it doesn't include chocolate or caramel or icing, and it isn't a cookie or a brownie or a cake, it is most definitely not a dessert.)

There is so much to let go of as you get older.  But there is also much to look forward to.  Every night that my husband and I are at home eating our dinner together, it feels like a date.  That's not too bad a way to live, is it?  Sure, sometimes we miss those bygone years when we always had our boys with us, when we saw them every single day; but they are all thriving at the moment, praise God.  And we are so, SO happy to have each other.

Full disclosure: I took those Corrie ten Boom quotes to heart, and I want to live my life holding onto things loosely; but when it comes to my husband, my grip is probably a bit too tight.  I'll be working on that, but I can't promise I'll get good at it!  In the meantime, I hope there are lots of dinner dates in our future.

A Beautiful Mother's Day and a Beautiful Life!

I am late with my Mother's Day post, but that's about par for the course for me these days!

We had such a special celebration last Sunday, because our oldest grandson, G-Man (who is the oldest of son #3's five offspring), made his First Holy Communion that day.  What could be better than spending Mother's Day seeing one of your precious children's children receive the Holy Eucharist for the first time ever?  It was beautiful.

This grandson of ours will always occupy a special place in my heart because of the four-and-a-half months we lived with him and his parents when he was a baby.  We were still living in NH at the time, and my husband was still working as an airline pilot.  So he commuted to work while I played the part of full-time nanny, so that our son and his wife didn't have to put the little guy into day care.  Our daughter-in-law had completed her three-month maternity leave from her job at UVA, and there was about a four-month stretch until the end of the school year.  She had decided that when that semester ended, she was going to quit her job and stay at home with the little guy.  We filled in that gap and it was a very special time for us--and of course, G-Man was often the star of my blog posts in those days, as you can see here.  

Oh my, reading over that old post has made me misty-eyed.  And also amazed at how surprising life can be, and how beautiful.  Two years after that post was written, we had moved away from NH and become Virginians--which we never would have imagined doing at that point.  (Best move ever: with three sons living close-by, we are no longer constantly in travel mode.)  G-Man has a little brother now who's just a bit older than he was in those old photos.  And he's often riding on my left hip and staring at my face, just like his big brother was in those photos from 2015.  Oh my goodness, it's like deja vu (all over again. Ha ha!).

After Mass, we went over to G-Man's house for a brunch with lots of beloved people: G-Man, his parents, his four siblings, and his maternal grandmother; son #4, his wife, and their four kids; and one of our boys' cousins (named after yours truly!), who lives in the area and has two delightful daughters.

We got a picture of G-Man with his grandfather (my guy, whom he calls Papa), his godfather (his uncle, our son #4), and his father.  All of his earthly fathers looking out for him, body and soul.

So that was Mother's Day, one for the ages.  

If you come here often you know that ever since we moved down to VA, the boys who live nearby come over to have a special Mother's Day dinner with my husband and me, without spouses or kids--so that we can relive the old days when they were just mama's boys.  (The gift of time spent together, which is my #1 love language.)  It's usually not on actual Mother's Day, because we want them to spend that with their deserving wives.  I've written about this tradition before.  Here's last year's post, which included a big surprise for me. 

Oh no, not again.  An old blog post, making me misty-eyed! 

Anyway, I usually only get three or four of my five boys at once, but I'll take whatever I can get!  I am so grateful for this tradition.  I didn't think it was going to happen this year, because everyone is so very busy with their kids' school and after-school activities, work, and other commitments.  I had said that we should skip it this year, and that our wonderful celebration for G-Man's First Communion was enough of a Mother's Day treat for me.  

But those boys...the Tuesday after Mother's Day, our VA sons (all three of whom live between 40 and 50 minutes from our front door) came anyway.  And we had steaks and baked potatoes, with cheesecake for dessert.  And we talked about the two brothers who were missing, so that it was almost as if they were there, too.  And we laughed. And it was wonderful.

I have the best sons.  Just sayin'.

I tell you what, I'll always be glad that I have this blog. It's keeping memories alive for me.  As the years pass, things tend to get blurry.  But all I have to do to remember exactly what I was doing and thinking and feeling during some moment in my life is to click on an old post buried in my archives, and I'm transported back in time.  It's a gift, this blogging thing.  I don't do it as much as I used to, but I don't think I can ever give it up completely.  I'll be 65 this summer; my memories are only going to get fuzzier with age.  I'm going to need to read the story of my life, and luckily, I'll know where to find it.

Deep thoughts about blogging.  Yikes, that's enough of that for today. 

A belated Happy Mother's Day, dear readers.  God bless you!

I Kind of Like Them

These boys.

I can’t believe that I was their first home, that these five very large, amazing humans once lived in me.  And now, five pieces of my heart live outside my body, which is an extremely vulnerable feeling.  But such is motherhood.

I don’t care how old your kids get (or how tiny they make you look); your babies will always be your babies.  There’s no getting around it.  As long as I’m living, my babies they’ll be, as the book says.  (You know what book I’m talking about! 😭)

(Ummm...they are adorable, but I was not big on parting and combing or slicking down my boys' hair for photos.  Or on fresh haircuts in general, apparently!  LOL)

On Saturday, we were driving back home to VA after a few days in Upstate NY, and we listened to a playlist of our all-time favorite songs for about four hours straight.  Three of them were songs my boys had picked for the Mother-Son Dances at their weddings: Garth Brooks’ “Your Song” (son #1); the Backstreet Boys’ “Perfect Fan” (sons # 2, 3, and 4); and Garth Brooks’ “Mom” (son #5).

So, dear readers...Guess whether or not I did a wee bit of weeping in the car when those nostalgia-inducing tunes came on. And guess whether or not hearing those sweet songs prompted me to start putting together this blog post, while we were still on the trip.

Ding, ding, ding!  Right you are, yes on both counts!

It’s hard for me to even articulate my feelings for my boys.  Any words I come up with will be inadequate.  But let me tell you a few of the things I like best about them.

They love God and live their Faith.  This is the most important thing, obviously.  They have held onto and practice their Catholic Faith, married women who share it, and are passing it on to their children.  And they aren’t “Cafeteria Catholics.”  In a world that is increasingly secular humanistic and morally corrupt, this is everything to their dad and me.

They’re funny.  They make each other laugh.  They make me laugh.  I love just being around them and listening to their goofy back-and-forth, their deep voices, their infectious laughter.  I love when they tease me.  (Teasing is a love language, at least in our house.)

They’re kind and loving sons.  They speak to us with respect, always.  They give the most thoughtful gifts.  They appreciate everything we do for them.  And they seem to like spending time with their dear old Mom and Dad and having us play an important role in their children's lives.

They’re pro-life family men, and they love being fathers.  And what a joy it is to see them in that role!  They do it all: bedtimes, baths, diaper changes, cooking, feeding; they're totally hands-on, and have even started coaching some of their kids' youth sports teams.  (And from time to time, a boy of ours might come home with a pair of light-up—dare I say tacky?—unicorn sandals that his beloved wife would never purchase, to the absolute delight of his 2-year-old fashionista!)

There is so much more to say, and to truly give our sons their due...well, I would have to write ten long blog posts for each one.  Our boys have unique and different personalities; however, they have many traits in common and share a number of interests.  They're all extremely intelligent men, responsible, talented, hard-working, interesting to talk to.  I know I just sound like a proud mama who looks at her kids through rose-colored glasses, and you can think that if you want to.  (How does it feel being wrong, though?  Ha ha!)

Anyway--

Suffice it to say that I kind of like my boys.  I like them a lot.  I love them, of course, unconditionally and with every fiber of my being.  But I also really like them.  They're my favorites.

(P.S. And they do make me feel tiny.  There's that, too.)

I ❤️ My Boiz

This is kind of an addendum to yesterday’s post.  Just a quickie.

As my husband and I boarded the plane last night for the first flight of our two-leg trip out to Iowa, I looked at our Pearl family text stream one more time before putting my phone in airplane mode.  And there was this text shared by son #4:

He also said our band’s next album title was going to be “Don’t Step on a Crack.”  🤣

I ❤️ my boiz.  They make me LOL.

A Belated HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!

And a SURPRISE!

We have developed a wonderful tradition during the five years we’ve been in VA: our boys who live locally pick a night to come over to our house--without wives or kids--to have cocktails and dinner with us and spend a few hours visiting with their dear old mom and dad, as a Mother's Day treat for lucky me.  It wasn’t my idea originally (one of my daughters-in-law suggested it the first May we were here), but I LOVE it.  (And I've blogged about it before, because like most old folks I tend to repeat my stories.)  This Mother-Boy extravaganza usually takes place the weekend before or after Mother’s Day, so that the guys can be with their wives on the actual holiday, helping their kids make the day special for their moms.  This year, my Mother's Day celebration with my boys happened this past Saturday.

Our bookend boys, #1 and #5, weren’t going to be with us; we only have our three middle sons living nearby now, so I set the table for five.  Our oldest son, who was at last year’s Mother’s Day dinner, has moved out to Iowa. And we had just recently made a trip to visit our youngest son in Nashville, and we knew he wouldn’t be able to make a long trip like that to join us for this...

Or would he?!

It's the craziest thing!  Son #2 had reached out to our baby, thinking that the worst that could happen is he'd say sorry, can't make it.  But as it turned out, he actually had some time off--his graduate school classes had just ended and the next ones weren't going to begin for a few weeks--and he figured the drive wasn't prohibitively long.  So he drove here from Nashville on Friday and spent the night with his older brother.  Son #2 came over on Saturday evening as expected.  But then shortly after he got to our house, we heard a knock...and when my husband opened the door it was son #5!  Oh my goodness, it was kind of shocking!  Neither my husband nor I had even the slightest inkling that this was going to happen, so the kids pulled off a spectacular surprise.

And I got to set another place at the table--always a joy for a mom whose favorite thing in the world is having all her grown-up chicks gathered in the nest again!

We had some Kentucky Mules before dinner.  My husband cooked steaks and chicken on the grill.  We had cheesy hash brown casserole, salad, rolls, and gooey brownies generously topped with chocolate frosting (courtesy of son #2's wife, my baking buddy).  Like Mary Poppins, the meal was practically perfect in every way.

I have the best boys (that's an objective statement, by the way).

Son #4 said we should pose like this.  I guess it's the way every band from the 80's--90's?--looked on their album cover pictures?  I don't know.  I tried to play along and look tough, but I'm not sure I nailed it.

When I saw that last picture, I experienced a bit of deja vu.  It immediately reminded me of one that was taken back in 2007 and is my husband's all-time favorite picture of our boys and me.  The oldest is missing in this new one, and only sons #3 and #5 are in the same places as they were in the original (all four would have been if we had set out to try to recreate the picture, but we weren't thinking about that).  But it's pretty close, don't you agree?

After having all my chicks gathered in the nest again, my next favorite thing is seeing our boys hanging out together. This brothers-only time is a precious commodity these days, with all of them having so many commitments with their own growing families.  After making such a long drive, our baby decided to stick around a few extra days to get more time with his brothers and play favorite uncle to his many nieces and nephews.  He stayed with son #2 and his family on Friday, the night before the surprise.  Then he stayed with us on Saturday night and with son #4 last night. Tonight he will stay over at son #3's house, and then he'll be headed back to Nashville tomorrow.  I so appreciate his wife, who wasn't able to take the time off of work to accompany him but wanted to give him this much-appreciated time with his family.   We not only have the best boys; we have the best girls as well.  (True story.)

A belated Happy Mother's Day, dear readers. Please pray for our safe travels, as we're headed out to Iowa this afternoon for a week-long visit with our firstborn and his gang.  Thanks!

A Mother-Boy Mother's Day Celebration (A Week Early)

Last Saturday the four sons who live in VA came over to our house to celebrate an early Mother's Day with me. (I like to call it a "Mother-Boy" party, but unless you watched a series called Arrested Development you won't get that reference.)  This is an annual event that was the brainchild of son #2's wife, who I think is projecting ahead to the day when her own four boys are grown men.  I never would have thought to ask for this sort of thing, because I love my daughters-in-law very much, and my grandchildren--don't even get me started.  Having the opportunity to spend time with our boys' growing families is the very reason we moved down here in the first place.

But it is true that when your babies are all grown up, you sometimes feel a deep nostalgia for the days when they all lived under your roof and life revolved around your own little nuclear family.  When we get everyone together at our house, it's so much fun--but extremely chaotic!  It's hard to have an uninterrupted adult conversation. So this one day a year when our boys (at least the four who do live close-by) come over all by themselves gives us some very sweet and precious mother-son time together.  Not to mention the "brother time" it gives them, too.  

One of my husband's younger sisters married a man who is the youngest of five boys.  And from time to time, she will encourage him to take trips to visit his mother out west on his own, without her or their kids. He will balk, but then she'll explain that when she's with him, he doesn't give his mom the undivided attention he would if he was by himself.  She is so thoughtful!

Women like my daughter-in-law and my sister-in-law are extremely wise and generous, and I encourage you young moms out there to put this idea of having your chicks fly home to your nest unaccompanied sometimes in the back of your minds, and try to make it happen now and again when they're all grown up and raising families of their own. 

We chose to stay in rather than go out for dinner (actually, that’s what we always do!). My husband cooked steaks on the grill.  We sat on the patio beforehand and then around the dining room table, and we talked and laughed.  It was a simply perfect Mother's Day for me.   

Today, we’re celebrating with my mom, who came down from Upstate NY to stay with us for a few weeks while the sister she lives with is on a well-deserved vacation. She arrived on Tuesday and went almost straight to the hospital, where she spent the next three days—but that’s a long story and the rest of this post was prewritten before she ever got here. So for now I’ll just tell you that she’s home and doing great and has even already visited with five of her great-grandchildren, after a rather drama-filled beginning to her time in VA.  (As she joked, always the drama queen!)

Happy Mother's Day, dear readers!  I hope you are being treated like the queens you are!

Social Media and the Thief of Joy

In my last post, I discussed how dangerous the comparison game can be: how it can rob us of peace and tranquility, making us feel inadequate and unlovable; how it can make us forget that each of us is made in the image and likeness of God, with an immortal soul that is unique and beautiful and worthy of love; how we were all made exactly as we are meant to be, warts and all (yes, we all have them--and that's okay!).  Why do we look at others around us and feel like we don't stack up?  Why do we think, If I was just [prettier, smarter, thinner, more talented, more outgoing--you fill in the blank] than I am, I would be [happier, more successful, more confident, a better mother, more beloved--fill in the blank again]?  Maybe you don't do this, but every now and then I do, and I know it's a terrible habit that I need to break.

I've struggled with this off and on throughout my life.  For instance, in this 1978 photo of my husband and me, taken at a friend's wedding when we were going into our junior year of college, I can remember comparing myself to the other females at the reception and wishing I looked like anyone but me.  I'd gained the freshman 10 and then added another 10 my sophomore year, decided to cut my hair short and regretted the change, and was wearing an extremely unflattering dress.  And there he was, my matinee idol boyfriend, so handsome I could hardly look at him without becoming breathless.  What did he see in me, anyway? I wondered.  I could be so hard on myself!  And why?  This guy loved me!  He could have discarded his high school girlfriend for someone "better" when we went off to college in different parts of the country, but our long-distance relationship was still going strong after two years of mostly being apart.  (We had no Facetime, but wrote lots of letters!)  2020 Laura, 39 years into an extremely happy marriage to the good-looking guy in this picture, wishes she could tell 1978 Laura to lift up her head and smile with confidence, secure in the knowledge that he wanted her just the way she was.

At the end of that last post, I hinted that I would be back to explore the topic of comparison further, focusing on how social media has made the habit of comparing ourselves to others even more of a problem than ever before.  So here it is, another post just days after the last one!  (Is blogging back?!  Maybe not, but I am.  And thanks to all the nice readers who left sweet and encouraging comments for me last time I was here.  I was feeling the love--and I finally got around to replying to all of you wonderful people.)

I don't know about you, but I find that I am sometimes left feeling a bit blue after too much time spent scrolling through Facebook feeds.  It's not just that Facebook has become a popular platform for uncomfortable discussions about politics and countless nasty anti-religion/anti-life memes; it has, but there is also plenty of positive news, daily, about family and friends, some of them long-lost before the advent of social media--not to mention all those wonderful photos of loved ones that you might not otherwise see.  There is so much good to be found there, no doubt about it.  But there is also so much bad.  And some of what is bad comes from looking at all the good and worrying that in comparison to what you're seeing, you or your life is "less than."

Jenny Uebbing, one of my favorite Catholic wordsmiths of all time, touched on this topic in her recent Instagram stories, admitting that sometimes after ingesting too much social media she comes away asking herself questions like Why can't I get up early and work out? or Why aren't my kids X,Y, or Z? or Why doesn't my house look like that?  She went on to talk about the danger in this--how social media is really just two-dimensional, and how it gives us a 40,000-foot view of other people's lives (I'm paraphrasing here, trying to remember exactly how she put things), so we're not really seeing the whole picture. I realize that deep down, everyone probably knows this about social media; they know that people usually only post the good and the beautiful, the uplifting aspects of their lives, not the dark struggles they might be going through at the time. (Because I don't care how blessed you are, let's face it: no life is ever lived without trials and tribulations, without sadness, fear, and loss.)  I mean, there's nothing wrong with wanting to share mostly the best portions of your life with the online world.  But this can also lead people to compare, and then to feel down because their lives don't seem nearly as bright and sparkly as those light-filled images and upbeat captions they see--even though they know in their heart of hearts that these images and captions don't tell the whole story.

The other danger about comparing our lives to the Facebook and Instagram feeds of others, Uebbing observed, is that we're not all at the same point in life at the same time, and it's harmful to compare our lives to those of people going through completely different stages than we're going through.  How true is this?!  You might feel like you're drowning right now, with a houseful of crazy toddlers and demanding babies, or a couple of angsty teens, and find yourself worrying about how your children are going to turn out and wondering how things will look 10 or 20 years from now.  Then you'll see a picture of a family you know, showing the kids all grown-up, happy, and successful; and without even knowing you're doing it, you might start to feel like  maybe you're a failure as a parent, even though you're not seeing all the many difficult stages that family went through as they traveled the bumpy road you're currently on to get to where they are now.

You can do this in reverse, too, which is what I sometimes do; I see all the wonderful things young Catholic Instagram mamas are doing with their children, how they're creatively celebrating the different liturgical seasons and the feast days of the saints, and I'll worry that I didn't do enough to help instill the Faith in our boys back when I had the chance. When I do this, I'm comparing a grandmother who is now at a stage decades ahead of these moms, a mother who did her very best at the time and shouldn't waste her time on regrets, and it seriously makes no sense.  Especially because although my husband and I had to deal with our share of challenges and certainly made a lot of mistakes along the way, we somehow managed to raise five terrific sons who are still practicing Catholics, are in sacramental marriages with lovely young women, and have given themselves over to the will of God as far as how many children they will have.  Somewhere along the way, I guess, we must have done a few things right.  (Or maybe we're just incredibly lucky.)  So looking back and wishing to change anything that we did is an exercise in futility.  As my late mother-in-law (who quite successfully raised four sons and four daughters) used to say, "If you change one thing, you change everything."

Who would change this?

Or this?

As a mother, you can't help panicking just a little when your kids grow up and leave the nest for the first time, wondering if you've done all you could to prepare them for life; this certainly happened with me.  Danielle Bean describes those feelings better than I ever could in this Instagram post I stumbled upon recently, written as her daughter was getting ready to leave for college:

"We tend to pause and doubt...Did we say all the things?  Teach all the lessons?  Read all the stories?  Say all the prayers?  Did we do all the stuff?...Was it enough?  I can look back now and see that we did a lot of things, but it was not enough.  It is never enough.   We always fall short.  But God knows what he is about...We all fall short, but the gaps leave room for God.  And he fills them with grace."

I love that!  God fills in the gaps!

It's hard enough to think you're doing a good enough job raising your kids without the added pressure of seeing how everyone else is doing it, all the time, all over social media. I am so, so thankful that there wasn't that kind of added pressure when we were raising our boys!  I think it must be tougher for my daughters-in-law to feel they are "enough" (and believe me, they are MORE than enough!), when everyone is online, over-sharing, presenting a picture that makes it look like they have it all together, all the time.  Some young moms can handle it just fine, taking it for what it is and not letting it affect their confidence and peace of mind; if I was just starting out now in the motherhood game, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be one of them.

I think this post has gone on long enough, so I'll just wrap it up by saying that even when I catch myself succumbing to the dangerous practice of comparison, I simultaneously feel like the luckiest and most blessed woman on God's green earth and know that I wouldn't trade my life for anyone else's.  So why do I ever waste even a single moment of this precious time allotted to me wishing for even one aspect of it to be different?  My mother-in-law was spot-on: if you change one thing, you change everything.  If I had been a different sort of person, or if even one thing had happened differently along the way, I might not be where I am today.  And that is the LAST thing I would want.

So here is what I'm going to strive to remind myself, whenever I start to compare myself to others and feel "less than": You are God's precious child.  You are perfect as you are--which is not to say that you are perfect, because the only human being for whom that adjective is true is the Blessed Mother; but you are the person God meant you to be, with the looks, talents, and temperament He gave you to use to use wisely and well, in order to make your way back to Him and become a saint in Heaven.

Teddy Roosevelt's famous quote bears repeating: "Comparison is the thief of joy."  Truer words were never spoken.  If checking Facebook or Instagram too often leads you to let that cruel and conniving thief rob you of your joy, take a break from social media for a bit.  Instagram is a mostly positive force in my life; but even so, I'm thinking of doing just that for Lent.

Hola, Hermanita!

I just got back home yesterday, after spending five days staying at the house of son #4 and his wife, Braveheart.  I went over there because they were due to welcome baby #4 any minute and needed Grammy on deck, ready to watch their 2-year-old triplets (identical twin boys Pumpkin and Peanut, and their sister, Paquita) when it was time to go to the hospital.

The first time around, Braveheart had had a C-section at 32 weeks.  She was told that therefore, even though this was her second pregnancy, her body might behave as if it was her first labor and  delivery--so it might be tough and take a while.  But of course we were all hoping that this would not be so.

Braveheart started having contractions on Friday, and who knew how quickly things would progress?  (Not as quickly as she and my son would have liked, as it turned out; not by a long shot!)  Just in case she was going to have a quick labor and delivery, I decided to pack an overnight bag and drive over that day to stay with them--even though we only live 35 minutes away and I probably could have made it in time if I'd been called last minute.  I figured that I could give my daughter-in-law a bit of a break and help out with the three munchkins until the baby came. (My husband was out of town but would join me when he could.)

I flew solo most of the time; but Papa came on Sunday in time for dinner,
 and he was able to be there for part of the day Monday, before leaving again
for work on Tuesday morning.

Braveheart labored all through the night Friday and into Saturday, but still wasn't sure if it was time or not.  By late Saturday afternoon, the contractions were getting extremely painful (and although they were not coming regularly, when they did come, they lasted an agonizing three minutes each!).  The kids decided to head to the hospital, hoping that it was go time.  After more than four hours of observation, however, they were sent back home.  Braveheart was only one centimeter dilated and they said she really wasn't in active labor yet.

Then just a few hours later, at about 11:00 at night, my son woke me up to tell me that he was putting the triplets' baby monitor in the guestroom (soon to be nursery) where I was sleeping, and that they were heading back to the hospital.  My poor daughter-in-law was just in so much unrelenting pain.

This time, thankfully, she was admitted, and before long she was progressing nicely.  She had her water broken and received an epidural, and she was finally able to get some relief from the pain.  But her labor was long and difficult.  Her contractions were irregular and lasted much longer than normal.  At one point, it looked like she might have to have another C-section, and our son posted a prayer request on our family text stream.  The prayers worked: shortly afterward, she was fully dilated and ready to push.  Unfortunately,  though, she had to push for an exhausting three and a half hours.  Finally, just before midnight on Sunday October 27, she delivered a beautiful, healthy baby girl with a head of thick black hair.  At 8 lbs. 11.05 oz. and 22.05 in., she weighed more than twice as much as her largest triplet sibling at birth!

On Tuesday, this sweet baby girl (who shall heretofore be known here at the blog as Hermanita--which in Spanish means "little sister") came home.  Her brothers were largely unimpressed and uninterested in her, although they came over to check her out and smiled at her.

Her big sister, on the other hand, had a totally different reaction.

At first, Paquita was confused and jealous and couldn't stop crying.  But those emotions soon evaporated and were replaced by a wave of fierce maternal love and protectiveness.  (Who says girls and boys aren't wired differently?  That little girl, hardly more than a baby herself, had an instinctive desire to nurture that baby!)  She wanted to hold HER baby constantly, to kiss her and hug her.  She kept putting her chubby little finger to her mouth and saying "Shhh" to the rest of us as she held her baby sister.

We were joking that Paquita might love the baby almost too much, if that's possible.  She's rather possessive and it's very hard to get Hermanita out of her arms--she puts up quite a fuss when that happens.  So Mom and Dad are going to have some challenges as their little family transitions from three to four children and everyone gets used to their new routines and their new normal.

I took some selfies with my precious new granddaughter soon after she came home.

When I saw the above photo it reminded me a little bit of a snapshot my husband took of me and our firstborn son shortly after we got home from the hospital, way back in October 1983.   The way I was positioned and holding the newborn infants in these pictures taken 36 years apart looked so similar, not to mention the expression of pure happiness on my face (and tiredness, too: in the old one, caused by childbirth...in the new one, by childcare!).

Did you notice the small, extremely old-fashioned TV photo-bombing us in this picture?

I still wear ginormous glasses (wait long enough and everything comes back in style!).  I still wear my hair long (but it's thinner and grayer these days).   When it comes to my fashion sense, very little has changed.  But oh, in almost every other way my life is so different now!  That inexperienced young mom was on cloud nine after the birth of her first baby boy.  But she could never have imagined how much richer and fuller (how could that be possible?!) her life would be one day: how four more sons would follow this one; how all five of them would get married and bring her daughters; and how, just when she started to mourn the loss of her babies, she would get so many new ones to love.

I'm telling you: one day you're a 25-year-old first-time mother...and before you know it, you're a 61-year-old grandmother of 15.

And this grandmother is still recovering from five days of wrangling three very busy, very chunky toddlers. I've been catching up on my sleep and I believe a nap is on my to-do list today.  After all, grandchild #16 is due any time now, and I'm going to be on call to watch her three older siblings when her parents leave for the hospital, at least until their other grandmother arrives to take over...so I better be rested up!