praying the particulars: parenting a talkative child

A Prayer for Parenting a Talkative Child:

God of the Word,

This child never stops speaking. I cannot even hear myself think.

From sun-up to sun-down, he’s trying to figure out his world through words. Constant questions, endless repetition; the same books, the same songs. He wonders every blessed thought aloud, and I become his de facto audience. Or his spelling mentor. Or his number guru.

But too often I tune out and turn away, thinking radio’s music more beautiful or voices on the news more important. I long for adult conversation; I pass over the innocent wonder of a child’s chatter.

Help me to listen, really listen. To bend the ear of my heart to his needs, his wonders, his wants. Let me value his voice like you value mine: unique, worthy, loved.

When my mind spins too busy to hear, quiet my heart to a slower rhythm. When my ears grow tired, let me listen with your own. When my lips slip to let a harsh word pass, let me whisper forgiveness in his small, sweet ear.

And when morning’s bright chirps unravel into evening’s grating whine, let me remember the days when I longed to hear any sound of children bounce off these walls.

God of Scripture and song, you find me in words and I find you there, too. When your Word reminds me to ask and it will be given, to cry out when I am in need, to shout praise and sing thanks – all your words ring true to a toddler as to his mother. He is full of questions. And so am I.

Thank you for his words, his wonder, his life. Which has filled my own to the brim, spilling over with shouts and giggles, yells and cries, questions and challenges.

May he never stop speaking, asking why, or wondering aloud.

May I always keep my life open enough to listen.

May we both bring our words to you in prayer.

With ringing ears and spinning mind,

A tired, talked-at mama

praying the particulars: wrangling children at church

A Prayer for Wrangling Small Children at Church:

God of infinite patience,

Help me not to lose my mind at Mass today.

When my son falls off the kneeler for the umpteenth time and howls at me indignantly, let me not say I told you so! but I love you.

When the baby gets so fussy during the homily that no one within six pews can hear the priest, let me not sigh with irritation but distract him with smiles.

When I miss every word of the readings (again) because I was fishing books out of the diaper bag, let me not brood about what I lost but notice the small service I gave to the least among us.

When I spend communion time pacing the floor of the gathering space, or trying in vain to nurse the baby in a corner of the cry room, or taking the toddler to the potty for the tenth time, help me to see that this is Eucharist, too – the gift of self in love.

When that older couple behind us, the ones I worried about the whole time – that we were annoying them and distracting their prayer and giving them reason to think the future church is going to hell in a handbasket – when they tap me on the shoulder after the final song and tell me we have a beautiful family, help me believe them. And even thank them graciously.

And when we’re tempted to skip Mass next Sunday because it’s just so hard in this crazy season of life, and it throws off nap schedules for the rest of the day, and what are we getting out of it anyway, let me remember the importance of coming. Because children are part of the Body of Christ. Because I need community and they need me. Because much of what is important about parenting isn’t easy anyway.

God, you promised that wherever two or three are gathered in your name, you are in their midst. That means our pew, too. The one covered with spit-up that two boys are trying to climb over.

Bless my hyper, healthy kids. Bless our diverse, dynamic church. Thank you for the weekly reminder of what matters most.

With gritted teeth behind that laughing smile,

A mama in the third row

praying the particulars: moving to a new house

A Prayer for Moving With Young Children

God who is unchanging through our changes,

Be our companion through this transition of moving to a new house.

More stressful than we planned, more exciting than we realize, this move is pure chaos – but precisely what you use to bring forth new life.

Sit with us as we say goodbye to our home: as we take down pictures from walls thick with memories and look wistfully on apple trees we planted that we’ll never see bear fruit.

Help us remember that you are the source of all blessings: those that fit in boxes and those that are too big to pack. Thank you for the friends and family who gathered round our table, the babies who filled the bedrooms, the nights of laughter that echoed through the halls.

When the packing and unpacking, the moving and the hauling become too much, help us to slow down and savor a moment of goodness in the midst of hard work. Forgive us our short tempers and cross words. Teach us to ask for help when we need it.

And let us not forget a sense of humor as we try to accomplish anything with crawling baby and curious toddler underfoot.

Bless the young couple who will next make this house their own. May they enjoy its gifts and embrace its quirks. May they grow in love for each other within its walls. May our nostalgia at leaving be surpassed by their joy at arriving. (And please, may they not dig up all those lovely bulbs in the yard!)

Guide us as we begin to create a new home for our family. As we paint the walls, dig up the garden, and unpack endless boxes, help us to celebrate the possibilities in front of us. Open our eyes to take the long view, worrying less about how we will get it all done and imagining more the memories we will create in a new space.

God, time and time again you have led your people – from homeland to far-off shores, from known to unknown, from darkness to light. Let me trust that you lead us still, that you open the way before us.

In peace and hope and promise, I pray –

A frazzled moving mama

an un-mother’s day

You know those years when you just don’t feel like celebrating your birthday?

Such was my attitude toward Mother’s Day this go-round. I was just not all that into it.

My mothering lately has been grumpy, impatient and frazzled. It’s a stressful season of our family’s life, so I’m trying not to take it too seriously. But I still didn’t feel much like celebrating. Even though I believe firmly that Mother’s Day isn’t something we earn, I decided I’d rather have a normal, quiet, low-key Sunday than a Hallmark holiday.

But as I nursed Grinch-like sentiments this past week, the notion of Alice in Wonderland’s un-birthday wryly popped into my head. What would it mean to celebrate an un-Mother’s Day instead of the normal flowers-chocolate-&-brunch festivities?

First I thought it might mean indulging in a day of activities that had absolutely nothing to do with mothering. For example, uninterrupted sleep! Adult conversation! Spa treatments! Wine! Gourmet meals that someone else cooked! Plenty of geographic distance from one’s progeny!

But I realized that is, in fact, the perfect Mother’s Day. And I got it last year. Whoops.

So then I started from a truly unconventional standpoint. What if I spent the day thinking of un-mothers instead?

Un-mothers could be fathers, the paternal yang to the maternal yin. So yesterday I prayed for fathers – for their work outside the home to provide for their families and for their work at home to nurture their children.

Un-mothers could be children, the necessary and opposite other half of the mothering relationship. So I prayed for children who daily seek the love of a mother to help them grow.

Un-mothers could be women who want desperately to have children, those who suffer through infertility, miscarriage and failed adoptions. So I prayed for the women whose hearts break as the years pass, whose stomachs sink when strangers ask questions, whose hands ache to hold a baby.

Un-mothers could be women who have chosen not to have children, those who feel called to different paths. So I prayed for women whose vocations lead them to other nurturing relationships, rewarding work, and life-giving commitments.

Un-mothers could be women who have suffered the loss of a child, whose motherhood has been broken and reshaped by pain and death. So I prayed for women who grieve for their children, who struggle to redefine themselves as mother after loss, who seek to go on living after the life they held closest to their heart has stopped.

Un-mothers could be women who do not want the children they have. So I prayed for women whose motherhood was forced on them, or who made decisions to end their child’s life, or whose deep sorrow and anger at the world causes them to hurt their children.

In the Christian tradition, one way to describe God is the via positiva: what God is like. God is like a mother. Another way to describe God is the via negativa: what God is not like. God is not like a mother.

One way to understand mothering from a spiritual perspective is the via positiva – what it is to be a mother. Much of my thinking and writing in this space takes this slant. But another way to understand mothering is the via negativa – what it is not. Broadening my perspective to embrace those who are not mothers helps me to understand my own parenting better, situating my cares and concerns within a wider view.

And praying for those whose lives and loves differ from mine reminds me that all of us, mothers and un-mothers, are swept up into the mystery of who God is.

Which is a question well worth pondering, no matter what day it is.

what name do you give God?

My son’s favorite is Ancient One. Mine is (no surprise) Mother. But on frazzled days I remind myself of Source of Peace.

Sandy Eisenberg Sasso’s lovely book In God’s Name has become a recent naptime favorite. Strangely my young son is smitten with the most ancient of God’s names. Every time we reach the page that describes how “the grandfather whose hair was white with the years called God Ancient One,” the boy with blond curls squirms happily in my lap. It’s a mystery why this name has captured his attention, but he can’t get it out of his head: he delights at its reading and asks all day long about its spelling. He wants to know everything about Ancient One.

I’ve loved this children’s book ever since it fell into my pregnant lap (literally) as I rummaged through cast-offs at a kids’ consignment sale. The illustrations are bright and charming, and the fable that describes how each person names God out of their own life is even more beautiful. At the end of the story everyone gathers around a lake that is God’s mirror and proclaims their different names for God all at once, a joyful sound reflecting the unity-in-diversity at the heart of God’s self.

In an era when our churches seem as polarized as our political parties, I can’t help but wonder at the relevance of this book’s message. Far from a wishy-washy relativism, the truth it gently preaches is important to remember: my understanding and image of God were formed by my upbringing, education and experiences of church. So they aren’t necessarily shared by others who share my faith.

As we each seek to approach the unknowable mystery of God, we name aspects of the divine that speak to us. Hopefully we can also open our hearts to others’ journeys towards the same God, no matter how foreign they may first seem. I can learn from your name for God, just as you can learn from mine.

Quite often I ponder this question of how we image God as it relates to parenting. Developmental psychologists and faith formation experts agree that parents influence a child’s first image of God. It’s only natural that as we begin to wonder about a Being greater than ourselves, we look through the lens of the dominant figures of love, power and authority in our lives.

I want to help my children see God as loving, compassionate, forgiving and just. So when I lose my temper and yell too loud, the startled look in their eyes reminds me that the way I mother matters not only to their emotional and intellectual development, but their spiritual growth as well. (Hence my need to sit at the feet of God who is Source of Peace!)

And when I soothe their cries, teach them patiently or laugh long and hard with them, I pray they are picking up small pieces of the best of what a parent’s love can be – and what it reveals of the God they may come to know as Father or Mother.

Different names for God have been important throughout the changing seasons of my life. When I was younger, Christ as companion captured my heart. As I learned about pneumatology in graduate school, God as Spirit opened my mind. After becoming a parent, God as Mother has taken on a powerful new depth of meaning.

As In God’s Name reminds me, there is no single name for God. Even Scripture is bursting with different images: God as potter, builder, midwife, gardener, servant and redeemer. Today it is “Ancient One” that mysteriously captures my child’s heart. Who knows what names and images will shape him as he grows?

What names for God speak to you today? What names have been important in the past?

where we dreamed our babies

We’ve been tackling lots of house projects lately – windows, floors, closets. So I find myself thinking a lot about this home we’ve created, this place we became a family.

There is a deep joy in making a house a home, a fulfillment I never imagined when I was an energetic twenty-year-old, hauling tattered boxes in and out of different apartments every year. Today I find myself having lived on this street for longer than I’ve lived anywhere except my childhood home. My address hasn’t changed in years, but my perspective has.

Through the seasons I’ve spent gazing out the same windows at the same trees, I’ve learned that settling in isn’t the same as settling. The joy of owning a home is putting down deep roots so beauty can grow. It’s the wisdom grown from tending to one small piece of God’s green earth. It’s the wonder of taking someone else’s place and filling it with your own dreams.

We’ve planted gardens and fruit trees, rose bushes and lilacs. We picked out new appliances when old broke. We hauled furniture upstairs and down when inspiration struck. I’ve watched crews of construction workers tromp in and out of our yard, putting on new roofs or tearing up old floors. My handy husband even built a bedroom and a basement of bookshelves.

In short, we’ve made this place our own.

But when I think back on this house, my strongest memories will be the transformations that took place within us, within its walls.

This house was full of infertility’s charts, tests and meds before it was full of babies’ clothes, books and toys. It was full of couple love before it was full of children. This “starter home” is where we became partners and parents. Where we started writing the story of our life together.

A few days ago I took a break from wrangling the bottomless heap of kids’ clothes in the closet. Sweaty and tired, I laid on the floor and stared up at the spinning fan. The fan that my husband installed, in the room that my mother and mother-in-law painted for our first baby. I thought about the home we have made while I listened to my son pretend to read from one of his favorite books:

We’d dreamed a baby, we’d wanted a baby, we’d planned for a baby, we’d waited and waited and waited for a baby. 

Until finally there was you. 

As he flipped the final pages, I turned my head on the carpet to watch him sing: And oh, how we love you!

Watching my baby-turned-boy, I realized that perhaps this chapter is the most important one we’ve written in the story of this house. Not the herb garden we planted out front or the strawberry patch we dug out back. But the family we became along the way.

When we were giddy newlyweds rushing in the door from our honeymoon, we had no idea how the early years of our marriage would be shaped by the wanting and hoping and praying for children. This was the place we dreamed our babies, wondering how they would look and when they would arrive. This was the place we planned for our babies, worrying as the months stretched into years. This became the place we waited and waited and waited for our babies. Until finally, they were here.

And oh, how we love them.

why i’m sticking with my dumbphone

Not a week goes by that my spouse and I don’t get mocked for at least one of the following:

1. having a land line
2. not texting
3. not having a smartphone

We have plenty of reasons for each. Our house gets terrible cell phone reception, so we need a land line to phone from home. Neither of us likes to text, so we’ve never signed up for a plan. And even though we’re years (yes, years) “overdue” for upgraded cell phones according to our contract, we don’t see the need to get shiny new gadgets while ours still work.

Old-fashioned? Maybe. (Though the New York Times says we’re not alone in clinging to our retro dumbphones.)

But the deeper truth? I can’t let myself get a smartphone.

Do I think they’re slick? Certainly. Handy? Definitely. But I refuse to bring one into this house. Despite my desire for an iPhone, I have to draw the line.

Because boundaries between work and family are already blurred when I work from home.

Because I already struggle with being present to my kids, given all the distractions around me.

Because when I see something like this, it hits a little too close to home:

I spent yesterday at a Social Phonics training in social media with emergent church leaders Tony Jones and Doug Pagitt. At the end of the day, they shared a final list of tips for diving into the social media world.

Get a smartphone flashed on their slick Powerpoint. “Is there anyone we still need to convince to get one of these?” Doug asked with a bemused smile, waving his phone in the air.

My hand floated up.

Both men turned with a look of surprise to the youngest person in the room. They launched into a litany of reasons to get a smartphone: it’s the future of the Internet, it’s the way people communicate today, it’s going to replace laptops in just a few years.

I listened to their logic. I smiled graciously. But all I could think about were my two boys.

They need me to look at them more, not my phone. They need me to listen to them more closely, not my email. And while I can’t be present to them 24/7, I want to show them the power of connecting by disconnecting.

Even though I struggle, it’s a spiritual practice for parenting that I want to cultivate: presence. When my day is already full of email and work, laptop and phone calls, I don’t want to add another constant distractor to the mix. Saying no to smartphones is my act of resistance.

I’m digging in my feet as long as I can, for them. While I embrace email, blogging and social media as ways to connect with people I love, I also have little people right in front of me who need to connect with me even more. I want to be present to them as best I can when they’re still so small.

So for now, this mama is sticking with a decidedly dumbphone. Which is why I never got your text.

(But you can always try our land line!)

i am such a good mom when my babies sleep

My husband guffawed when I first proclaimed this, a few months after our second was born.

It was a sunny Saturday afternoon, and we had gotten a rare hour (or was it two?) to ourselves while both boys napped. I luxuriated in the quiet of the house, the projects we both got to tackle without interruption, the conversations we could share as we worked or cleaned or did sweet nothing at all.

On one hand, my comment was certainly sarcastic. While my kids were sleeping, I felt like the kind of mom I wanted to be: relaxed, peaceful, patient, kind. It was only when they woke up and I had to deal with them that I inevitably fell short.

But on the other hand, my words revealed deeper truth: I can’t parent well when my basic needs aren’t met.

Looking back over the past few months when we did not sleep, I marvel that I survived. Sleep is essential for me. Some people can slide by with a few hours a night, but I need a solid six or seven. So when sleep eludes me, my temper flares and my patience disappears. I’m a growly grizzly bear.

Maslow’s hierarchy claims that sleep is a basic human need. Without it, we can’t achieve – or even desire – any deeper psychological needs. While Maslow’s pyramid has been deconstructed by many folks who followed him, I always remember his hierarchy when parenting forces me to go without sleep for long stretches. I can’t do much else but dream of dozing. No wonder sleep deprivation amounts to torture.

Now that the baby is sleeping well again, I feel like a Human Being once more. Gone are the zombie eyes and the fuzzy brain. We’re not quite to the dreamy, 12-hours-straight that his brother does, but we’re getting closer. Hope is back on the horizon.

So when my inner critic started nagging me lately about Lent (specifically, my lack of spiritual engagement therein), I made myself go look at the calendar. It’s only been a few weeks since the baby started sleeping through the night again. Prior to that point, I had to focus on meeting basic needs to survive, work and parent. So I had to cut myself some slack in the spirituality department. Prayer just wasn’t happening after night after night of naps.

Yet I’m grateful for feeling refreshed in time for Easter. Sleep is everyday’s Sabbath: time to rest, recharge, recenter. And I’m reveling in the normal rhythm of our days and nights returning. For me this Lent was like our Winter That Wasn’t: surprisingly unseasonable, but leading into a long stretch of spring to savor.

Lately the “simul-nap” remains the Holy Grail of sleep. Snatched only once or twice a week, but when we catch it, life is glorious. Extra work gets finished, house projects get tackled, and everyone gathers refreshed at the end of the afternoon.

I do feel like a better parent, and I’m not embarrassed to admit what I need. Rest makes me ready to sing Alleluias.

book, bath, table & time: teaching at home

I recently read Fred Edie’s Book, Bath, Table, and Time: Christian Worship as Source and Resource for Youth Ministry for my research on vocation and youth. Drawing from his theological work with teenagers at the Duke Youth Academy, Edie writes about simple ways to retrieve the holy things and practices of the church to engage youth.

I’m not a youth minister. But I enjoyed this book, and not just because it’s about empowering teenagers to explore their vocations. I loved this book for its title.

Book, bath, table, and time.

Most of my life as a mother of two little ones revolves around these four things, places and moments. We read books from sun up to sun down. We splash in the bath every night. We gather around the table three times a day. And we follow a rhythm of routine that gives gentle order to our time.

Since I finished Edie’s book, I’ve found myself musing about book, bath, table, and time. Each offers opportunities for teaching my children – not just about God or religion, but about the world, other people and themselves. When I think about raising kids to have a heart and imagination for faith, these are times and places where I hope to start conversations about what it means to be human and to wonder about the divine:

book: We live in a house of books. They line the walls and cover our floors. Not only the favorite stories that have become part of our daily routine, but the special, sacred books: the photo albums, the baby books. Books that tell our family who we are.

I hope that through the books we share together, my kids will come to know that Scripture is not something stale or stodgy, saved for Sundays. Our stories are woven into God’s story everyday. Every time we snuggle with a child and crack a favorite cover, we have the chance to tell them a story that will open their heart to wonder, joy, and imagination. The more stories we share – of every genre, flavor and color – the more our minds open to the wideness of God’s world.

bath: Everyone needs to wash, to get clean. To slow down and relax into calming warmth and water. But we also need to delight in the simple: bubbles, splashing, rubber ducks and silly songs. Bath time is a great equalizer between parents and children.

All the little “bath” moments – washing hands before meals, scrubbing garden dirt from fingernails, wiping paint from faces – remind me that baptism is an everyday sacrament: cleansing, refreshing, blessing. I hope I can immerse my children in a deeper awareness of how moments of transformation are always around us. As dirty becomes clean and old becomes new, so are we given chances every day to start fresh, with each other and with our God.

table: Much of our day spins around the table: preparing food, eating meals, cleaning up. Sometimes table time reminds us that we’re all-too-human – cranky when we’re hungry, angry when we’re frustrated. But gathering at table can also bring out our best as a family. We laugh and sing, listen and share about our day.

Seated together, we notice milestones: high chair to booster seat, baby food to solids. The infant once held in arms over dinner becomes the boy who helps set the silverware. Remembering to be grateful for these simple moments – and the blessing of sharing food with those I love – is an everyday Eucharist.

time: Family life brings its own calendar of feast days and ordinary time. For babies and toddlers, routine is key to keeping their lives ordered. As children grow, their activities set the family schedule. No matter the age, the way we live and share time shapes us as a family.

The paradox of time is how endless it feels in the moment and how fleeting it finally proves. I hope that as the seasons slide by, our family will create our own rituals to celebrate the gift of the time we’re blessed to share. And I hope we’ll regularly make time together to do absolutely nothing at all. To savor slow Sunday mornings with heaps of pancakes. To lay on the floor and read stacks of books in the afternoon sunlight. To meet God in quiet Sabbath moments.

Book, bath, table, time. These can be sacred moments for a family. Around here, holy water is sudsy bath bubbles. Communion is crackers at snack time. Scripture is beloved bedtime stories read night after night.

But there aren’t the only moments that hold promise for going deeper. Timeouts and saying sorry can be moments of reconciliation. Putting band aids on scraped knees and dosing medicine can be moments of anointing the sick. Noticing our children’s gifts and blessing them with hugs and kisses can be moments of confirmation.

Sacraments are more than seven. And sacred moments aren’t reserved for holy buildings. Because ancient practices of faith speak to what makes us human: the simple moments where we meet each other (and God, too). Where we learn how the ordinary can be holy. How the dirty can lead to the divine.

(Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go rescue a toddler who recited so many favorite books to himself during nap that he didn’t sleep and is now sobbing for a snack. Book meets time, bath meets table…)

What are your family’s favorite ordinary moments?

on being raised vs. raising kids catholic

Catholic school, as vicious as Roman rule, I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black. I held my tongue as she told me, son, fear is the heart of love. So I never went back.

“I Will Follow You Into The Dark,” Death Cab for Cutie

Our culture is full of ideas and images of what it means to be raised Catholic. Past-tense.

But a picture of raising kids Catholic today? A hazy blur, at best.

People often look puzzled when I tell them we go to church. Sometimes I get the condescending smile that suggests “well, isn’t that quaint and unenlightened.” Sometimes I get the blank stare that betrays utter ignorance of anyone still darkening a church’s doorstep these days.

And quite often I get a knowing roll of the eyes, followed by, “Well, I was raised Catholic, but…”

Most of my friends don’t go to church. I have more ex-Catholics in my life than practicing church-goers. And they’re in good company: 1 out of 10 Americans is a former Catholic.

So when I search for support in raising my kids Catholic, I sometimes feel like a pioneer wandering in the wilderness, despite the fact that parents have been doing this work for centuries.

My parish, like too many, has few resources for young families. Most of my friends with kids enjoy Sunday mornings at home rather than at church. And even with a degree in theology, I find myself casting about for ideas and inspiration on how to weave faith into the fabric of our family life.

So my question for those of you raising kids in the Catholic Church is: What does it look in your family? How is your life together colored by being Catholic? What difference does it make in your week, your routine, your house or your activities?

In our house, at this season in our lives, it looks like this: Mass on the weekends. Grace before meals. Simple hymns sung along with nursery rhymes. Books about God read with books by Dr. Seuss. Learning prayers as we learn ABCs. Saying I’m sorry for lost tempers. Saying thank you for people we love.

Some days I worry we’re not doing enough. (The boys are little, but still.) Some days I blush that we’re doing too much. (Like last week when my son declared to the babysitter that “you don’t have to be scared of the shadows in your room when you nap because Jesus is always there.”)

But almost every day I find myself wishing I had more ideas and inspiration for how to lead my kids down a path that fewer and fewer people are taking these days. The road feels lonely, and not well-lit.

We all know what it looks like to have been raised Catholic. But what does it mean to do the raising ourselves?