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: nursing an older baby

A Prayer for Nursing An Older Baby:

God of nurturing love,

Trying to nurse this squirmy worm of a growing baby has become a daily wrestling match.

Each time we snuggle into the rocking chair together, I grow frustrated with how quick he is to push away, holler in protest, lunge towards anything more interesting than his mother. Long-gone are the sleepy newborn days when he would curl contentedly in my lap. As he begins to crawl, the world is his to explore; he can’t scoot out of my arms quick enough for his curiosity.

Help me to give of myself with love and patience.

Turn my eyes from the clock to my child, from my chronos schedule to your kairos moment. Let me rejoice in his eagerness; let me celebrate his growing. So many adventures await him – let my love for him be a reflection of your great love for us, steady and faithful no matter how far and wide we roam.

Thank you for the gift of nursing him. When my frustrations grow high and my temper grows short, let me remember mothers who wanted to nurse but couldn’t, or who feel guilty because they never tried, or who persevere through painful complications. Transform our anxieties into assurance that every mother’s gift of self is life-giving, sacrificial, enough.

God of goodness, each day you offer everything I need: love, patience, forgiveness. Each day I push away from your embrace in search of what seems more pressing, interesting, important. Help me, too, to rest in your love, to drink in what I need most, to be grateful for the simple ways you sustain my life.

In patience and humor, I pray –

An exasperated 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

praying the particulars

I’m willing to bet that M.D. mamas secretly troll Dr. Google for quick answers to questions about mysterious rashes and childhood ailments.

So I’ll admit that one late night recently found me googling “prayer for stressed-out mother.” (Tsk, tsk – such a poor pastoral response for a mother with a MDiv!) Yet my need was great, my desire to pray was strong, and my ability to form thoughts into words was positively shot. And despite stacks of theological volumes around me, I came up empty-handed for a prayer that spoke to my heart.

I needed someone else’s words.

While I didn’t find exactly what my Google search sought, I was delighted to uncover a treasure I’d never found before – a collection of prayers for mothers from Creighton University’s Online Ministries.

The prayer for working mothers touched my heart (and made me chuckle), but I found myself pausing at prayers that didn’t speak to my life situation. The prayer for a mother with Alzheimer’s is heart-wrenching, as is the beautiful prayer for a mother whose children are no longer at home.

What I appreciate most about these prayers is their particularity. They don’t lump experiences of motherhood into one quick blessing. Instead, each one lifts up a unique aspect of mothering. Far from closing the window to those whose lives don’t match the situation described, the sharpened focus allows prayer to reflect in many directions, like a prism’s light.

Every day perfect strangers find my blog in search of prayer. I see the words that bring them here: prayers for pregnancy, prayers for anxiety and parenting, prayers for childbirth. Sometimes I see desperate words: prayers for unexpected pregnancy, prayers for depression. I wonder if they find anything here that speaks to their need; I wonder if I could do something more to help.

But all I can do is pray my own prayers. From the particular perspective of my life, my questions, my circumstances. And yet finding those prayers for mothering that spoke about Alzheimer’s and adoption and all sorts of situations that don’t reflect my own, I realized the merits of praying the particulars: even if they are not my words, someone else’s story can shed light on my own understanding of the divine.

So I’ve started scribbling down some prayers. Prayers for particular situations that are challenging for my parenting these days. Perhaps they’ll ring true to your struggles. Or perhaps they won’t, but they’ll remind you of someone else. Or another season in your life. Or they’ll simply reflect God’s light through a part of the prism you never noticed before.

What I really hope they’ll do is inspire you to pray the particulars of your own life. Because as interesting as someone else’s words may be, the Word of God inspires each of us to speak words of our own.

So if you’re wondering just why I’ve been so stressed out lately, check back tomorrow for the first in this series. (Here’s a hint: we’re eating lots of pizza for dinner and should have bought stock in Home Depot.) Maybe by the end of the week you’ll have your own particular prayer to share, too…

What part of parenting is challenging for you this week?

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?

tantrums in the arms of a loving God

My son is currently going through what I’ve dubbed a “contrarian” stage. Our conversations often consist of nothing but clashing over basic facts.

[Editor's note: the child is also stuck in a fascinating yet aggravating stage of linguistic development in which he reverses "you" and "I," thus speaking in rhetorical statements all day long.]

Upon greeting him when waking…

Me: “Good morning, sweet love! Mama’s here to see you!”

S: “Do you NOT want Mama to be with you?”

Mathematical inquiries over breakfast…

S: “What is 5 plus 8?”

Me: “13.”

S: “Do you NOT want 5 plus 8 to be 13?”

Spelling agonies over snack…

S: “How do you spell ‘Mama’”?

Me: “M-A-M-A.”

S: “Do you NOT want it to be spelled M-A-M-A?”

His refutations of my every statement are often accompanied by whining, whimpering or wailing. As if all the NOs weren’t already enough to grate like fingernails on a chalkboard.

These are the BASIC FACTS OF THE UNIVERSE, I want to laugh (or yell). 55 will always follow 54. Sacramento will always be the capital of California. Wednesday will always come after Tuesday. Why are we wasting our time arguing about unchangable truths?

After losing my temper over one too many similar exchanges, I found myself fuming as I washed my hands. God, help me to be patient with him, I prayed, my always prayer.

Then I added, Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to have someone say “no” to your every “yes”?

At which point I caught my own eye in the mirror. And heard God give a simple reply: Yes.

My toddler’s constant naysaying is all-too-familiar, if I’m honest. Because it’s exactly what I often say to God, wrestling away from a loving embrace with all the stubborness that free will and even wilder nature bestow.

I say no to moments to love, chances to grow, opportunities to serve. In choosing my own selfish pride, I’m arguing against a basic fact of the universe: the existence of a loving Creator, in whose constant “yes” rattle all my little “nos.” Maybe being contrarian isn’t just a stage of toddlerhood; it’s a condition of being human.

I get his frustration, sympathize with his desire for control. The world can be an exasperating place to figure out. Maybe I need not just more patience, but more empathy. After all, I still refuse to accept basic facts about existence. Like the inevitable mortality of those I love. Or my own limitations. To name but a few.

Karl Rahner called it the supernatural existential – that we exist everywhere and always within God’s free offer of grace. All our yeses and nos echo within God’s one emphatic YES.

This mama calls it theologizing the terrible twos.

where i saw christ: back pew, pink coat

I glimpsed her at the back of a long line trailing down the aisle, shuffling forward in the slow side-to-side dance of people waiting their turn.

She wore a bright fuchsia trench coat, hair coiffed in a cute side sweep. Behind her bobbed the heads of two bright-eyed daughters, brunettes like their mother. In her arms she held another girl. The smallest, hair pinned back with a pink bow to match.

Did you see them come in? he whispered when he saw where I was staring. She was pushing that little one in a tiny wheelchair.

The family made their way to the front of the line. She swung the tiny girl with limp legs into the wooden chair and knelt down at her feet. Took a pitcher of water and began to pour it slowly over her daughter’s toes.

As she washed, she looked up into the girl’s face and smiled, her eyes bright. Then she dried each small foot with a fluffy white towel and gathered the child back into her arms, setting her gently on the floor. One by one her other daughters eagerly jumped into the chair. Each one received the same wide smile, the same loving attention.

While her sisters’ feet were being washed, the smallest girl began to crawl back down the aisle, dragging her legs behind her. An older woman in the front pew frowned. Without the wheelchair, she was just another antsy child.

But without a word, the mother turned and smiled, bent down to sweep the girl up into her arms and led the group back to their places in the last pew.

That’s what she does all day long, I realized, tears springing into the corners of my eyes.

She washes feet.

holy week reads, day by day

We’re on the cusp of the holiest of days.

For those who call themselves Christian, the Triduum is the most sacred time of the year. A truth often buried under piles of Easter candy, pink bunnies and plastic grass.

Each day has a distinct flavor. The earthy service of Holy Thursday: washing dirty feet and breaking bread with friends. The stark emptiness of Good Friday: lamenting death and sitting with suffering. The long stretch of Holy Saturday: wondering and waiting. And the brilliant delight of Easter Sunday: singing joy and celebrating life.

I love Triduum. Every year I slowly slip into a lackluster Lent, but always find myself on the eve of Triduum with childlike anticipation. Because the journey from Thursday to Sunday never fails to surprise as it draws me into the stories and the rituals, the sacred and the mystery.

Triduum sums up what I love about being Catholic: ritual, liturgy, Scripture, sacrament. I wrestle with my faith and my church and my God every other day of the year. But for these four days, I enter in deeply, willingly, openly.

That said, the prospect of multiple church services with a baby and a toddler in tow is practically laughable. I’m sure we’ll end up with good story material this year as we always do. And I know much of our Holy Week will be lived out at home, which is just fine, too.

To balance the mayhem we’ll bring to Mass, I’ve collected a handful of lovely reads and reflections to help celebrate each day at home, during those rare gems of quiet moments to myself. Perhaps a few will intrigue or inspire you as well:

Palm Sunday lessons from an unlikely Pontius Pilate by James Martin, SJ. “Because, as even a six-year-old knows, everyone roses from the dead.”

Strip.ped bare: Holy Week and the art of losing by Richard Lischer for Holy Thursday

Busted Halo’s excellent Virtual Stations of the Cross for Good Friday

What did Jesus do on Holy Saturday? From the Washington Post’s On Faith blog

And lest you get overwhelmed, take this advice and let one piece of the Passion rest in your thoughts this week. The whole is too much for any of us to hold.

(Especially without a good soundtrack to accompany the highs and lows.)

Happy holy week. We’re almost there.