Life These Days

 Somehow we have hit a rhythm that is working this semester. Maybe it is working for me because I get to sleep until my Lyme diseased body is ready to wake up, and the professor is doing the work of getting the children up for the day. But I think that perhaps he is okay with things as well, especially since we put our feet down earlier this year and made all the children ages 5 and up responsible for getting themselves ready and fed in the morning.

I have been waking up around 8 am most days to the sound of my children laughing and playing outside my door. By the time I am dressed and out of my room, the school aged children are hard at work at the dining room table, and the professor is working beside them. His sabbatical has become a semester of studious contemplation for us all. Once I am able to manage the school and teach the subjects that need teaching (about half of their work is independent requiring very little one on one instruction), the professor disappears to do his work away from the chaos of four children.

I guide the children through school until lunchtime at 12:30pm. We have fourth grader, second grader, kindergartner, and a three year old bundle of energy this year. Mostly the younger two entertain themselves with continual reminders to play somewhere else when they intrude upon school space. I do make time to work on math, reading, and handwriting with my kindergartner, and my preschooler is gleaning all sorts of things like counting, colors, playing blocks, building duplos, coloring, from his older sister.

We have found our rhythm in the elementary school level as well. I am used to our curriculum for each subject now (though fourth grade singapore math is getting intimidating--I can't remember at what grade level I learned the order of operations...but we just covered it!), so teaching is going smoothly.

Lunchtime has become super easy as well since we instituted the "make your own lunch" rule. To clarify, we have guidelines about this for them--they choose from a small variety of healthy options. The older children then move the dishwasher along after lunch while listening to a fairy story from the Andrew Lang Fairy Books (which we learned recently were actually compiled by his wife and some of her friends!).

After lunch is nap time for the three year old and quiet time for the rest of us. The girls and I start of each quiet time with a short prayer time where I read the daily Mass readings to them and then we reflect quietly (or look through saint books or children's Bibles) for ten minutes. They go off to their quiet time spots for an hour and I settled into reading theology for about an hour (trying to get through St. Gregory the Great's Morals on the Book of Job before Christmas), and then whatever writing or editing work I need to do for that day.

We have streamlined dinner meals to be shorter an easier these last few years, so I can usually get away with working until 4:30 or so before I cook dinner (which I have been able to do these past two weeks...this Lyme will be beaten!).

At dinner we will often have a discussion topic. We cover one painting and one work of music a week. Lately, we have been reading through the Constitution and discussing it. About once a week we watch Ken Burn's National Park's documentary with dinner, and that sparks discussion as well--our kids are turning into environmentalists! Sometimes we will discuss a question from St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae. Then the professor reads to us from the Bible--a chapter of the Old Testament and a chapter of the New Testament in order. We have been doing this for over three years and it is so great to hear it, and for the children to learn salvation history in a family setting.

After dinner, I take my crazy amount of meds (had a morning dose as well), and help the professor clean the kitchen.

We get the kids to bed in a leisurely way with family prayers, stories, and lots of "last drinks" and visits to the bathroom. The professor reads to the older kids from a chapter book. They just finished Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, and are reading The Story of King Arthur and His Knights by Howard Pyle. It is the second time through for King Arthur, but the younger kids do not remember it.

Once everyone is in bed, the professor and I have been indulging in Star Trek: Enterprise. We were both into Star Trek in high school, gave it up in college, and tapped back into it our first years of marriage. This series is new to us, and has been a good way to enjoy the evening quiet while I have been sick. We usually have time for reading as well. I just finished Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray, and am now plowing through my second reading of Framely Parsonage by Anthony Trollope.

So, despite the annoyance of being sick since we got back from our wonderful trip Out West, I am finding a peaceful enjoyment in the studiousness of our life these days. I think it is good for the kids and for us to spend our days in study, even if my two afternoon hours does not seem like that much, it does wonders for me. This is the home school life I dreamed of, and I wish the professor's sabbatical would last forever...and maybe we could avoid all the extra curricular activities that have not yet started...

Lazy Summer Days

It is summer break time here in the Spencer home. This means that we get to experience all the benefits of having a professor in our home. The grading is finished except for a few stray papers, and we can enjoy each and everyday as a family.

The professor likes to spend his summer weekdays working. He starts work in his study shortly after the kids are dressed and fed or after we go to morning mass, and the girls go to play. I am experiencing a new freedom in having older children. They are mostly self sufficient when it comes to entertaining themselves. They go outside or stay inside and imagine and play all together.

I serve up the occasional snack, lend a hand in the occasional bodily need, and serve out just punishments when necessary. The baby tags along with the girls or plays on the floor wherever I am. It is slow, lazy, and wonderful.

I have a long list of things to do that I did not get to over the past few months when school time was the priority. We have weddings to go to soon and vacations planned. But we also have the long lazy days of summer. We have the grilled meats and vegetables, the cool salads, the iced tea and cold press coffee. We have the hours for reading and writing. We have the joys of family activities. We have the green things growing in the garden.

I can't help but think of what the professor wrote about yesterday when he spoke of the end of lilactime.

"But it is also well that the lilacs die. There is something enervating about too much spring vitality. One longs at moments, even as summer swells its glorious fruit, for the hard angles of Winter. To be ever soft and rococo, to turn the good sentiments of love to the banalities of tenderness and sentimentality--this is intolerable."

The summer is only sweet because we have persevered through the winter. We had a lovely autumn, a cold winter, waited with anticipation at the bursts of warmth we had in spring and finally a final frost in mid-May, and now we can fully appreciate the glories of summer. But summer, too, will come to an end, as lilactime has. But for now, I am anticipating and savoring everyday of this warmth, and the joys of cold salads and cool drinks and lazy summer days.

When the Professor Started a Blog

My husband, aka "M", aka "the professor", started a blog this week. He has been talking about it for awhile. As I read his first two posts, I found something beautifully familiar. I found part of the reason I fell in love with him in the first place.

You see, I absolutely love to read his writing. It is so beautiful, the way he puts things, the way he describes things. And I am in absolute awe that he can write something so beautiful and flawless in 30 minutes. And he did it two days in a row! I expect that everyday will be beautiful and worth reading. I am excited to see the things he is thinking and feeling written down, day after day.

During our first year of college, we were in a weekly writer's group which had been organized by a mutual friend. We read things we had been writing or had written to each other. It may have been a bit too much for college freshmen to handle and not fall in love with each other; I think that we already were inclined to like each other. But in hearing what he wrote, I found a kindred spirit.

And when I read what he has to say about beauty and romance in the springtime, it reminds me of the sonnets we used to write for each other when we were falling in love the first time.

The summer which we both read the book Severe Mercy by Sheldon VanAuken, which the professor mentioned today, we also wrote each other letters. He was walking across the country with other pro-life college students with the ministry Crossroads Pro-life, and I was taking five philosophy courses (to graduate a semester earlier) and working 40 hour weekends at Steubenville conferences.

It was that summer that we realized that we wanted to get married. We wrote each other letters. Mine arrived at the house I was living in for the summer and his were sent to host families who passed them onto him.

Those letters were wonderful to get. When one would arrive I would always take it to a quiet place and savor every word. And then I would read it again.

And the book, which is a memoir of a love story, gave us a guide on which to ground our relationship. It showed us that a purposeful planning of how to preserve our love was necessary if we wanted to maintain our "inloveness." I believe that we still have our "inloveness', and it grows deeper every year. And I wonder if as the professor writes his blog this summer and I read it that I will fall in love all over again.

At the NCRegister Blog: 4 Ways to Form a Sacramental Imagination in Children

When my husband and I began discussing ideas for our family life together, we wanted to develop the sacramental worldview in ourselves and in any children we would have. Now that we have four children, I think that we can safely say that some of our ideas are working: our children seem to have sacramental imaginations.

The place where humans process their experience of the world is in their imaginations. In the imagination, our sensory experience and our rationality meet. And it seems that having a well-developed, active imagination is essential to experiencing the true sacramentality of the world and living in a truly human way. With a good imagination, it is easy to experience God in our daily, mundane lives. And with a good imagination, a person is unable to reduce the world to a pure science, which the mentality that mainstream society has embraced.

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/sspencer/4-ways-to-form-a-sacramental-imagination-in-children/#ixzz49XEyvNtv

Finding my Normal

There is that day after each pregnancy (well, besides the first one), that I have felt "normal" again. My mind is clear again; I feel like I have emerged from the fog that I was in since the beginning of pregnancy. And my old jeans fit again (the ones I got after baby #2).

It has been 11 months since T was born, and 11 weeks since my concussion, and the past few days I have felt myself again. I can't remember exactly when it happened after the other babies. I think with my third it took over a year. With my second, I am not sure, maybe 10 months? I ran a 5k when she was that age. And with my first, it was not until my second was 10 months, because, you can never go back to your pre-first-baby self.

Another thing about this post-baby time is that this is the first time we have lived three years in one home since we were married. This is the first time we are coming to the end of four school years in one place and we are not moving somewhere else.

We are here, in Minnesota. The roots we make here are not going to be taken up, if life continues as it has been going. The friends we have made we are not about to leave. We are here, and it is a little strange, but it is also good.

Life is moving forward, but we also have stability. The school year is coming to an end. The professor is on campus more than normal, but the end is in sight with last week being the last week of classes. It will probably be the last week of home school classes as well. Math and English are wrapping up.

And I feel like a normal human being (as normal as I can be when I my values seem to be radically different from most of the rest of the people in my country). I have had a four-plus hour stretch of sleep in the middle of the wake ups at night for the past week. I am functioning above baseline this week.

And despite all the things going on the world, I feel that life is good. It is good that we are here, and we are so blessed.

7 Hopes that I Had for Family Life While in College

In my research for writing the second installment of the story of my relationship with M, I have been reading my old prayer journals. First of all, why was everything so dramatic in college? Second, of all it has been fascinating seeing who I was then and seeing how I have changed, and how I still need to improve.

One of the things I came across was how I imagined family life would be. M and I had a lot of serious discussion during our time in Austria, and this was a topic that came up as we wondered if and when we should date again. It is kind of fun to see how I hoped life would be. Here are a few of the hopes that came true.

1. "Husband in charge of kids so that she can work on her book or read a novel"
Now I have not written a book, but I am doing a lot more writing than I once did in my married life. I do feel that writing has been a kind of fulfillment for me these last few years that I had forgotten about when we first had children. Usually it happens not while M is watching the kids, but during our daily quiet times or after the kids are in bed. And I am finding plenty of time for reading novels and other things.


2. "Group of women to spend time with"Developing friendships always takes time, but it is worth the effort. Everytime I get together with lady friends or have a good conversation online, I am reminded of how important it is for women to support and have each other in their lives. It is especially helpful with family life to have the support of other women.

3. "Family meal time is sacred"
When the professor works at home, we sometimes have all three meals together. In fact, he would forget to eat lunch sometimes if it were not for the family eating lunch with him (#philosopherproblems). Family mealtime has become crucial to our spiritual life and cultural life as well, since it is at these times we pray together, read Scripture together, or at lunch read fairy tales together.

4. "I do not want stacks"-This means "no clutter."
We are not always the best at this, especially on select spots on the counter, the dining room table which doubles as the pre-K craft table, but we have become pretty good at having a spot for everything, and eliminating the offending stacks fairly often. We also purge the house a couple of times a year of things we do not need.

5."Children should be everywhere"--but God is in charge
I had a strong desire for a large family in college, but also realized that when it comes to having children, we only have so much control. Bringing new people into the world/adding to the perfection of the universe is not something to be taken lightly. And I am so thankful I have been blessed with these four amazing human beings. Sometimes I look at them all together and it blows my mind that I bore them all in my womb, gave birth to them, and tended to their basic needs day in and day out. How did I get to four children already?

6. Home cooked meals
I love home cooked meals, and I love cooking home cooked meals. But I also love the ease of ordering out when I need to, or just would like a break. Food is yummy!

7. Close tight-knit family
This is something I had growing up in my own home. So far the kids are all really close, and I figure if we do what we can to promote a close family, it will probably happen.

Linking up with Kelly at This Ain't the Lyceum on Seven Quick Takes Friday!

Seven Quick Takes, Friday, Nov. 13

1. I have not done quick takes in over a month. The thing is, they are not exactly quick to write, but I have about 30 minutes if the baby stays asleep, so I am going to give it a go.

2. A month ago, I was dying of lack of sleep. Seriously. Well, not really, but since then the baby has popped in two teeth, we did a bit of sleep training/letting him learn how to fall asleep without being bounced vigorously (yes, it was that bad). And instead of waking every 90 minutes and taking 40 to get back to sleep, he is we are getting stretches as long as 5 hours, and I am only waking most nights 2 times to nurse him. Guys, it is amazing. I feel like a person again.

3. Now that I am no longer a zombie, I am thinking a lot more clearly. When we finish a school day I can manage a chore or two before lunch rather than just staring off. When we make it to quiet time I am actually able to write things instead of a mindless Facebook experience. And we are getting at least one long nap a day out of the baby, the other one is usually not as good, but still.

4. Someone woke up.

It is tricky to type with a baby on your lap, but I am going to give it a go. Also, here you see my haircut I just got literally an hour ago. I always say two inches and add some layers and I feel like after the layers they have shorn off at least 4 inches.

5. I realized that I was getting boring back when T would not sleep as I was only and always talking about it, so I am going to really try to think of something else to write about, like how G finally got that one math concept down this week that we spent three agonizing days on and I finally asked M to explain it to her and she got it in five minutes. Or how the kids stopped screaming as much, well for like two days. My mom and dad are coming next week. I have not seen them since June, so we are pretty excited to see them. I think they are excited to see this baby who has doubled in weight since they last saw him. Oh, baby again. Sorry.

6. I finished two books in the last week. The first was Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens which was about as Dickensesque as you could want. He has a way of describing grimy, dirty places that just makes me feel icky and gritty and sometimes even nauseated. M suggested that I write about our free system of English laws, but I am not going to. Second book, the letters of Sts. Louis and Zelie Martin (A Call to a Deeper Love). It was soooo good. I am writing something up on it, so look for that soon. But really, just read it yourself, especially if you are married and a mom.

7. This week I started In This House of Brede by Rumor Godden. We found it at Loomes over Labor Day weekend, and it is beautiful so far. I like books that make me a better person, and this seems to be one of them. So were the letters. M this week finished Emma by Jane Austen and has decided that it is one of the most brilliant English language novels ever, and then he started Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.

And that about sums up life lately, baby, homeschooling, books, and writing projects. There are few coming out soon, stay tuned...

Linking up with Kelly at This Ain't the Lyceum!

When the Professor went to Boston in the Fall...

I don't know how some moms do it all the time: parent for days without their husband or even make it through the night with an infant without their husband home and available for backup.

Some cute kid in Boston in the Summer of 2010.

The Professor went to a conference last weekend, and his wonderful mother cheerfully agreed to fly out from Michigan and help me while he was gone. The great thing about my MIL being here is that she makes not just bedtime and mealtime easier without M, but she makes all day long easier. The kids are happy to play with her, she is happy to give them all of her attention, but she also helps keep them disciplined. She even held baby T more than he normally gets held.

When I picked M up from the airport (30 minutes after dropping off his mother for her return flight), he said, "You know, it sounds like you actually had a good weekend." And he was right, I think that I did. But I did because I put myself into survival mode, and anything beyond the minimum was a bonus. And we got beyond the minimum after the first day.

My biggest worries when M is gone revolve around sleeping. I worried the whole week leading up to his conference whether I would be able to handle the baby at night without him. I have said this before, but this baby is not the best at nursing right back down at night and often requires means beyond nursing to get to sleep. So, I was imagining being up ALL NIGHT, EVERY NIGHT and not being able to get the baby to sleep. (Keep in mind he has had teething bumps in his mouth getting bigger daily.)

But this was not the case Thursday night. Thursday night, I had no trouble getting T to go back to sleep when he woke up. The trouble was that he woke up every hour. I was such a zombie when he woke, that I did not think: maybe he is waking up because his diaper is full since he has nurse like 6 times already since 7pm or I am cold and maybe I should turn the furnace on and the baby might sleep better.

So, Friday it was the minimum, well even less than the minimum. The minimum required the morning at our twice a month co-op. I left F(normally I fight her to stay in the nursery classroom) at home with Grandma, and spent all of the co-op holding the baby and drinking coffee in the mom's hangout/discussion part of co-op. In the afternoon I took a nap, and ordered pizza for dinner. I had planned a dinner that takes about 15 minutes to put together, but I could not even do that. That would mean explaining it to my MIL and I had no ability to do so. So, we ordered pizza. That was good.

I started asking people for prayers that T would let me get some sleep that night, and took a few precautionary measures for Friday night. I turned the furnace on so the baby would not get cold, and made a plan to not nurse him if he woke every hour but try walking and bouncing him instead. But he only woke every 2 hours, only requiring nursing, which was great in my book. And I got him back down every time!

Saturday went well. My goals for me were: grocery shopping, running, and showering. And we got them all done around playing with the girls, getting T to nap, and the afternoon quiet times. We went out to our favorite family restaurant for dinner and T slept the whole time there.

Saturday night: I had been reading Bl. Zelie Martin's letters. In one she talked about how she had her daughter pray to the baby brother who had died in infancy to intercede for the healing of a two week long awful ear infection. The ear was better the next day. So, I thought, why not pray to our little one, JP, and ask for him to intercede for T to sleep comfortably, because I have been attributing bad sleep to teething. Well, we had three longer stretches, including a 3.5 hour one.

Then, Sunday Mass: WE ALL STAYED IN THE PEW! There may have been a lot of whispering from the younger girls, but for the most part, everyone behaved well. Hooray!

In the afternoon, we picked up the Professor, and as we were circling through the passenger pick up, waiting for M to be let off his plane, the girls reflected on how it is "just not the same with Daddy gone."

And now my survival mode is over; we made it! This morning (thanks to academic schedules M was home most of today), we sat and drank our coffee chatting for about a half an hour before I had to start school. It was so pleasant to have a normal day begin, and I feel about 10x less stressed this week than I did last week, like I might be able to do something beyond home schooling this week.

I realized that the impending conference had been weighing on me, but I also realized that I can do the baby care alone at night if I need to. But it is still really nice at 5:30am when the baby won't quite settle to be laying in bed, knowing that he will be put back to sleep by his father. What is even nicer is that M has such a good touch with this baby that he resettled him at nap (while I was running) and extended the baby's nap by two hours. Baby is awake and kicking now, but and awake baby is much easier to blog next to than anyone else around here...

The Interim State Conference in Idaho: AKA "Our Second Honeymoon"

Apparently M and I went on our "second honeymoon" last week, deemed so by our philosopher friend who happened to be at the same conference in Idaho with his family (we will call them "the P's"). Who wouldn't want their second honeymoon to take place with a newborn tagging along at a philosophy conference on a lovely lake in Idaho. 

What better topic to have in mind on a second honeymoon than that awkward "Interim State" between Death and the Resurrection of the body. Will that really be us existing without our bodies or do we need our bodies to be us? Or will we really us but just not as complete as we should be? 

If you want to know these answers, look for some published papers that will be accepted for publication in the next 12-24 months and published in about 4-6 years once the journals make it through their backlog. Well, maybe some journals will manage to publish them in about 3...

The river and mountains between Boise and McCall, Idaho.

 So, the story starts last Tuesday when, Aunt J and Uncle T arrived to spend the night. The next morning, after dropping M, baby T, and I at the airport, the girls and the relatives headed to the farm in Wisconsin for the duration of our trip.

We flew for the first time with any of our children this trip, and traveling with just a newborn (that happens to be our fourth newborn) is super easy. Plus, everyone is deceived into thinking your baby is well-behaved because he just acts like all other newborns: eat, poop, sleep, repeat. The worst part of it was nights, because my rocking chair did not fit on the airplane. I think that hotels should offer rocking chairs as well as roll-away cribs.

The mountain range around McCall.

 So back to Wednesday, we were whisked through security at the airport and enjoyed a quiet early lunch. The flight was easy breezy as T slept the whole way until descent. He did not seem to mind the pressure changes. We enjoyed an early dinner and a local brew while we awaited our shuttle to McCall. A conference participant was on our flight, so they embarked on the philosophical discussion even then. It lasted the 2.5 hour whole shuttle ride with other conference participants. We met a lot of really neat philosophers at this conference. You would like them... even if some are wrong in their views... ;)

By the time we got to the hotel, T had had enough, and fussed for the next 4 hours until he fell asleep for 3 hours, woke up and then slept 3 more hours. So, Thursday morning, we were somewhat rested. Though I survived the morning on three cups of hotel coffee.

Ponderosa State Park, McCall, Idaho.

Thursday morning (while the Interim State was discussed in depth at the hotel by the conference participants) involved going to a state park with other philosophy families and their children and getting lost in the woods with some members of the P family. It was a nice hike. The one and four year old were really into the Idaho squirrel.

This is before we knew we were lost.

Being a fan of Terence Malick films has forever ruined being in the woods for me in that I hear Jim Caviezel's voice in my head as I look up at trees saying things like, "all things shining" and "the glory".

It was a beautiful day and I really did experience the glory in those woods.

Once we were rescued, we made it back to the hotel and I went out to lunch with M and a neat family (the B's), napped with the baby in the hotel room while the conference went on, and then went out for a steak dinner with lots of participants and their families.

Friday morning was high 50s and windy, but we braved the beach and took in the view. When you are six weeks old on a day like this, you prefer to stay snuggled up to Mom.

The lake and the mountains were amazing. Once again we had lunch with the philosophers and rested in the hotel for the afternoon and watched the other families swim at the pool. Dinner involved fish and chips, two locally brewed beers, lively discussion on Purgatory, C.S. Lewis, and liturgy, and this amazing dessert! Since it is called a "grasshopper", I highly recommend it for any feast of St. John the Baptist, except for his beheading when you have to eat cabbage.

Taste the glory.

And here is the first photo ever taken of just M and his son, which is not really, because we have all of those strangers mulling around in the background. I could not get him to smile. Maybe he is contemplating being in the Interim State and is not happy about it.

This was about as romantic as our "Second Honeymoon" got: A chilly walk to the lake as the sun was setting. I was longing for a sweater, and the baby was about to hit "fussy hour."

Saturday, I leisurely read a book and drank coffee while the baby napped in his stroller and carseat. The conference ended at lunchtime, so we once again discussed philosophy over lunch (I mostly listened), and shuttled back to Boise for the night. Don't even ask how the night at the Airport Inn went. Let's just say we got coffee at the airport.

See, we went to the airport!

Here in this second photograph with "just" his son, M is kind of smiling, but the airport guy with the sticks is photo bombing.

We made it home safely to St. Paul, and Uncle T got us from the airport. The girls were happy and waiting for us.

So, ended our "second honeymoon." I hope I get to go to another conference sometime before the next seven years are up...

A few last thoughts:
-Philosophy conferences are fun! Free hotels and eating out every meal! Also, always lively discussions at every meal!
-It takes three disposable baby wipes to do the work that one cloth wipe can do.
-It is nice to be able to talk to other adults for 4 days without interruptions beyond that of a needy newborn.
-I missed my other kids by the end.
-Hotels really need to have rocking chairs in the rooms, not just wrought iron ones at the pool.

Seven Quick Takes: One for Each Year of Marriage

I married a really amazing guy seven years ago this month (believe it or not I began writing this before our anniversary almost two weeks ago). It is really hard to believe that it has been seven whole years, but I am not sure we could have done everything we have in less than seven years. And none of these things we could have accomplished without Grace and the mutual help we provide each other.

Seven years later, we have 4 children, a PhD (his, not mine), a great job with great colleagues (again, his, not mine), 14 peer reviewed publications (his), an awesome blog (mine), a house perfect for us, friends all over the country, a great parish, and hopefully a life of increasing grace, holiness, and love. And since we have made it seven years, I will take a peek at what each year brought us.

1. Year One: Our first year of marriage began a month after we both earned our Masters of Arts (theology for me, philosophy for him). We had a great wedding with lots of family and friends. We were married in St. Louis, honeymooned in MI, and moved to Buffalo, NY by July.

Our first year was the first of our thriftiness. Together we worked to live on a very small budget. The first summer was hard in many ways as M worked in a factory for six weeks (6:30am-3pm), I battled morning sickness and looked for work, and we worked on establishing friendships. M did everything possible to make way for a four year PhD track, working with his adviser on his Topical even then, excelling in coursework, working to publish papers from his coursework.

Nine months in we had our first little girl, and she has been our worst newborn sleeper by far. But we persevered through the first months of parenting, M supporting me all the way, doing work at home, changing diapers, spending hours awake at night with the baby. Our first anniversary we celebrated while visiting my sister and her family in Illinois.

A week before our 1 year anniversary.

2. Year Two: Our second year we continued to live in our one bedroom apartment, and having a baby brought me into the world of playdates with other awesome Catholic moms. We spent hours together at least one morning a week, fed each other, supported each other. M continued to excel in his work, and I worked part-time with G tagging along in a Religious Education office. By the time of our second anniversary, I was three months pregnant with our second and we had moved down the street to our two bedroom apartment.

In the Boston Commons in August after a day of sight seeing.

3. Year Three: It always seems like it takes a good two years to feel established in a city for me. At that point, you call it home without thinking any more. This year, we got more comfortable in Buffalo as our friendships were strong, our family was growing here, and we knew it would be our home for a couple of more years. M spent the summer doing dissertation research, and then decided to write something like two pages of his dissertation a day during that school year.

 
L came the First Sunday of Advent, and it was my favorite Advent. For some reason it is easier to sit around and rest when the rest of the world is rushing to buy gifts in the daily Buffalo snowfall. We did not travel that Christmas, but family came to us, and by the time Christmas was over, I was ready to be up and about.

Going to a wedding in Buffalo.

 4. Year Four: Here begins the most stressful time of our marriage. That summer M finished his dissertation drafts, and got ready to apply for jobs. Everything was up in the air about where we were going to be after this year. It was a very bittersweet year as well, as we have awesome friends in Buffalo, and while we wanted him to get a job, we knew we would have to leave.

Thanksgiving trip to visit (great) grandparents in Georgia.

M applied to 80 job openings, some more relevant to his expertise than others. Right after Christmas he went to the APA conference for interviews, and then spent all of February flying out to various on-campus interviews. February 17, he got the job offer in St. Paul, and life seemed a lot brighter. But then we had to find housing, pack up, say goodbye, and move. We had a lovely vacation weekend with friends about a month before we moved.

5. Year Five: Our fourth anniversary was our last in Buffalo, we then embarked on a five week interim, leaving our stuff in Michigan in my in-laws garage and basement. I was second trimester pregnant with F that summer. It was stressful and relaxing at the same time. By August we were moved into a colleague's house in St. Paul (they had funding to do a year of research elsewhere).

During our five week tour of the midwest.

Once unpacked, I spent a lot of time getting ready for baby and trying to get oriented in our new city. It helped that the philosophy department is full of awesome Catholic families, and we got to know some people right away. But even so, nothing prepared me for having a newborn right at the beginning of my first Minnesota Winter.

That winter we decided to buy a house, I was treated for postpartum depression, I started writing for Truth and Charity, we house hunted, we bought a house, and we adjusted to having three kids. It was a lot. 

6. Year Six: Newly moved into our 1950s first ring suburban house, we thought things would finally settle down. We took an awesome vacation with our closest college friends and all the children resulting from marriages since college, only to come home to the great basement flood of 2013. Our finished basement was waterlogged. Fortunately, it was an interior leak, and insurance covered an entire renovation of our basement. I suppose it was worth the five months of waiting for insurance companies, contractors, and all of that home renovation hassle to have a brand-newly finished basement.

Summer of the flood.

Once the basement was complete, we tried to settle into normal life. But by March we learned we were expecting again and by early May we had buried our first child, JP (lost through miscarriage). I again faced PPD, and by our sixth anniversary we were ready to have a happy year. We had already been through so much. I believe that our little baby in Heaven blessed us in our marriage, and we have grown better and stronger since the.

7. Year Seven: This last year has been one of healing and peace for me (for the most part). We enjoyed our vegetable garden, canning, and house painting last summer. I finally got used to three little girls, and we learned about little T (born three weeks ago) in September. We have settled well into our house. M is still very happy in his work. And my hesitation about having another baby has been overcome.

We had a successful kindergarten homeschooling year, survived a not so bad winter which brought us up to over 20 degrees nearly once a week. M and I dabbled in movie reviewing (more still to come!). Things are going great! We have been so blessed in our marriage and in our life, and I would say something more profound but baby brain has gotten the best of me.

All the family that came out for T's baptism last weekend. Four generations worth including great grandparents, grandparents, us (parents), and our children, plus cousins and great-aunt and uncle! And this is about 5% of the whole immediate extended family that M and I have.

And since these are supposed to be quick takes, I am linking up super late with Kelly at This Ain't the Lyceum.

Seven Quick Takes: Friday, November 7

1. My (philosopher) husband just called, and I asked him if I should write quick takes today. His response?

"There are no Quick Takes; Only the Mind."

2. Two years ago right now I was in labor with this one (the one that looks 2, not that other one):

A realistic depiction of a child: frizzy hair and food on her face.

Now she eats corn dogs. I have never had all of my out-of-womb children over the age of two. Does that make sense?

3. For her birthday, I decided to replace the long destroyed toy stroller cover. I sewed it in about 90 minutes last night. No, I am not opening an Etsy shop, though I know you all really want hand made, badly machine stitched, toy stroller covers. I am pretty pleased with the result, and so is F. We let her open two presents first thing because she would have just about lost it if she could not find her stroller all day. She is happiest about having a buckle.

NOT for sale. I love this fabric pattern.

4. F and I finished weaning this week. We were down to naps and bedtimes and well, being pregnant makes barely nursing not very nice at all. So, we decided it was time to be done. Two years is the longest I have ever nursed a baby (17 and 19 months for G and L). She seems cool with it, and we make sure to be cuddly before bed during our old nursing time. And for the record, I have now been pregnant and/or nursing for 6 1/3 years straight.

Things I made in this picture (all recycled from previous years): St. Joan's armor/vest, St. Gemma's cloak, St. Lucy's skirt.

5. Here is our All Saints picture. I did not have time to take one before the evening Mass we went to, so we only have a poorly lit, after party, past bedtime, high on sugar photos.

6. When I got home from the grocery store last Saturday, the children spent about 10 minutes pretending to be cows and pushing around gallon milk jugs before I decided that the milk should probably be put away. Who would have thought milk could be so much fun?

F is getting so big.

7. So, did I just prove that there actually are quick takes and not just the mind? I don't know. But you philosophers out there can debate that amongst yourselves. I am going to go have some snickers bars now... (fun size)



Linking up again with Jen at Conversion Diary.

It's a BABY!

My philosopher mom friend suggested that I name this post, "It's an individual substance of a rational nature." I can't escape the philosophers!

I know that publicly announcing a pregnancy at seven weeks along with a due date that is not until the beginning of next June might make people feel a wee bit uncomfortable, but I really cannot keep blog silence about it anymore.

You may be aware that yesterday was Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day. But you may not be aware that today is the feast of St. Gerard Majella, patron of expectant mothers. How beautiful that the days fall right next to each other. We have been praying especially to St. Gerard this pregnancy, from the very beginning of its possibility.

On Monday we had an ultrasound. I was in trepidation of this ultrasound for weeks, but also really thankful for all of the symptoms I have been having no matter how uncomfortable they have made me. For the record, they have not been that bad yet. Despite the lingering all day "morning" sickness, I have not once actually gotten sick. It is a struggle to eat certain all vegetables. I have been pregnant enough times to know how to not push my limit and figure out what I can get to my stomach without too much trouble (pizza, Chinese food, potato chips...there are some healthy things, I promise). I even have been eating salad (smothered in sweet raspberry vinaigrette). And the thought of cooking and eating dinner is wholly unappetizing. 

Back to the ultrasound. I could not face the 20 minute drive to our family clinic alone. The last time I drove in for an early ultrasound was the day we found out that JP was no longer alive. I did not want to see this baby alone. So, we dropped the kids off with a friend, and M drove.

After checking in a waiting about three minutes we headed back to the ultrasound room with the tech. After a little talk about dates and whatnot she turned out the light and began the scan.

The arrow is pointing to the baby.

I stared anxiously at the screen waiting to see something, and the tech immediately said, "Do you see the baby's heartbeat?" And there it was fluttering at 145 BPM in the tiny little body just beginning to have arms and legs and hands. The baby was alive and well. Tears filled my eyes as I gripped M's hand, and I felt so relieved that this baby was still with us, that this baby might be born in eight months time. Since the ultrasound my "morning" sickness has been in full force (still no physical evidence of it, thankfully), but this baby really is making itself know!

And now we wanted to share it with all of you, and ask your prayers for the health of our baby and my health. Your prayers carried us through the loss of JP, and I am so thankful that I can ask you once again to pray for a tiny little baby of ours.

I want to share with any expectant mothers and those hoping to have another baby a wonderful order of monks. The Transalpine Redemptorists in Scotland have a first class relic of St. Gerard, and if you send them an email or a letter they are more than happy to touch a small piece of fabric to the relic and send you in the mail a third class relic of St. Gerard. They do ask that you donate the cost of shipping, but are happy to mail it either way. It comes on a long enough ribbon to tie around your ribcage, and I have been in the habit of keeping it in my pillowcase (that is why it is wrinkly). The relic and sacramental serves as a good reminder to ask for the intercession of the patron of mothers and expectant mothers, as well as having physical contact with a holy saint in Heaven.

In Dread of Bedtime: Going Solo

I am a fairly spoiled stay at home mom in terms of the help I get from my working husband. My husband as a university professor has a fairly light schedule of hours that he must be physically "at work." This means most days in the summer and on his long Christmas break, I have him at home. He works those days in his study, and then comes up for lunch and is done for the day by five o'clock. This does not mean he has to commute at five, he is upstairs from his study and talking to me and changing diapers. During the semester, he goes to campus 3-4 days of the week, and works at home at least two afternoons. This means that once I get the kids settled in nap/quiet time, I can escape for an hour to my haven of the treadmill in M's study in the middle of the afternoon. Then, I get to take a shower. I also do this on the weekend afternoons. It is wonderful.

M at work upstairs in the afternoon.

Then there is bedtime. After dinner (which I cook), M does the dishes, and then we put the kids to bed. We do this together. On bath night I take care of the two older one's while M does the youngest, and on non-bath nights I dress the one year old and he encourages the older two. We do our family prayers together, while I nurse my still nursing 22 month old. (I asked her last night, "Are you going to nurse until you are two?" Her response, "Yah!") Then I put the "baby" to bed, and M tucks the girls in and reads them a chapter of our current bedtime story. It is nice, and it is a great routine.

Tonight it is not going to be that way. Tonight, M has a Dinner and Talk he is going to, and I have had a slowly growing dread of the post nap time. I think I am going to have to pull the Skype card while I make our heart, butterfly, and flower shaped mac and cheese and fish sticks. For the record, I never cook like that. When M is home, I like to cook like this (steak is like a once every two months things):

Steak and Bearnaise sauce, grilled veggies, baked red potato wedges. (Well, M does the grilling)

If we get the food eaten by 6pm, I should be able to clean the whole kitchen before bedtime. Then I can manage the PJs and teeth brushing. I can manage the prayers and nursing. I can manage putting F down while the other two bounce around wait quietly in their beds. I can even read them a story.

But what I dread is the after story, after tucked in, waiting for them to actually sleep. I can count on them coming out of their beds at least three or four times for "one last" prayer, hug, drink, potty, etc.

But maybe tonight will be different. Maybe tonight, they will remember that I have been "meaning what I say" for a few weeks now, and listen to me. So, I will face it courageously, and pray for patience (and obedience). Also, to the Archangels...who should intercede for us extra on Michaelmas.

Seven Quick Takes, Friday, September 12

1. I have heard from other moms about having a bad week or day this week, and I confess that it has been particularly rough for me here in the Spencer house, especially trying to figure out how to parent an almost four year old. I hope that part of it is just the end of the threes and transitioning into not needing a daily nap. I also know that part of it is my lax parenting with her, and that my parenting must be balanced with my personality. So, I have made some parenting plans, and I hope that by sticking with them, with all the kids, I will stop losing it entirely with them. You know you need to change something when you are confessing being impatient with your kids regularly...

2. Today has been the best day all week, and not just because it is Friday. I know that my success in not losing it will not be so easy every day, but I plan to persevere even on the hard days. We did our morning hourish of reading, catechism, math (sandpaper number tracing), and then for writing practice the girls made birthday cards for two different "C"'s who have birthdays a week apart and are also 20 years apart in age. G (5) and L (3) worked on the cards for two hours, and F (22 months) and I worked on the weekly sheet and towel laundry along with the biannual-seasonal-clothing-dresser-swap.

3. The biannual-seasonal-clothing-dresser-swap is biannual, because it seems we only have two seasons in Minnesota: Winter and Summer. (We even have the furnace on today to keep the house from dipping to jacket weather.) For those of you not familiar with this, it means that I changed out all the summer clothes for winter clothes and checked the sizes of clothes to see what fits whom. Anyway, I used to think the whole changing sizes and seasons thing was a chore with just G, and now it takes a whole morning with three! I imagine that one day the older girls will be able to do more of it themselves. We also had a basketful of clothes handed down to us from a friend I had to sift through. As it is we have way to many pants and tops for the girls for the cold weather, and not nearly enough dresses and skirts. I did the skirt thing with leggings for them last winter, but they had holes in the knees by mid-February and that is not going to cut it. So, we are going the more practical pants route. Is it weird to put skirts over colored skinny jeans? Because I might just encourage that. They are so much cuter in skirts!

The hungry hawk is in possession of this squirrel's sibling on the other side of the Ash.

4. Wednesday I noticed four baby squirrels coming out of a nest in our backyard Ash tree. They were squeaking and climbing up and down the tree, and were pretty cute to watch. M even stopped work for a minute to admire them.

The Circle of Life moves us all.

Then yesterday I glanced out the nursery window, and saw a young hawk with a baby squirrel pinned under its feet. I mentioned it to G and L and they started shrieking and sobbing, "No! No! Chase it away! Don't let it kill the squirrel!" Knowing that M would want to see the event, I called him up from the study to calm down and explain to the girls about how hawks have to eat as well. All animals have a purpose, and hawks is to eat baby squirrels. The girls stopped screaming, but were not convinced of the goodness of the hawk. At least it was free-range "happy" squirrel veal, right?

5. I was nominated for the 10 book challenge, under the rule that I list 10 that have stayed with me. It is not meant to be a list of the *best* books I have ever read, but ones that have impacted me the most (off the top of my head):

1. The Complete Works of Jane Austen (I cannot pick one.)
2. Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales (Still the best spiritual book for lay people that I have ever read.
3. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (duh...)
4. The Rule of St. Benedict (When M and I read it in college, we knew that we wanted it to influence our family life.)
5. Kirsten Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset (I love they way she presents motherhood and womanhood. And her insight into humanity is incredible!)
6. After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre (Virtue Ethics are the best kind.)
7. The Conservative Mind by Russel Kirk (An understanding of conservatism that I agree with.)
8. The Complete Works of Laura Ingalls Wilder (They are even better as an adult.)
9. The Rhine Flows Into the Tiber: A History of Vatican II by Fr. Ralph M. Wiltgen S.V.D. (This transformed my understanding of the modern Church, especially growing up post-V II.)
10. Tess of the D'urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (I will never forgive Hardy for being so cruel to his characters, and I am scarred for life...)

The pattern is called "Ozborne Slub." I am so glad the seam looks straight in the photo...

6. I never shared my curtains that I sewed back in July (though they have photobombed a bit).  They cover all the kitchen windows including our long ones and the back door. I managed so easily because it was a stiff cotton broadcloth. I had been putting sewing them off for a year, and now that they are finally up, I am pretty happy with them, and they add a lot to the kitchen. :)

7. I leave you with our blue hubbard watch:

Has it grown since last week? I can't tell...

Linking up again with Jen at Conversion Diary.

Seven Quick Takes: Friday, May 9

1. Blogger's Log (Stardate: today!): So, apparently I have to write quick takes every Friday, because my sister and brother so look forward to them. My sister, S, likes them as much as she likes my brother's fun Star Trek like updates about studying:

I am not sure if they read anything else on my blog, or if anyone else likes my quick takes, but my sister and brother do, so these are for you two! (I bet my mom likes them, also.)

2. Let's see... I guess we have hit storm season around here. How are things going down in St. Louis? We had sirens go off the other night at midnight for a thunderstorm warning, which was not really cool, because I don't need sirens to tell me it is raining at night. G is pretty terrified of tornadoes, and any loud noise from outside or any clouds moving visibly in the sky are immediately under scrutiny. A few weeks ago on a clear, lovely morning, a white fluffy cloud moved through the sky in our direction. She flipped out and ran to the house yelling about it being a tornado. So, I was casually discussing this with our doctor yesterday morning (we have been going there a lot lately; this time it was a well visit), and she informed me that there was a tornado that touched about a mile from our current house. G stood there listening wide-eyed to the whole discussion. Now she is upping her prayers for safety from storms.

3. We have been so abundantly blessed by all our friends in the Twin Cities since our miscarriage. We have been showered in food, prayers, and friendship. While I do still do not feel fully recovered, it is nice to know that I don't have to worry about several meals a week. Actually, most dinners this week have been covered by people bringing them over or the leftovers. Plus, we have a crazy amount of baked goods to consume. I just want to say thank you to all of my friends for all of your love and support. And to people who might be suffering in the same way we are, do not be afraid to share your sorrows with family and friends. Their love and support can help you through the difficult time.

4. M is off to Michigan for a conference this weekend. In fact, he is there now. I hope he enjoys his 48 hours in his home state. I was originally going to try to "go it alone" with the kids this weekend, but after last week, I feel pretty post-partum still and I am really grateful to my mother-in-law for flying in from Michigan to help me with the kids. She just did all the lunch dishes! What a great lady! M is home again Sunday morning, so he is not getting out of the Mother's Day festivities...whatever we end up doing... Mass and food will definitely be involved.

5. We went to our last home school gym co-op of the year today. For some reason, I always find it exhausting. G is thrilled to be playing with other kids and doing her art class, but the L and F are just shy and clingy the whole time. I might be shy and clingy if I were them, also. We are in a huge gym full of scooters and mats and balls and really nice home schooled kids of all ages. When everyone is bigger than you, you just can't handle things. Maybe we just need to do things with the home school crowd more than once a month to get the kids used to it. I don't know, maybe it is just hard to be younger than school aged with a whole bunch of big kids. Plus, I am much more comfortable at home, and am not a huge fan of taking the kids places alone. Okay, I suppose I need to get over it and just take them places.

Blogger Susanna Spencer sporting
the no make up look.

6. I saw this article yesterday, saying that the "no-make up look is a new beauty standard". My favorite part is the caption on the picture of a lady that says "Others who use the no make up look include blogger so and so." I wrote about the morality of wearing make-up a couple of years ago, presenting a few arguments as to when using it could be immoral. What I finally concluded for me was that since my husband really does not like me in make up, I should honor him by not worrying about it. However, I do take the time to do things like groom my eyebrows and I use a nice face lotion to take care of my skin. Within the last year, M found another moral statement talking about using make up as okay when it is the "social custom." Now, this NY times article says the movement is one inspired by feminism, which when I was first discussing make up with people who had real jobs, it seemed like a huge issue that women had to wear make up in the work force. I am not sure the feminists would agree with not wearing make up because my husband does not like it, plus I have never been a regular make up wearer.

7. I have 26 pages left of Something Other Than God, and it has been a book that I really enjoy reading. So much so, that when I was supposed to be napping on the couch after being up half the night with a sick child (allergic reaction to banana... woops), I could not stop reading. I have realized that as a cradle Catholic, my life will never be as cool as hip converts who have roof-top parties. But that is what it is...

Linking up with Jen and her Seven Quick Takes!