Today in school we are learning about seahorses. What fascinating creatures!

Predictably, what I find most intriguing about these small fish is their means of having babies. Anyone who doubts that God has a sense of humor need look no further than this: The female seahorse lays her eggs in a pouch on the male seahorse’s belly. And now here comes the funny part: He lets her! Funnier still is the fact that he then carries the eggs until the babies are hatched!

There’s no “Oooookay, this has been nice but I think the babies need their mommy now!” or “Daddy needs to go do something important now– off to your mother!”

I just can’t get past the idea that the female seahorse’s parental responsibilities end with the laying of the eggs. What does she do with all that free time and spare energy? I sincerely hope she’s having enough fun for all the rest of us girls.

While I do consider the ability to become pregnant and carry new life a particular privilege God has granted to women, I must admit that occasionally it would be nice to share the burdensome blessing with my husband. Picture this: “Honey, I’ve been carrying this unborn baby all day long– would you mind holding him for a while so I could get a decent night’s sleep?”

Yeah, right. As the wife of a man who believes every newborn gurgle and coo is a desperate cry for an immediate return to its mother’s arms, I know better than to dream. The seahorses have inspired me, though. On family trips after this baby’s birth, I plan to introduce Dan to a heretofore unknown (by him) contraption: the Baby Bjorn infant carrier!

I thought some of you might be interested in reading this review of my book posted by Holly Pierlot (author of A Mother’s Rule of Life) on her Mother’s Rule of Life website.

While you’re there, check out the rest of her site as well- she’s a great resource for Catholic moms!

And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
Matthew 5:1-12

Lord, this week help us to recall our duty to please You in all things, not other men.

Early this morning I was awakened by the sound of Ambrose’s voice and a gentle shaking of my shoulder.

“Mama! Mama! I’m ready!”

I opened one eye and looked at him standing by my bed in the still-dark bedroom. He was wearing his green basketball team shirt, athletic pants, and sneakers. He grinned at me.

“It’s a little early. Your game isn’t until 9:00,” I told him.

“Yup,” he answered cheerfully, “But I’m ready!”

I watched as he caught a pretend pass, leapt across the room, and shot at an imaginary hoop. It went in.

“Alriiiight!” he whooped and pumped a fist in the air.

I heard the pounding of rubber sneakers against wood as he bounded down the stairs.

Oh, to greet the day with such enthusiasm! Most mornings, the greatest gusto I can manage to muster is slamming the alarm clock snooze button, elbowing my husband awake, and forcing my reluctant body out from underneath the blankets. This morning, though, I placed my feet firmly on the floor and roused myself with this thought:

“Okay, Lord. I’m ready, too.”

It sure can make a difference having an older girl around the house. I love my boys, my babies, and my husband, but they just don’t “get it” the way that almost-10-year-old Kateri does.

For example: This morning I checked the outdoor thermometer which was reading below zero for the one thousandth consecutive day, picked up Baby Gabrielle who was whining and pulling at my leg, and glanced at a stack of school papers waiting for my attention. I didn’t want to get dressed. I didn’t want to make breakfast. I didn’t want to even think about starting school work. I heaved a heavy sigh, looked at Kateri, and rolled my eyes.

“I know,” she said, rolling her eyes right back at me.

That was all I needed. Under similar circumstances, a man might try to analyze the situation, figure out what the problem was, and (of all annoying things!) try to solve my feelings. Because she is a girl, though, my darling daughter knew instinctively that I just needed someone to acknowledge and understand that I felt *blah.* All I needed in order to feel better was for someone else to recognize the *blah* and perhaps even relate to it to a bit. She “got it.” How wonderfully humanizing!

This will have to short. I am typing with one hand today because Gabrielle wants “up.” My normally independent toddler suddenly needs me–real close, right now, and she’s not taking no for an answer.

“Up, Mama! Up, Mama!” With small sticky hands, she’s been clinging to me all morning like a determined orangutan. I don’t know if it’s the start of a cold or if she senses my distraction and the impending arrival of a new baby in my arms, but today she is not letting go.

That’s okay, though. She’s warm and she smells like a delicious mix of Cheerios and baby shampoo. Besides, one of the luxuries of being mother-at-home is this: My life is flexible. Other chores on my list of things to do today can wait. In fact, I am crossing out the whole thing and replacing it with one task: “Hold the baby.”

Mission accomplished.

It was a mistake and I knew it. The other day when I was on the phone with my sister, I allowed 5 year-old Juliette to play around on my computer. It’s not as crazy as it sounds, though. She was just practicing typing her name and she was being supervised after all by 6 year-old Ambrose.

My word processing program may never be the same again. The toolbars now feature new and unfamiliar buttons while the ones I usually use have disappeared. The margins are reset, the spacing is messed up, and the font is set in pink. The last straw was yesterday when I went to do some work and a cheery-faced paper clip popped onto the screen.

“It looks like you are typing a letter,” he noted brightly. “Would like some help?”

As if I don’t have enough distractions around here–I need to be interrupted by a helpful paper clip? I was not typing a letter and I did not want his help, so I clicked on a polite but firm “No.”

He accepted this initial rejection. He waited around patiently and fairly quietly, pretending to be a skateboard at times, crouching and staring at me with googly eyes. But then he started to interrupt again, in a juvenile attempt to be of some kind of assistance.

“That looks like a sentence fragment. You might consider revising,” he suggested once.

“The word ?wife’ is gender-specific,” he cautioned. “Consider using ?spouse,’ instead.”

This was worse than having a critical husband reading over my shoulder, asking incessant questions and second-guessing my every word choice (don’t ask me how I know this). I am sorry to report that I lost my temper with the smiling paper clip. I right-clicked him. I told him to hide. Nervously, he noted that I have asked him to hide several times now and wondered if perhaps I wanted him to hide “for good” this time.

No, I told him kindly, just hide “for now,” and obediently he did. I’m such a softie!

The annual March for Life rally in Washington, D.C. will be finishing up today. I haven’t been able to be there in person since college, but every year I join the marchers in spirit and prayer. We should all mourn the 1973 U.S. court decisions that imposed abortion on demand on the U.S. and we should all lobby Senators and Congressmen to restore legal protection for human life.

A recently proposed piece of federal legislation that caught my eye is the “Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act” which would require doctors to inform pregnant women seeking abortions after 20 weeks of the pain that an abortion will cause their unborn child. The doctors would then be required to offer women the option of administering an anesthetic to the unborn baby before the abortion is performed.

Pro-abortion types are predictably up in arms about this, but doesn’t it just make sense? After all, as the legislation points out, we have scientific evidence that the unborn do feel pain and our laws protect even animals from unnecessary pain during medical procedures. Don’t women have a right to all of the facts regarding abortion procedures before they choose to have one? Shouldn’t unborn human beings have at least as much legal protection from pain as we give to animals?

Read more about fetal pain and see the proposed legislation for yourself here.

As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately, the left their nets and followed him.
Matthew 4:18-20

Christ calls us too. Are we following?

I used to think I was a cat person. That was before we had one.

Then Pippen, the sweet little abandoned kitten we rescued from the wilderness years ago quickly turned into an overgrown fur ball with an attitude. And a litter box. And frequent bladder infections. The worst part was that he preferred my husband–the one who didn’t feed him, cart him to back and forth from the vet (with various little kids in tow), and vacuum up the layers of cat hair he left on every household surface. For Dan, he was all purrs and cuddles, but I got the distinct impression he considered me the “help” and he could not bring himself to socialize at my lowly level.

No, I decided, I was definitely not a cat person. So when Pippen finally ran away from home and met with unknown circumstances that prevented his return, I mourned only briefly. It was for the best, I reasoned. After all, I was a dog person anyway.

But then we got one of those. “Number Nine,” a handsome German Short-Hair Pointer and a 55-pound baby, has been with our family for over three years now. I like this dog as much as I am going to like any dog, but I have to admit that sometimes he drives me crazier than the kids do, and the rewards for putting up with him aren’t even comparable.

Over the past several days in particular, our darling doggie has been making a nuisance of himself. He whines at the door to go out, then upon discovering it is 15 degrees below zero and a fierce wind is blowing, he immediately scratches and barks to come back in. Then, because he doesn’t know what else to do with himself, he cries at his food dish but ignores any food or water we put in it. He prefers to drink from the toilet bowl and eat from the baby’s high chair tray, after all.

Yesterday, amidst the throes of our family’s typical late afternoon chaos, when the kids were wild with pent-up cabin fever, I realized the dog was following me around, licking at my fingers, and whining above the din.

“Listen,” I finally told him in exasperation. “It’s wintertime and we’re all feeling it. Crying about it is only going to make it worse.”

Gabrielle toddled up behind him and he patiently let her love him. As his big brown eyes looked at back at me in earnest, I felt myself soften. I might just be a dog person, after all. Good St. Francis, help me!