For Today…June 24, 2012

Outside my window…the sun is relentless.  I will suffer through these days because my kids love being outside, but it is just miserably hot.

I am wearing…a red and gray dress.  And silver flip flops.

I am hearing…soccer.

I am thankful…for a husband who listens to me when I really need him to understand.  I love who is he and that he married me.

Moments of grace…time with my kids, listening to Snax yell “you can’t come here unless you’re a bat.”, boys who fight over their sister, the same boys who behave pretty well in mass and cause a scene trying to give peace to their sister.

I am praying for…a special intention, healing, grace, gentleness and patience.

On the menu…anything but sweets.  Not even for the kids.  We all ate so much this weekend.

To be fit and happy…the countdown is on.  Lance and I are on two a days this week.  Really, just weights and cardio for me.  After a long weekend of poor eating, we both need it.

Around the house…can I gross you out?  Dead roaches.  I keep having my pest control guy come to the house because I see dead roaches.  They don’t think they need to return unless I see live roaches, but I see no difference in the matter.  I guess I will be calling tomorrow.  Good think we like our bug guy.  He is really smart, and we learn each time he comes to the house.

To live the liturgy…it’s ordinary time.  I follow a few blogs that I would consider to be really Catholic.  And they always talk about how wonderful this season of ordinary time is.  And it is.  The Church knows that we need time to celebrate and then we need time to relax and just go with the flow.  To just live.  Of course, there are some feast days I plan to celebrate starting with the Saints Peter and Paul.

Finding the joy…in my kids.  I am not a great mom, there are many things I can do better, but I love them so much.  People wonder why I spend all day with them, and it’s just because of how awesome they are.

I am creating…memories for my kids.  All good memories.

We will be creating…some kind of flag this week.  Well, not some kind, an American flag, just not sure how yet.

Noticing that…I have a ton of pictures I need to post.

One of my pet peeves…people taking pictures at the same time using different cameras.  I’m all for pictures, I love pictures, but when multiple people are taking pictures, it has to be one at a time or else one person looks away.  Knowing my love for family pictures, I’m super disappointed that a certain teenager is looking at the wrong camera for every. single. photo. we took with just the 7 of us.  Not his fault though.  And the time Lance is interested in looking at our family photo, I have nothing good to share!

One of my favorite things…saying “just the 7 of us”.

On a positive note…we managed to take a picture of 18 people in less than ten minutes, and we have one picture where all but the two babies look pretty damn good.  I haven’t seen the photos from the other cameras so there might even be something better out there.

A few plans for the rest of the week…relax, make a packing list, plan a couple of birthdays, shop, workout, get a foot massage, get a pedicure, basketball, magic show at the library, symphony for the kids, awards dinner, and celebrate the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, also known as my anniversary.

A photo to share…

I have a shot like this with Squirt and each child, no joke, it’s Squirt’s favorite pose.

:: Lance is one of three kids.  His siblings and all the kids met at his parents house in New Braunfels for a long weekend.

:: Yes, we have more than double the size of everyone else’s family.  So with our crew, there are a total of 18 people in the house.

:: The kids have really enjoyed playing with their cousins.  It’s sweet how they just immediately started playing together.  Everyone seems to like each other, and there hasn’t been a tattle tale in the group.

:: A big group of us went to Schlitterbahn today.  It was pretty fun.  It was also beneficial in trying to decide if the Baby Hulk will be rafting in Colorado.

:: We’re just down the road from the winery.  It seems like a good bonding place to me.  Why doesn’t anybody think like me?

We went to Mayfield Park in Austin yesterday to check out the peacocks.

Peacocks just walking around a park.

It was really cool and now I’m in search of some books for the boys.

The peacocks were pretty nice and strutted their stuff, opening their feathers for us.  The boys actually got pretty close to them as well.  And lucky Baby Hulk found a feather.  Perfect for the nature shelf.

Even Snoopy got in on the action.

We saw babies following a mama hen.

A perfect field trip for my family.

In the world of Facebook or Twitter, I’m a Twitter kind of person.  Someone retweeted something like “Facebook makes you hate the people you know while Twitter makes you love people you don’t.”  I couldn’t agree more.

Regardless, I do have a Facebook account.  I don’t post anything ever, but every once in a while Chelsea posts a link for me to check out or a good friend wants me to stalk someone.  Which of course, I do.  Eagerly.

I mentioned a month or so ago about getting all these updates from the class reunion page.  To show you just how jaded I am, I have never been to a class reunion.  No do I ever plan on attending one.  I’ve known this about me since before I graduated high school.  And I had a great time in high school.  My best friend is from high school.  But I’m just not that type of person.

So imagine my surprise yesterday when I opened my email, the one where the funny friend sends me emails and apparently I get Facebook notices sent to, and found an email saying a certain someone had accepted my friend request.  Hmmmm….

I knew the person.  And not to be rude, but it wasn’t someone I would have ever requested to be my friend on Facebook.  Sure, I cyber stalk with the best of them, but not about people I haven’t thought about since I graduated from high school.  So unless one night I got drunk and made some friend requests to people I don’t care about, I am at a loss.

I mentioned this incident to a couple of people IRL and tweeted about it.  Turns out this has happened to a lot of people.  It makes me feel a bit better.  Because honestly, nothing could be worse to me than someone thinking I made a request when in fact I didn’t.

Okay, maybe there are a lot of worse things, but last night, nothing seemed worse!

Basically, this little mix up affirms my feelings on Facebook.  I threatened to delete my account, and a friend reminded me there is still plenty of stalking to do and I wouldn’t see any of her pictures if I didn’t have an account.

One thing, I do know, it makes me love Twitter even more.

I actually don’t have a lot of pictures to share from Sunday, although I am sure next week I will find more I have to post.  Until then, here are five that make my heart swell:

:: the kids playing with their cousin Andrea
:: a little boy who puts on his backpack so he can play school
:: watching my kids pretend to play house
:: a little girl who knows exactly what I’m saying and communicates with me
:: a child who was so excited to receive his First Communion
:: the boys excited about seeing a cricket.
:: reading to my boys
:: Chalice shaped cookies, cookie cutter worth every cent as were the overpriced cookies
:: a clean house after having a get together, house in perfect shape within 1 hour
:: a small token from my husband for teaching my boys about the faith
:: vacation plans with my Baby and Paul and Brian, Key West…soon, soon, soon
:: And a vacation with my family, Colorado, here we come!
:: swimming
:: text messages that make me laugh
:: a call from my brother
:: a faithful friend who truly inspires me
:: a little boy who has the sweetest voice
:: a reminder of how important it is to be gentle, now to work on it!

I have a lot to smile about every day.  It’s important to remind myself.

If angels could be jealous of men, they would be so for one reason: Holy Communion.  St. Maximilian Kolbe

Today is the Feast of Corpus Christi.  A day that generally has processions, a day in which a doubting priest had his faith confirmed via a miracle.

Today is also the day Goose received his First Communion.  Fitting, I think.

Goose has been preparing to receive his First Communion on a “strict” basis this past school year, but really, he has been preparing for today since the moment he was born.  Each time the bells rang during the consecration, I would whisper, “there’s Jesus”.  He’d listen for those bells.  At first it was a way to keep him quiet and attentive.  Then more interest came.

We’ve read books about the Eucharist for the past few years.  From two picture books, The Weight of the Mass and The Caterpillar Who Came to Church, he began to have an understanding of what it means.  These two books are probably the best way to explain the meaning of the Eucharist to children.  Probably even adults.

We went old school and used the Baltimore Catechism this past year.  We read some biographies.  And we prayed.

As we have prepared this year, he has been so excited.  He went to Confession four times this past Spring.  And starting in mid-April, he began to say each Sunday that “today is going to be my First Communion.”

I used to wonder how a child could possibly understand the meaning of the Eucharist. The unfortunate reality is that many Catholics don’t get it.  As anyone around children knows, they don’t come with hang ups.  They often understand what we are too blind to see.

The innocence and desire of my sweet boy gives a new appreciation for the gift of the Eucharist.  As did teaching him his catechism for this.  As a wanna be homeschooler, there was no way I wouldn’t be his instructor for this important Sacrament.  We ended our “instruction” with a novena for his First Communion.  We prayed it together, our last prayer right before mass today.

And so today, I thank God.  I thank Him for the gift that is the Eucharist.  I thank Him for the gift of teaching my son about it.  I thank Him for allowing me a small window into a little boy’s heart as he practically begged to receive his First Communion the past two months.  I thank Him for the gift of Goose’s First Communion.  And most of all, I thank Him for the chance to witness the miracle of the Eucharist each time I attend mass.

And here’s the truth…I had prepared most of this post before today.  Nothing could have prepared me for what I felt today.  Goose was so excited to be sitting on the first pew at mass.  Baby Z actually stayed quiet the entire mass!  And the sweetest thing: midway through mass, Goose looked at Lance and told him “Dad, it’s almost time, I’m about five minutes closer to receiving my First Communion.”  He was nervous and ready to go at the same time.

And so after the consecration and before the Eucharistic Ministers received the Eucharist, Goose was called up front for his First Communion.  As he came back to the pew, I could have sworn there were tears in his eyes.  There were in Lance’s, that much I know for sure.

The excitement of a little boy can never be matched.

And so today, I am just happy for my boy.  Truly, truly happy.  The happiness and pure joy that he felt today makes a mom so content.  And the best  part is that he can always find the happiness he had today.  He just has to get to mass.

I just read the most amazing piece online.  It spoke about how college isn’t for everybody.  Maybe people have been saying this all along, but WOW.  What a breath of fresh air.  When did college become right for all of us?  Was it the same time tuition began to increase at a ridiculous rate on a yearly basis?

Sure, I’d like to think that everyone should go to college for the learning opportunities, but let’s be real.  Not everybody is a good mix for college.  And I think it’s time people face that fact.  If we can admit not everybody is programmed to be a doctor, we should be able to say not everyone is programmed to learn in a college setting.  And if we think everyone is, then I think we have to admit that college has been dumbed down to accept every person that wants to attend school.

While I think education is extremely important, in particular a liberal arts education, not everyone is interested in things like art, literature, theatre or music.  One of the things that I have tried to do at home is to create a love of learning.  I want my kids to always be interested in how things work, to appreciate good art and to question things.  I want them always looking for solutions.  But not every solution is found in college.

I remember years ago a cousin dropping out of school because she didn’t know what she wanted to do.  I thought it was the bravest move at the time.  My parents, and I am sure her parents, didn’t seem to think so.  Yet, she got a job and supported herself.  A few years later, she went back to school.  She graduated, traveled a lot, and learned another language.

I think of my uncle who loved cars and who could do anything to fix them.  Do you really need college to work on cars or own a body shop?  Not really.  You do need to have brains, but I think most people who work on cars, people we really go to in society, didn’t learn their skills in school.

I’m not sure what I’m really saying about all of this.  I just know that as I watch my best friend return to school to study something that he really loves at 42, AFTER going to medical school because as a really smart person that is what he was supposed to do, I have a lot of questions about college.  I promised myself that I would allow my children to study what they wanted when they went to school.

When Squirt told me that he wanted to open a shop to “trick” cars, I inwardly rolled my eyes.  But at the same time, didn’t laugh at his dream.  If that is what he wants, shouldn’t I try to help him run towards a goal that might actually make him happy rather than force him into a career that he hates?  Because another reality is that a lot of people really can’t stand their jobs.  And it isn’t easy to find new jobs.  Why force college to study something you have no interest in just so you can move right back home.  Would it be so terrible to encourage learning a valued skill you are interested in at a technical school?

Now this doens’t mean I am encourging my children not to attend college.  It does mean I am going to continue teaching them to discern God’s will for their talents.  Their talents will most likely all be different ranging from cars to medical school to the priesthood.  (I can dream can’t I?!  And I know, I know, God’s will, not mine.)   In the end, I want my kids to love learning and not be stifled by anyone.  I want my kids to listen to God.  I want them to be educated, but just as I embrace the differences in my children in their learning at age 5, I have to embrace it once they finish high school as well.

So no answers, just more questions.  But isn’t that good, to be asking questions rather than assuming everyone has to live a specific way?