My To-Do List for Today

 **It's bad poetry day today at StT.  See how I embarrass myself for your entertainment?  You're welcome!**



There are mountains of laundry this morning for me to wash, fold, and put away,
but my tiny girl is smiling at me.  How can I help but stay?

The carpet is in need of vacuuming and floors which must be scrubbed,
but my little one loves her bath, and so we linger in the tub.

The sheets are rumpled and askew, the bed just begging to be made.
But my sweet girl is cooing, I must hear what she has to say.

The trash in the can is overflowing it must be dragged out to the curb today,
but the baby is making faces.  How can I help but play?

There are bills which need paying and all kinds of things I'd planned,
but my tiny one is holding my thumb.  How can I loosen her hand?

There are dishes which need washing and dinner to defrost,
but she right now is yawning and I don't want this moment to be lost.

The bathrooms all need scrubbing.  There is toothpaste every place,
but in my arms she's dozing with a smile upon her face.

I've learned that babyhood is fleeting and then its sweet moments gone.
The house just must stay messy and a million things undone.

There is only one sweet thing which must be done today,
because tomorrow will be to late for me to mother her this way.

So here we sit, curled in this chair, my sweet small girl and me.
We have cuddling to do and lullabies to sing.

We have cooing at each other and grinning on our list.
We've napping, and playing and a slobbery baby kiss.

Dinner for Theresa

My friend Theresa asked for my goulash recipe. I asked her if she wanted it in email, IM, or the blog.  She said on the blog so she could print it out.  Here you go, Theresa, and anyone else who needs a dinner idea:

Hungarian Goulash

Ingredients:
1 lb beef cut into small cubes (you can use hamburger in a pinch)
2 med onions minced
1/4 tsp dried mustard
1 1/4 tsp paprika
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 1/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
3/4 tsp apple cider vinegar
6 tbsp ketchup
1 1/2 cups water
egg noodles


Brown meat on all sides.  Add onions.  Add all ingredients except noodles to meat.  Stir, cover.  Cook on low heat 2 1/2 hours until meat is tender.

If you want the sauce a little thicker (you will), add flour to 1/2 cup of water, stir to combine then add to meat.  Stir until thickened.

There you go, Tea!  Let me know how it tastes with moose!

The Pro-Life Thing You Should Start Doing Today (Even if You're Pro-Choice)

Today was the March for Life in Washington D.C. and thousands congregated in our nation's capital to show their support for the unborn among us and their mothers.  It wasn't just Washington which saw these huge crowds, although you wouldn't know it from the news coverage, thousands of marchers showed up in communities all over the country to speak out for the voiceless.


I love their passion and admire their dedication.  Every year I hope to be able to join them, and while it hasn't happened yet, I'm sure I'll get there someday.  In the meantime, I've found my own gentle protest, my own uprising against a culture which is trending against the value of children.  Where our country is hardening itself against the beauty of Life, I've made myself a quiet spokesperson.  Being a parent is difficult even in socially acceptable circumstances.  It can become defeating when it seems as if your beloved child is unwanted by the world.  So those of us who value the lives of these children should say so.  

Will you join me?

Will you smile at the mom in the grocery store, who is herself on the verge of tears, as her two year old melts down and she wants to hide in shame?  Will you look her in the eye and reassure her that this is temporary and that while this moment is bad that it does get easier?  Will you reach out to her and be the kind voice she so badly needs to hear?  Will you tell her that her screaming monster is beautiful?  Will you see past the noise and see their humanity?

Will you smile at the mother at the park whose child bears the unmistakeable signs of birth defects or genetic abnormalities?  Will you look at her baby, the one others avert their eyes to avoid seeing?  Will you see past what others see as ugliness and see the beautiful eyes that reflect his mother's love?  Will you comment on the beauty of his spirit and the lovely joyous lilt of his laugh?  Will you talk to her and listen...really listen to this woman whose choice to carry her baby has made her an outcast among most of the people she meets?

Will you smile at the mom whose family seems too large?  Will you see in her 12th baby the same beauty that you would have seen in her first?  Will you be kind in your words and greet them in the library check out line instead of impatiently sighing as each child must run her own books across the scanner?  Will you offer to hold the baby as she fumbles for her keys?  When they walk past you in a restaurant and tables must be moved to seat them all, will you compliment her on how lucky she is to be surround by all that love?  Will you see them for the family they are instead of the spectacle they easily become?

Will you smile at the mother whose child has been lost?  Will you remember to speak his name and not be afraid to bring him up?  Will you look at those heartbreaking photos from the day that he was born and see not the dead child she delivered but the living love she lost?  Will you remark on his sweet face and the beauty of his hands?  Will you allow her to still be his mother even though he's lost to her?  Will you be the one who sees the mother when just the woman is standing there?

Will you smile at the woman whose womb is empty still?  Will you be gentle in your joy as her own heart breaks in two?  Will you ignore the tears she tries to hide and yet hand her the tissue box?  Will you let her talk about it for as long as the ache is there?  Will you be the person who listens to her pain?  Will you wrap your arms around her and love her when it's hard?  Will you be the smile she needed to get her through this day and not be offended if she just can't look at you?


Will you be the person you want to be in the back of your own mind?  Will you be the kind and calm voice the word just aches to hear?  It's funny how the mean and cruel words are flung at us without a care, but the kind words are held close as though their cost were very dear.  So take the time to smile  at all the people you run into today.  It's the very smallest thing, and yet it can change so much in the life of someone who needs to see it.  This is what we are marching for, the beauty we say we protect.  If all life is valuable, then we should behave as if it were true.  Will you join my little campaign?  Will you smile at them?




***Are you joining me?  Why not spread the word?  Click on the Facebook F or the Twitter T at the bottom of this post and pass it on.***

Three Girls In White - Our Season of Grace

This is the year of our White Spring.  All three of our daughters are receiving sacraments.  All three will be wearing white gowns.  All three.

It's still a little strange to me that we have three daughters.  Even with the youngest one always in my arms, I still catch myself suddenly realizing the happiness of having our three and the smile is uncontainable. 

Our Sweet #7 will be Baptized next month.  We waited longer than usual so that we could take her back to Oklahoma for her first Sacrament.  We wanted her to be surrounded by people who love her, and to introduce her to her earthly family at the same time she joins God's family. 

Lovely #4 has her First Confession next weekend and her First Communion in May.  She has spent hours looking for the "just perfect" dress and the veil to go with it.  There were a few tears last month when the dream dress was discontinued and she had to begin looking all over again.  I explained that the focus of this day was not the dress, but her love for and relationship with God.  It is about the first time she receives Jesus Christ, body, blood, soul, and divinity.  It is the first time she will be asked publicly if she accepts Him and the first time she gets to answer 'Yes.' She solemnly nodded.  I know she gets it.  I also know it's still a little bit about the dress. 

#1 is getting Confirmed on Cinco de Mayo.  She proved that she is a natural blond when she asked what date that was exactly.  Her lapse of Spanish aside, this is the Sacrament I'm most anxious to see.  This is the one which she makes wholly on her own.  This one is her decision alone.  She publicly declares her dedication to Christ and His Church, not because we say so but because she does.  She has been ready for this for at least a year now, but God has prepared her heart even more.  It has been a rough season on loneliness in her life.  She went from a tight group of friends to not even one nearby.  For a long time it was the pain in her life, but it was in that pain that she found strengths she didn't know existed.  It was in her loneliness that she turned ever more to God.

This has been a year which brought #7 life, #4 confidence and brought #1 a calm maturity.  It is with these gifts that they will go before their Heavenly Father this Spring arrayed all in white and clothed in Grace.  What a season this will be in our household as our girls enter into new ever deeper relationships with Our Lord.   The past year has been a hard one, but at last we are here.  We've arrived at our Season of Grace.

3 1/2 Time-Outs Tuesday #5

1. 

My 7-year-pld daughter broker her toe last week.  We have no idea how she did it.  Our best guess is that she fell out of bed and hit it wrong on something. (She falls out of bed a lot.)  The puzzling thing is that she didn't wake up.  She went to bed at night with a normal looking toe and woke up the next morning with it swollen larger than her head (slight exaggeration...so sue me.)  It never really hurt her, just was purple, swollen, and wouldn't bend.  It wasn't until I messed with it that she complained about pain.  My boys are kind of wusses about pain, but my 7-year-old is someone to take into battle with you.  She's an "It's just a flesh wound" kinda girl.

2.

Last week I went over 1000 posts on this blog.  I can't believe I had that much to say or that some of you have been reading from the beginning and are still here.  Thank you.

3.

I put the Angry Bird app on my phone last week and I already regret it.  My children hound me night and day to be allowed to play it.  I think that my original rule of "No games on my phone" was the correct one.  Now to break my own addiction to it and delete the darn thing.

3 1/2.

I started a new blog of my ADD brain, Seven Minutes in My Brain.  Stop by and say

As always, thanks to LarryD for hosting.

2 months

How can our #7 be 2 months old already?  It doesn't seem possible.  Her newborn days have already slipped away and she is now a baby.  It won't be long before she is a girl and then grown.

I keep holding her, this perfect replica of my firstborn, and wondering where the years have gone since I was a first time mom holding my precious baby and now she is a sophomore in high school.  In two years she will be out of my house and a woman.  How can that be?

Does anyone know how to slow down time?  Have they invented a way to savor every precious moment?  The tighter I try to hold on, the faster they slip away.

2 months old and trying to be bigger.

Slow down little one.  Curl up and snuggle in.  Tomorrow will be here before you know it, and we will be discussing colleges and boys instead of singing lullabies.  Don't be in a hurry to grow.  Just let me enjoy your littleness for a moment longer.

3 1/2 Time-Outs Tuesday #4

1.

Last week I wrote The Standard Bearer's Battle Hymn which was linked to by The Pulp.it and NCR.  I'm over the moon excited, but still slightly amused that the blog post before that with the half-naked cowboy got double the hits.  The ladies all protested that they didn't like that muscle-y man, but they sure hurried over here to see what on earth I was writing about.

*I'm not saying here that you should use half-naked man pictures to boost your hit count, but it's effective.  But don't do it because it's bad.  Really bad.  I'm shaking my finger at you.  Shane on you for thinking of doing it anyway.  Yes, I'm looking at you with the mom stink-eye.  Yes, you.  Shame.

2. 

Earlier this week, I was in the computer nook paying bills and listening to #7 whinging and complaining as she was waking from her mid-morning nap.  I was kinda ignoring her in favor of paying the electric bill, they get mean if you don't pay them, plus she wasn't selling me on the fact that she was serious yet.  Then she started shrieking bloody murder and I decided she was serious.

I darted around the corner of my bedroom to see my 2-year-old hugging the baby tightly to his chest around her calves.  Her head was near his knee caps and her fingers brushed the floor.  He had come to his sister's aid, grabbed her ankles, dragged her off the bed, and was holding her legs with one arm as he patted her and coo-ed "Shhhh.  Shhhhh.  It's okay bay-bee.  I love you.  Shhh.  Shhhhh."  She didn't seem very reassured or comforted at all.  I guess being dangled upside down immediately upon waking is upsetting to 7 week olds.  I'll make a note of that.

3.

 Have you seen the presidential candidate Vermin Supreme?  The guy with the boot on his head?

He's promising money for time travel research, mandatory teeth brushing because there are people out there with rank breath and ponies for everyone.  #7 heard that, pulled on her sock, and decided to join the revolution.

Free ponies?  I'm in!

3 1/2. 

I learned last week that I can hide shredded sweet potato in anything with tomato sauce. I hid a huge potato in the spaghetti the other night.