![Little Moments at Home]()
by Catherine | Jan 27, 2012 | Family
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| Janie the Dinosaur helping me put dishes away |
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| Janie (Tinkerbell) wearing her patch |
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| Tinkerbell helping empty the dryer |
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| Picking up Monty’s toys that she dumped all over the floor |
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| Talking and eating books |
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| Giving Mom the stink eye when I told her she had to clean up the Play Doh. |
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| The kids’ rooms — doors closed because it’s naptime. Yessssssss! |
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| Whites |
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| Colors |
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| Happy dog during naptime |
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| The mailman comes at the same time everyday. I love knowing these patterns since I’m at home. |
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| Prayer time. My days never go as well without it. |
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| Making Jane’s “Happy Birthday” sign for her birthday party. |
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| Afternoon snack time |
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| Feeding Walt |
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| Playing with Monty |
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| Janie the Dragon “reading” to Walt |
Recent Milestones/Developments/Victories/Funny Things:
Walt moves himself around on his belly in full circles and is starting to army crawl.
Jane got a ladybug nightlight for Christmas. It freaks her out in her room, but she likes to keep it in the nursery. Every time I change Walt’s diaper, she insists on following me into the nursery where she can play with her ladybug nightlight. “Mama, ladybug hold you.” (Translation: Mama, I want to hold the ladybug.) I turn on the ladybug nightlight to her favorite color (blue), she says “lights on” (translation: turn the bedroom lights off), I turn the lights off, and Jane says “wow” when she sees the blue stars on the ceiling. A few seconds later, she starts singing her version of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”
We didn’t eat out once this week! We stuck to my menu, made nutritious meals, and only ate leftovers twice.
Jane and Monty are bonding over Monty’s “puppy prozac.” Monty has had to take medicine everyday since we got rid of Larry for his separation anxiety. He won’t take it unless we hide it in chunky peanut butter. I say, “Jane, want to give Monty his medicine?” Jane bolts to the pantry where we keep the peanut butter, digs a spoon out of the drawer, and I stick the pill into the dollop of peanut butter. Monty comes running when he hears his pill bottle shake. Janie giggles as she gets to hold out the spoon for Monty to eat off of. I’m still working on getting her to stand still as she extends the spoon. She doesn’t understand that running after Monty freaks him out.
We tried playing with PlayDoh for the first time this week. I consider it a victory that it took Jane five minutes before temptation got the best of her and she tried a bite. Fortunately, she didn’t like the taste.
To convince Jane to leave a beloved stuffed animal in the car when we’re running errands, we say, “Janie, Teddy has to take a nap. He’s tired.” Then we tuck him into her carseat. “Night night, Teddy.” She blows the stuffed animal a kiss, and we get to run errands without fear of losing the friend.
Walt may not be mobile, but he has quick hands! He started swiping things away from us this week. He’s stolen toys from Jane, chewies from Monty, and swiped my phone from me.
Despite waking up a full hour or hour and a half earlier since transitioning to her daybed, Jane took a solid 1 1/2 – 2 hour nap every single day this week! This is a huge improvement from the 10 minute naps she was taking last week. I thought I was going to lose my mind.
Jane is a singing machine. Current favorites include “The Alphabet Song,” “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” “Baa Baa Black Sleep,” and anything that Barney sings.
A very pregnant squirrel shows up on our deck everyday after lunch. Janie and I stick a NutriGrain Bar on the deck rail where we can see it from the kitchen window. Jane looks forward to seeing “silly squirrel” everyday after lunch.
Favorite Quotes of the Week:
Jane, on Philip. “Dada work. Dada doctor. Dada help people.”
Jane threw a muffin on the floor at lunch.
Me: Jane, no no. We don’t throw food. What do you say?
Jane: Sorry, Muffin.
Me: I love you, Jane.
Jane: I love you more.
When Jane wants to be held. “Mama, hold you!”
From the kitchen table.
Me: Wow, Jane! You’re a good eater! Mommy is sooooo proud of you! It makes me happy when you are a good eater!
Five minutes later, while I am eating my breakfast.
Jane: Mama, Janie so proudda you!
Upon seeing Monty’s accident by the back door, Jane had her first complete sentence. “Monty, you are so gross!”
![Taking Good Advice]()
by Catherine | Jan 22, 2012 | Faith, Family
An older man came up to her one day after Mass and commended her for bringing her young children. He told her that they belong there. Unless they are truly being disruptive, they belong in there and need to learn that they belong in the church. The noise is always loudest in your pew, and you’re always going to notice it more than everyone else.
Of course I teared up when I heard the story. What’s not to love about an older man telling a young mom that she’s doing a good job and that her children belong in the church during Mass? She said that the experience forever changed her perspective, and it changed mine.
She said if we’re going to say that we’re pro-life, the babies belong with us in church, not relegated to some crying room. She said that unless the child is distracting others, the child stays in the pew. Once they are disruptive, they are promptly removed from the church and have to endure a time-out in the narthex. Once they calm down, they are allowed back in.
We were doing it all wrong. Jane was “playing us.” Nobody wants to admit that their toddler is outsmarting them, but my friend was right. Jane knew that she got to run around in the narthex if she got squirmy in our arms and whined in church. I think I knew this on some level, and I told my friend that. I was just falling into the easy trap of getting lazy with discipline when it involves my own embarrassment. So, if Jane was going to embarrass me with a temper tantrum in church, it was much easier to end it by letting her run around the narthex. I sure as heck didn’t want to endure the screaming, snotty scene during consecration under the scrutiny of everyone in the congregation. Taking the easy way out was teaching Jane that she could manipulate us to get what she wanted, and it only made the problem worse.
Kids are smart. We’re dumb. They think. “OH! So, let me get this straight. I freak out in public. Mom and Dad panic. I get what I want. I gotta keep doing this.” Just look at these toddler girls. They know how to work it, and so did Jane at church.
Well, we’re onto you, Jane! It’s a new regime at Mass for the Boucher family. We’ve been allowing Jane to play with her “Busy Bible” and other religious books and walk between us in the pew. We bring a sippy cup full of water if she needs it, too. Aside from the water, we have a no food rule in church. Philip no longer allows Jane to struggle in his arms without a consequence. When she starts to throw a tantrum, Philip quickly removes her from church and she has a time-out on a rug in the narthex. It’s no longer a fun playing ground. The narthex is the new punishment center.
After two weeks of this, Jane is learning that she gets to see and do more inside of the church. Outside, she has to sit in one spot and have a time-out. Inside, she gets to watch the priest, sing, pray, shake peoples’ hands, move around the pew (sit, stand, kneel), read her Busy Bible, and retrieve Walt’s binkie. Inside of church is way more fun than the narthex now!
We continue to sit in the front pew whenever possible, so the less than perfect moments are still very humbling. Jane is making great strides, and we just might be able to get through an entire Mass without one of us leaving with her once.
Lesson learned: Listen to good advice from friends, especially when it’s the tough love variety. The hard advice is hard because it means we’re doing something wrong. Who wants to admit that they’re doing something wrong? That’s hard, and it takes practice. That’s what Christian charity’s all about, after all–fraternal correction in a spirit of love. Thank goodness for good friends who tell us when we’re doing it all wrong! The sooner we admit that they’re right, the sooner we can get on with making things better.
![Let’s Talk About Sex!]()
by Catherine | Jan 17, 2012 | Faith, Family
I spent the afternoon talking with high school students about chastity. I told them about my experiences with dating, wedding preparation, and married life. After my relationship history, I gave reasons for why I recommend a commitment to chastity and gave them practical tips on how to put chastity into action. Afterward, I left time for questions. It took them a while to warm up, but the questions showed me their serious thought on the topic as well as their misunderstandings on a few things.
“If we’re in love, is it wrong for us to have sex?”
“Do you think it would have mattered if you had had sex with your husband before you got married? You ended up together anyway.”
“How did you remain committed to chastity when it was tough?”
“What’s the big deal if you and your boyfriend sleep next to each other? Who cares what anybody else thinks if you know you’re not having sex?”
“What if I already lost my virginity? What do I do now?”
“Why do we have to live chastity in marriage as Catholics? Why can’t we just have sex whenever we want and use condoms?”
“If someone was married, gets divorced and remarries, what’s wrong with them having sex with their second spouse?”
I was prepared to hear anything, so I fielded the questions without batting an eye. (Chastity.com was a tremendous resource. Thank you, Jason Evert!) I think my answers were helpful, several students personally thanked me for coming, and I left feeling like I might have impacted some of them to consider adopting chastity. Thank You, Holy Spirit!
Janie and Walt had come along with me, and they played with study hall students in the Campus Ministry room while I gave my presentation to three different classes. As I packed them up and buckled them into their carseats, something struck me: my babies aren’t always going to be babies, and they are going to have these same questions.
I already knew that, and Philip and I have talked several times about how we want to teach our children about their sexuality. Somehow, though, hearing the high school students’ questions, seeing the hurt of those who had lost their virginity, and hearing the misconceptions of the Church’s teaching on sexuality made the reality of my role as a parent educator more imminent.
Philip and I agree that it is our joint responsibility as parents to give our children a life-long sex education. We won’t just have “the talk.” We will have continuous, age-appropriate conversations about the gift of sexuality, what it is, and how we celebrate it. We want our children to learn that sex is a wonderful, beautiful thing, and that it is something they should anticipate with great joy if they are called to the vocation of marriage. I’m not so naive as to think that our kids will come to us every time they have a sex-related question or that they aren’t seeking out answers elsewhere. I do hope, though, that they will look to us as a loving, credible, and supportive source of information.
A student today asked, “What are you going to do if you find out that one of your kids loses their virginity before marriage?”
Apparently I didn’t have to think about it because I heard myself say, “Well, I think my husband and I would be disappointed. I think we would tell them that. But we’d quickly follow that up by saying that we love them, that we’re glad they’re still comfortable confiding in us, and that we want them to know that making a mistake doesn’t make them a bad person or a failure. God doesn’t hold grudges like we do. Fortunately, we have the gift of confession where we receive His forgiveness, and as an added bonus, we receive the graces to be built up with holy armor against whatever sins we’re struggling with. Although they can’t get their virginity back, it’s never too late to reclaim a lifestyle of chastity and save sex for marriage.”
Aside from the reminder that my role as parent sex educator is here, I realized that (1) we don’t know what’s in store for our children, and (2) that a lot of it is out of our hands. All we can do as parents is give them the information, pray that they will make the right choices, and love them through the consequences of those choices, both positive and negative.
When push comes to shove, if my kids make a mistake, I hope I’ll love like the father in the story of the Prodigal Son. The Prodigal Son asked for his inheritance before his father was even dead and then “squandered his property in loose living.” We all know what that means!
I think I tear up every time I read the story and the son figures out what he did wrong and returns to his father.
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| Rembrandt’s “The Prodigal Son” |
Luke 15:20 And he arose and came to his father. But while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.
So, if my babies make a mistake, even a really big one like asking us for their inheritance before we’re dead and squandering it on loose living, I hope they’ll know that we’ll still run to them, hug them, and kiss them. They’ll always be our babies, after all.
(Note: Readers, when push inevitably comes to shove, I’m counting on you to tell me to eat my words.)
![Let's Talk About Sex!]()
by Catherine | Jan 17, 2012 | Faith, Family
I spent the afternoon talking with high school students about chastity. I told them about my experiences with dating, wedding preparation, and married life. After my relationship history, I gave reasons for why I recommend a commitment to chastity and gave them practical tips on how to put chastity into action. Afterward, I left time for questions. It took them a while to warm up, but the questions showed me their serious thought on the topic as well as their misunderstandings on a few things.
“If we’re in love, is it wrong for us to have sex?”
“Do you think it would have mattered if you had had sex with your husband before you got married? You ended up together anyway.”
“How did you remain committed to chastity when it was tough?”
“What’s the big deal if you and your boyfriend sleep next to each other? Who cares what anybody else thinks if you know you’re not having sex?”
“What if I already lost my virginity? What do I do now?”
“Why do we have to live chastity in marriage as Catholics? Why can’t we just have sex whenever we want and use condoms?”
“If someone was married, gets divorced and remarries, what’s wrong with them having sex with their second spouse?”
I was prepared to hear anything, so I fielded the questions without batting an eye. (Chastity.com was a tremendous resource. Thank you, Jason Evert!) I think my answers were helpful, several students personally thanked me for coming, and I left feeling like I might have impacted some of them to consider adopting chastity. Thank You, Holy Spirit!
Janie and Walt had come along with me, and they played with study hall students in the Campus Ministry room while I gave my presentation to three different classes. As I packed them up and buckled them into their carseats, something struck me: my babies aren’t always going to be babies, and they are going to have these same questions.
I already knew that, and Philip and I have talked several times about how we want to teach our children about their sexuality. Somehow, though, hearing the high school students’ questions, seeing the hurt of those who had lost their virginity, and hearing the misconceptions of the Church’s teaching on sexuality made the reality of my role as a parent educator more imminent.
Philip and I agree that it is our joint responsibility as parents to give our children a life-long sex education. We won’t just have “the talk.” We will have continuous, age-appropriate conversations about the gift of sexuality, what it is, and how we celebrate it. We want our children to learn that sex is a wonderful, beautiful thing, and that it is something they should anticipate with great joy if they are called to the vocation of marriage. I’m not so naive as to think that our kids will come to us every time they have a sex-related question or that they aren’t seeking out answers elsewhere. I do hope, though, that they will look to us as a loving, credible, and supportive source of information.
A student today asked, “What are you going to do if you find out that one of your kids loses their virginity before marriage?”
Apparently I didn’t have to think about it because I heard myself say, “Well, I think my husband and I would be disappointed. I think we would tell them that. But we’d quickly follow that up by saying that we love them, that we’re glad they’re still comfortable confiding in us, and that we want them to know that making a mistake doesn’t make them a bad person or a failure. God doesn’t hold grudges like we do. Fortunately, we have the gift of confession where we receive His forgiveness, and as an added bonus, we receive the graces to be built up with holy armor against whatever sins we’re struggling with. Although they can’t get their virginity back, it’s never too late to reclaim a lifestyle of chastity and save sex for marriage.”
Aside from the reminder that my role as parent sex educator is here, I realized that (1) we don’t know what’s in store for our children, and (2) that a lot of it is out of our hands. All we can do as parents is give them the information, pray that they will make the right choices, and love them through the consequences of those choices, both positive and negative.
When push comes to shove, if my kids make a mistake, I hope I’ll love like the father in the story of the Prodigal Son. The Prodigal Son asked for his inheritance before his father was even dead and then “squandered his property in loose living.” We all know what that means!
I think I tear up every time I read the story and the son figures out what he did wrong and returns to his father.
|
| Rembrandt’s “The Prodigal Son” |
Luke 15:20 And he arose and came to his father. But while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.
So, if my babies make a mistake, even a really big one like asking us for their inheritance before we’re dead and squandering it on loose living, I hope they’ll know that we’ll still run to them, hug them, and kiss them. They’ll always be our babies, after all.
(Note: Readers, when push inevitably comes to shove, I’m counting on you to tell me to eat my words.)
![Siblings Side by Side]()
by Catherine | Jan 14, 2012 | Family
Here are Janie and Walt at 4, 5, 6, and 7 months side by side. Can you tell which one is which? Hint: the bow might help!
Four Months
Five Months
Six Months
Seven Months
Who is who?
Four months: Walt, Janie
Five months: Walt, Janie
Six months: Janie, Walt
Seven months: Janie, Walt
![From a Crib to a Daybed]()
by Catherine | Jan 11, 2012 | Family
Jane’s always been a climber. She literally took things to new heights when she learned how to vault herself out of her crib. We decided this was no longer safe, took one of the walls off of Jane’s crib, and converted it into a daybed last night.
I was nervous about the whole thing because Jane also learned how to open doors last week. (Yes, we’re adding baby-proofing the doorknobs to the shopping and to-do lists.) In the meantime, we stuck a gate outside of Jane’s closed bedroom door so that (in theory) she can’t escape unnoticed during the night.
Last night went surprisingly smoothly! Jane only got out of bed once. Philip put Jane right back into her crib, laid down on the ground next to her, and waited until she calmed down. When she was calm but still awake, Philip told her “goodnight” like usual, walked away, and closed the door. Silence. She slept until 6:30 this morning! I heard her get out of her crib, go to the door, and say, “Mama! Where are you?” while she fumbled with the doorknob.
Waking up earlier than usual combined with a fun playdate yesterday must have worn her out. Jane was a tired girl this morning. When I was in the middle of dusting, Jane ran off to her bedroom. She’s been wanting to play in there independently lately–trying on costumes, playing with her kitchen, working on puzzles, etc. I let her play for a few minutes before I went to check on her.
The door was shut, the light was on, and this is what I found.
Jane had put on her tutu, found her binkie in the basket on her changing table, climbed into her new daybed with “Doggy,” and passed out.
She’s totally her mother’s daughter. We love our naps, and we’ll get sleep at any cost–with or without tutus and lights. Seeing Jane like this reminded me of a photo I took when she was 7 months old (same age as Walt!). Clearly, we still needed all four walls of the crib attached!
Oh, how I love those sweet chunky legs!
Here’s to hoping that the daybed transition continues to be a smooth one. Keep those prayers coming! 🙂
