How To Love Like A Child

I want to scoop him up in the fullness of the moon, the fullness of the moment- baby boy body all bathing in moonlight. He lies in sweet precious sleep on his mattress by the window. The lunar glow sweeps his face, illuminating delicate eyelash curl. I lie awake in my bed and adore. My heart is hollowed and a room is hallowed by innocence and beauty.

 What have I done to deserve this? Bustling babies with bright eyes and eager hearts long to love me every day. Why? How do they continue to love and trust a Mama so frayed and irritable lately? Is it because they adore me? Is this why Jesus said to become like little children? They know how to love. Somewhere in the years we forget how to love like a child, to adore.

Will you spend some time in adoration this weekend? Take time to adore your child, adore creation, adore the Lord. Play some beautiful music and light a candle, alone, for ten minutes? Maybe if we spend more time nurturing a spirit of adoration, we will be able to love in more complete, unconditional ways- as little children do.

Adoremus!

How To Make A Home

I crept through the door quietly as not to wake Anna. She, curled there in fetal slumber, soft and innocent. She is not a baby anymore-turned three in December, but the way she looked just then...it's the same.
The same as three and a half years ago when we studied that ultrasound picture so hard but said we didn't want to know if it was a boy or girl- and we didn't know until the day she was born!

In the blurry image her perfectly formed sixteen-week old body curled as it does now. Her one arm tucked carefully under her face, and her little hand rested under her chin. We could see all this... a baby being formed in dark watery depths. A hidden miracle.

"I was her first home," I thought to myself, standing there watching her sleep. "Yes, I am a homemaker. And I have made a body-dwelling for nine miracles." Such Grace, such Blessing~ That I could be used by God to give LIFE.

I had been thinking about the business of homemaking a lot that day- the monotony, the drudgery, the fact that nothing stays done. We, as homemakers, do the most mundane tasks over, and over, and over. And then- tomorrow- it will all have to be done again.

I know we're supposed to see all of our housework as a form of prayer, and it is; Living our vocation IS prayer. Serving others IS prayer...but how? How does feeding and cleaning and wiping and doing the dirty work bring us closer to God?
That night I gazed at Anna sleeping, I saw the answer. I read the answer in the lines of her curved body, awakening those maternal instincts so present in pregnant expectation three years ago:

Every mundane task I perform builds a home for the hearts of my children.

It may be a cliche, that "home is where the heart is," but it is so true! I can have a beautiful home and the most delicious meals and not have made a home for my children. Giving children a home is about being loving towards them, doing things out of love for them.

Every time I serve my family with love, I am building a home that cannot be undone or destroyed. True, they will get hungry again, the clothes will need washing again, and the toys will get scatterd on the floor...

But the love imparted by serving my family cannot be taken away.

Each loving action is like a brick that builds a home for my children's heart...my children's soul.

"Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do... but how much love we put in that action. "

 ~Mother Teresa

"Love begins by taking care of the closest ones - the ones at home. "

~Mother Teresa

"Let us then, be up and doing. With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait."
 ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Sleeping Beauty

I told you I would update you on the 6:00 project, and I haven't. I was putting it off for a little while, wanting to see how it goes. I read once that it takes about three weeks for a new habit to stick, and tomorrow it will have been three weeks since I decided to get up by 6:00 each morning.

The first two weeks of getting up early were very hard. I am an inveterate night owl. I had normally stayed up until about one or two in the morning every night. Anna still also gets up at night (most nights), so my nights  have been a little crazy and hardly restful. After getting up at 6:00 the first two weeks, with only one missed day (Saturday), I was exhausted! I was getting up early, but I still wasn't able to fall asleep until my old bedtime-OK- some nights I still wasn't even getting in bed until after midnight, because I didn't feel tired. Anna was still getting up to make things worse! Basically I was getting three or four hours of very choppy sleep every night for two weeks.

I persisted in getting up early because I feel like it is God's will for me to do this. When God calls us to do things, we can't just say, "No!" I had never believed before in all that  night/ morning people stuff. Isn't it as simple as just going to bed early so you can get up early? NO. Sleep patterns are like any other habit...you have to retrain yourself.

This past Saturday, I decided to make myself get to bed early. Then our family started coming down with a germ of the sore throat variety- YUCK. But I still woke early. I need to back up a bit. Remember when I said that I wanted to get up early to have an hour of quiet time? That worked great for the first week. Then the little munchkins started getting up with me, and I found myself groaning. Big kids decided it was nice to have mom up to fix a hot breakfast, and I admit, I was feeling a little cheated. I'm so glad I read this insightful post over at Holy Experience  the morning I felt the most annoyed. It reminded me that all the work I do for my family is a prayer. SERVING OTHERS IS PRAYER.

I still pray every morning, but I spend about twenty-five minutes doing the readings, making a morning offering, and offering up the day's intentions. Then I do spiritual reading when I am putting Anna down for a nap, later in the day. It's not the hour I had intended, but it is enough. We can't be greedy, even about prayer time. Right?

This morning I went to lie down after the breakfast rush. I was feeling like I was getting a sore throat, and wanted to fight it off. I meant to lie down for only twenty minutes or so, but I slept. And slept. And slept.
And......slept! My delicious sleep was punctuated by little boys playing knights and vikings:

 "Sam," I heard Tommy call, "Let's play outside because Bikings (vikings) wear boots, and we can wear boots outside!"
They headed out, slamming the door. "Yes! It's warm enough to go outside and play," I dreamily remember thinking. "I can hang out the laundry."

I slept on and on, smiled because I heard a Black-capped Chickadee singing, said sleepy yeses to requests for granola bars, juice boxes, and movies-anything to sleep a little longer. My to-do list slept, too- right in the notebook where I put it last night. I heard Emily practicing her Sonatina and thought how great she sounded, but "I need to tell her not to play it so fast, and that one measure needs perfecting." So I guess as long as there are little people around, we mother in our sleep to some extent.

Three hours later, I woke up refreshed and sore- throatless, I am happy to say! I realize that this gal needs sleep to function- a 'Sleeping Beauty.' I definitely am more beautiful, at least on the inside, when I have had sleep. I did find it encouraging that the last three mornings I awoke before the alarm went off. That's progress! And last night I fell asleep before 11:00- major progress. I think I'm over the hurdle, and before you know it, I'll be a regular old morning person!

Mary Margaret decides what crafts she wants to do.

Emily had a "photo shoot" with Anna.