projects – Glimpses of Joy

using my gifts

In the first trimester of this pregnancy, when I was feeling super tired and introverted, I found myself using the pregnancy as an excuse to get out of social commitments. I know we planned to hang out tonight, but actually, I’m pregnant and I just want to go to bed at 8pm (real text by moi). Right after that, I was invited to give a talk to some undergrad women for an Advent day of reflection. And I jumped at the chance – it did not even cross my mind to say no.

Before I left my work with campus ministry in California, one of my colleagues, Wes, spoke a word of encouragement that I’ve been thinking about lately. He said something like, I hope this next season of life would give you the chance to use gifts that you haven’t been able to in your work now. I was about to have two babies under two and move to a new state. I remember thinking, Interesting… I have no idea what that would look like.

Almost two years later, I’m seeing that this stay-at-home mom, Notre Dame grad-wife life has given me the chance to flex old muscles. Two months after we arrived, I started campaigning with brand-new friends and neighbors for family student housing to continue after the demolition of University Village – that was a wild ride that I got surprisingly fired up over (hello, eight wing of this enneagram nine). And little opportunities have popped up since then, that have tapped into my love for writing and public speaking, and have been doable with young kids and have just felt right.

Along the way, I’ve been learning more about myself. About what gives me energy and life, and finding the courage to say yes to those things. In the fall, I got connected with a very flexible, part-time editing job, helping students with undergrad and grad school application essays. I started this, my own lil blog, and have really enjoyed having a space to share some of my thoughts and reflections (with my ten followers, lol). And most recently, I wrote a post for the McGrath Institute’s new blog about interruptions.

There have been other opportunities that I’ve gotten really excited about, but the timing just hasn’t been right (like this new Catholic literary journal I found on Instagram that was accepting fiction and poetry submissions that week). I’m learning to be patient and trust God’s timing with this stuff more, rather than try to force things to happen, or be all angsty about it. And mostly it’s just been a cool journey of becoming more confident that yes, I do have gifts and strengths, and yes, there will be opportunities to use them, even in this season.

savoring summer (still)

I’ve already given myself a pep talk once this summer about savoring the weeks of looooong hot, humid days, hanging out with the girls with nothing on our schedule. But it would seem I need another reminder. I have so many ideas of how I could use some child-free time! But when I’m longing for a couple hours spent writing at a coffee shop, I’m missing the good that’s right in front of me. So, I’m trying to be present. I’m trying to be grateful.

Today, I’m grateful that the friend who will be living with us soon brought some boxes over this morning and stayed to play with Evangeline for a while. And Zelie took a 4 hour nap (!!!) and I had some unexpected time to tackle a project that’s been on my mind for a couple weeks.

Gallery wall, baby.

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After I won the ABC print from Be A Heart’s Instagram giveaway (I can’t believe it, either!) I kept thinking about how I could use it for some inspo for the shared girls room I needed to create. Figuring out how to layout the room, cut down on toys, and find something that could hold clothes (since the closet would become Zelie’s baby cave and I don’t have a small dresser) took some creative energy, which I enjoyed. But when I have an idea, I want it done yesterday. So my temptation is to be v frustrated when I can’t seem to get going or finish a project day after day because, you know, toddlers and babies. This open window of time today – I think I had nearly 3 hours?? – was such a gift. I just went for it. No levelers, no pencils, I eyeballed it and hammered nails into the walls for the first time since we moved in. I’m pretty happy with it!

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The Mary and Jesus etching was a gift from Chris’s brother, Teddy. (Shoutout to Ted’s art skillz!) The plant hanger and the faux taxidermy unicorn are from Target. I know those cacti are doomed, but a girl can dream. And faux taxidermy I just find so adorable and hilarious, it was an impulse buy and NO REGERTS. The photo is me and Chris with Evangeline’s godparents at their wedding reception (Evangeline in my belly), the cross is from a Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, CA, and the embroidery was a gift for Zelie’s baptism made by my amazingly talented friend, Magdalena. 🙂

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This is over Evangeline’s (new big girl) bed. A shout out to some Etsy shops! The St. Catherine of Siena quote is a Rose Harrington print, a gift for Evangeline’s first baptism anniversary from her godmother, Megan. The adorable St. Teresa of Calcutta doll photobombing down there, also from Aunt Megan! (I love every single saint doll in this shop). And then a Jerusalem cross, also from Aunt Megan – wow! Go, Megan! (And Michael! Sorry, Michael!) – and an icon of the Nativity of Christ, a gift from my good friend Sarah after my confirmation, and a wooden angel that Maya and I had in our room when we were little.

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2e9e717d-b91b-48e7-83cf-28984bd98ed3 — snapped a pic before I went to work on the walls. the pictures hanging are on the nails that were left by the previous owners.

As far as the shared room is going … it’s not, really. Haha! They were together for a week, and it had its ups and downs. Bedtime was generally great. Zelie went down and didn’t wake up when we brought Evangeline in. But then Zelie started sleeping terribly from 2:30-5am for a few nights and that was not fun for anyone. Shared afternoon nap time, after two bad days of Zelie not being able to nap, got separated, with Zelie in a pack n play in the guest room. And then, when Chris and I went out for a date night and started planning the little retreat we’re taking over our anniversary, I realized it’s not fair to leave an unweaned baby with Grandma and Grandpa for two nights. So that took priority, and that means Zelie’s in the guest room until she can sleep through the night.

ANYWAY. All that to say, I’m hoping fall will bring me a new rhythm with some time to myself each week. And I am feeling how the extremity of the seasons here preps me for the next one, but I jump the gun a bit. So, working on that. I can look ahead and tell that the end of August will feel super busy, and by then I’ll probably wish I was back in this mellow July.

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one year later

Zelie’s first birthday party was so fun. My dad was in town and we had about 30 people over to celebrate. It was such a contrast to Evangeline’s first birthday that it got me reflecting on all the changes and transitions that I’ve gone through in the past year or so.

We had Evange’s party at the beach in Santa Cruz with friends and family, and it was really just an excuse to hang out at the beach with our friends. No party decor or games, no presents. I was still working, and the thought of preparing enough food for everyone and trying to bake anything was just so overwhelming that I outsourced. I asked my amazing foodie friend to bake cupcakes and I went the Whole Foods catering route for some fancy sandwiches. Oh, and I was seven weeks pregnant with Zelie. So … no energy.

Zelie’s party was our first big shin dig in the new house we just bought. Sometimes I still can’t believe we own a house (in Indiana) but that’s another post forthcoming. I’ll do a little house tour when we’re more settled in, ie have some furniture. But it felt like a big deal to be able to really host something in our own space for the first time. I used serving platters from our wedding registry that had never seen the light of day. And in some ways, it kind of marked for me a one year anniversary of being a SAHM. I was able to come up with a menu for 30 people, shop for it, and cook it all without crying. I was even excited about it. I went the pulled pork route and borrowed crock pots and made 7 pounds worth of this and about 7 pounds worth of this. (And discovered in the process that my crock pot is an ancient piece of junk).

I baked a cake for the first time (and while the icing humbled me, I’m still v proud. Thanks for the rec, Seisha!). For Evange and her friends (because, really, what does a one year old do at a party) we played Pin the Tail on the Donkey, and it was so cute.

I can’t wait for the weather to warm up so we can host parties in the backyard! I envision lots of Spikeball, S’more, Sangria parties this summer. Come visit us!! 🙂

oh crap! potty training. my thoughts exactly.

No one prepared me for potty training!! I mean, I don’t know what preparation would have looked like exactly, but man, it was a PROCESS. Any new milestone that I approach with Evangeline (eating solids, sleep training, climbing out of the crib, etc) I go through this angst (CHANGE!). And potty training was no different.

In July, I made a friend who has a girl Evangeline’s age, like week apart. I noticed her taking Coral to the potty one day and was like WHAT! She’s POTTY TRAINED?! I didn’t know we could do that yet! And my friend said, yep, I trained her at 19 months.

MIND BLOWN.

She told me that she read this book and followed that method. I was intrigued because approaching any big change, a book is comforting. So I thought about it a lot, thought about how much it would suck to have to take the time to train Evangeline when right now it was just so easy to let her pee and poop in a diaper. And how would car trips work? How would I go anywhere?

But then I started listening to the book and was won over by the author pretty quickly. She’s funny and she frames it as a really cool milestone and “your first glimpse into how your child learns.” And I’m all about that. And then she started going through the steps and I was like wait, wait, slow down and Amazon Primed that book ASAP. Help me.

Her intro and first couple chapters made me realize, Evangeline is totally ready to learn this. I am the limiting factor. So I braced myself, marked the start day on the calendar (September 1, just to give us a few days to calm down after her birthday, and nice clean start date) and cleared our schedule. Honestly, our schedule is going to the library, etc, little fun morning outings, but even letting go of this was hard. Totally home bound for several days? Yikes.

A couple things were working in my favor with this venture.

1. Our 500 sq foot apartment set to be demolished in June. There’s always a potty within reach! There’s already years and years of pee soaked into this carpet and it’s going to be destroyed soon anyway!

2. Summertime. When I couldn’t keep her inside anymore, I let her go out to the playground with no pants on and brought a potty along. There were many accidents out there, and it was possibly a questionable parenting choice, but other moms were sympathetic.

But still, the first week was SO HARD. Like, the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Similar to childbirth, I think there is necessary amnesia associated with potty training. 6 months later, I’ve already forgotten some of how exhausting it was to strike the balance between complete focus and total casualness. I’m watching you super carefully to learn your pee pee dance, but it’s no big deal to me if you pee on the floor, you do you, gf, this is not a power struggle. But I do remember thinking at some point towards the end of that first week – Shoot, if I have more babies, I have to potty train them too. (I did not have that thought after giving birth, btw.)

One of our first trips out, on Day 9, was a walk to campus for a ND football tailgate with seminarians. Got one pee in the potty and one pair of wet pants. I called it a win.

My friend also recommended this portable seat to make big toilets accessible and it was CLUTCH. Basically, all credit goes to Katherine. 🙂

Overall, I recommend Jamie’s method. It’s super intense, but it works. Potty training was all I thought about and talked about for 2 weeks, and then it got more normal. There were (and still are) accidents here and there, but I really liked not having to change her diapers anymore (just down to one baby) and not buying them (!) and throwing them into landfill any longer. After Christmas, when Evangeline had a total regression at Grandma’s house (my fault), we got home and got right back to it and she picked up again in no time.

tricycle for her bday. a much less messy milestone.

the glimpses

There was a day back in December when I got out of the apartment for a run (in sunshine, hallelujah!) and as I was running along the walking path toward campus, I saw a woman with a basket. She was off the path a ways, standing at the edge of a field that was filled with yellow flowers when we moved here in July, but now is brown. I had just registered that the field had died and never looked at it again, really. But she was standing there with a basket, picking what I now saw were thistles. Still brown and dead, but she had noticed them for some reason, and her attention turned mine. I kept running but on my way back, when I passed that spot again, I decided to take a closer look. They were definitely dead. Pointy thistles on the end of dry, pointy stalks. But they were pretty, in a way, and there were small, brittle flowers among them. And I was struck mostly that I had never seen them before in all my times walking/jogging past. So I copied the basket lady and broke off several stalks, walking the rest of the way home.

It was a strange, reflective moment, where I was very aware that I had done something I hadn’t planned to do (step off the path, stop my run, bring home dead flowers) and I was super elated by it. Like, weirdly so. Chris had taken the girls somewhere so I had the apartment to myself for a few minutes, and I spent the time carefully arranging the thistles in a glass. And it was so great. And they were just dead flowers.

***

I think I’m entering a season of collecting things like this. Not always dead thistles, sometimes a line from a poem, a writing by a saint, or an old photograph from a thrift store. Things or words that set my soul humming. It only now occurs to me that this quiet, small activity fits well with winter. I’ve been turning inward as the days have shortened, the leaves have let go and fallen, and the bitter cold is now setting in. I am watching the sun rise and set each day now, and it has set me to paying attention to more of the little things that fill that time in between.

This quote by Henri Nouwen that I found in this book is something I keep returning to, lately. “My deepest vocation is to be a witness to the glimpses of God I have been allowed to catch.” Seeing these things I’m collecting as glimpses – of God, of beauty, of joy – and savoring them. I’m wondering how to be a witness to them. And how being a witness can be my vocation, within my other vocations (wife, mother). It’s all wrapped up in the question I continue to have: What do I do as a stay at home mom? But I think this sort of vocational lens is more helpful to me. It’s not fully formed and I’m still figuring it out, but I know I want to keep catching those glimpses.

cloth diapers

A theme of this blog rn now is: I’m trying to figure out how to be a Stay At Home Mom. I stopped working after Zelie was born, and then we moved across the country, so it all felt like transition-zone all summer. Plus summer always has a different rhythm, so it wasn’t until the end of August that it felt weird that I didn’t have something like school or work about to ramp up. My solution was to come up with a bunch of projects I could tackle, that would make it feel like I had stuff to do. Project #1 was Potty Training, a whole saga deserving of its own v riveting post. Project #2 was Cloth Diapering aka An Eco-Friendly, Laudato Si-Fueled Unexpected Frenzy of Energy. If you’re ever interested in using cloth diapers, you should read this and ask Sarah for tips because that’s what I did. But because I got some cute pics of Zelie, a post on cloth diapers there shall be!

So, cloth diapers are a labor intense, sometimes pain in the butt, tbh. Buuuut they feel worth it (right now, at least) because they save money and I like throwing less diapers into landfills to never decompose. I almost got some used BumGenius for a good deal on Cloth Diaper Trader but then found a better deal through a moms Facebook group, so the upfront cost was only $50 for 15 diapers, I shall brag. I found out later that the diapers used to belong to one of my neighbors in the Village! Ha! I also snagged two reusable trash diaper bags for $10 from another neighbor. Cashing in on everyone else giving up on cloth diapering! Which makes me realize it’s pretty hard to keep up when you have lots of kids. Having only one baby in diapers and a washer/dryer in our unit made it possible for me to make the switch. That, and having a clothesline. I LOVE CLOTHESLINES. So right now it feels easy to wash them every 2-3 days or so and I don’t mind the scraping poop into the toilet part. It’s humbling and probably good for my soul. Oh and I bought two packs of these per Sarah’s recommendation, so we have reusable wipes, too. So eco-friendly rn.

I am really looking forward to spring when I can line dry them again, because I miss those minutes by myself at the clothesline. I love the feeling of cool, clean laundry in my hands when it’s hot outside, and how it slows me down to think and pray in the sunshine. Looking forward to spring for many, many reasons. Hoping I survive my first real winter and am still infatuated with le cloth diapering come … March? April? May? Whenever spring starts in South Bend.

displaying my running gear

It’s ridiculous how intimidated I’ve been by the idea of a blog. Lately, though, for whatever reason, I’ve felt more open to trying new things. I love to write and I’ve been saying I want to write more for several years now, but I’ve been held back by this stupid perfectionism I picked up somewhere along the way (Stanford? Having an Olympic athlete in the family?) that tells me I can’t try anything if I’m not already a total expert at it.

My final push came from a recent conversation with a friend. I sheepishly admitted I was *thinking* about starting a blog but how lame I felt (I don’t have a name for it! I don’t know what I’ll write about! I don’t want anyone to read it!) and she told me a story that made me realize I was being dumb and should just blog-a-log and get over myself.

We both worked with college students after graduating and she worked with Stanford students. At a yearly conference, we held a “No Talent – Talent Show.” She reminded me that we had to call it that so that Stanford students would even participate. And she told me about an act at the last conference (that I had missed because I was v v pregnant) that was especially hilariously bad.

This kid decided that for 3 minutes, his talent would be to invite other students up on stage and have them hold his running gear. So there were people just standing, holding his shoes, and his unwashed shirts and shorts while he talked about them. That was his talent. He wanted to participate, and he had no fear. (In another act, his friend planked while telling jokes. Originally they had planned for one of them to throw cards while the other planked. No fear, you guys, no fear.)

So, I don’t know what this blog is or will be, but this is me, displaying my sweaty, unwashed, running gear.