A little row of lights went out...

Just as we were celebrating the utter joy and loveliness of babies as a community, we were reminded that when we say "yes" to life, we also take a risk. We risk the heartbreak the Blessed Mother knew so well, the pain of loss.  Several of the mothers at 4Real have suffered miscarriages this week. As Alice so eloquently wrote, "One by one, a little row of lights went out, giving way to the darkness of disappointment and loss."  Please join us in praying for our dear friends. Alice has posted a beautiful prayer at Cottage Blessings.

Foss Family Home Companion

Now that Kim has given you the history behind our home management notebooks, I'd love to share my details.  Kim and I discussed what we wanted out of these over the course of several months.  We're both very visual and we agreed they had to be pretty.  We had to want to handle them frequently and we wanted to be rewarded when we looked at them.  She's a graphic genius and she sent me my cover inserts and divider pages.  They were all the inspiration I needed to take off on my own.

We both had taken to heart stories like this one and this one, and since we were both pregnant, they were in the back of our minds as we sought to put on paper everything we knew would make our households run more smoothly.  The chance of our demise notwithstanding, there were other reasons for committing household routines and rhythms to paper.  We saw these binders as works in progress and we knew that they would become the living books with which we could teach our daughters to keep house.  That's why we both chose visual themes with our daughters in mind.  And we also knew that the exercise of thinking these things through would only benefit our families, not just in the long run, but in the near term.

When a bottle of red wine fell off the top of the refrigerator and onto the granite counter below, thoroughly drenching my copies of Heart of the Home and Autumn from the Heart of the Home, I cried.  Then, I blotted and reconciled myself to the fact that now I had lots and lots of pages to cut and paste in order to add graphics to my planning pages. I downloaded the same font she'd used for the dividers from Two Peas in a Bucket.  I wanted all the pages in the same font if at all possible.  For purposes of this post, I have saved all the downloads in a plain Word font, since you wouldn't be able to read them in the Two Peas font unless you'd downloaded it as well. Clear as mud so far?

I have already benefitted enormously from this book.  I had all these routines in place by midsummer and my children and I were well practiced before the fall and the stresses that came with it.  Within a two week span, my husband changed jobs (from one that had him traveling often and working at home to one that has him traveling still but working in a downtown office as well) and we added a baby to the family.  Add to that the beginning of the school year, a new activity schedule, and some nasty viral illnesses and I could have been looking at utter chaos.

Thanks to the help of some very dear friends and to the forethought of the plan, we are surviving rather well. It's not perfect and my house doesn't look like a Better Homes and Gardens spread, but it's functional and when we put our minds to it, it's downright lovely.

The book begins with some inspiration.  Kim sent this page:

and then I added this post to remind myself why I am doing this whole homemaking thing.

The Schedules section of the binder begins with a master schedule for the week.  I've listed, by day, where each child goes and how they get to and from.  Behind that are pages that include all the game and dance rehearsal schedules, directions to all the fields for the current season, my husband's travel schedule, the local school schedule and any correspondence from coaches or dance teachers.  I keep a few empty page protectors there so that I can file things the minute they get home.

The Food section includes:

• a Basic Kitchen Inventory Download healthy_kitchen_basic_inventory.1.doc which I use to generate a grocery list
• a three week cycle menu Download cycle_menu.1.doc
• all the recipes that go with the meals in the cycle menu-- perhaps they will appear at Kitchen Comforts sometime soon (I keep promising Lissa)
• the co-op order form (we order all our poultry, eggs, butter and many dry goods from a Virginia farm once a month)
• an inventory of all the food in the upright freezer (twice a year, we order a side of beef)

The Cleaning Section includes:

• The chore chart.  I began with a subscription to Motivated Moms but quickly discovered that the schedules there didn't work for a family this size and my definition of clean and orderly.  So, I tweaked it.  I still consult the Motivated Moms schedule weekly, but the chart we use is way-tailored to my family each week.Download EDAILYCHORES--10-22.doc
• Several pages clearly defining what "clean" really is.  These are also laminated  and posted throughout the house. These charts enable my husband to make "inspections." Download eslists.1.doc
• A page with the laundry routine Download laundry_routine.1.doc
• Instructions on washing diapers Download washing_diapers.1.doc
• How to make various household cleaners Download basic_cleaners.1.doc

The Health section includes:

• The names and numbers of all doctors and dentists and the pharmacy.
• Health insurance information.
• A list of symptoms and herbal remedies.
• A pediatric herb compendium.
• Our family's immunization schedule

The Faith section includes:

• current novena prayers
• The Mass schedule and contact list from my parish
• All the great liturgical year ideas I've gleaned from places like the 4Real boards, the Cottage, and Jenn Miller.  This section is growing very fat.

The Home Education section includes the plan for each child that I wrote this summer.  Those are all linked on the sidebar of this blog.

The Contacts section includes:

• the back page from our community news magazine which has all the names and numbers of local offices and merchants.
• a printed list of the names, phone numbers, and snail mail addresses of all the 4Real Message board moderators.
• a printed list of other frequently called numbers

Whew!  I'm having such fun reading others' ideas and plans for management notebooks and I'm sure glad that I bought a two inch binder from the get-go.  I see much adding in my future.

For more on Homemaking Companion Books click here.

The Loveliness of Babies

It's been all babies, all the time here for the entire month of October.  And it's so much fun to share the joy with mothers all over the world who know and understand the loveliness of babies.

For so many of us, babies begin with a prayer. There is a longing that the Lord inspires in our hearts, a restlessness and emptiness that only a bundle will fill.  And so we beg God for a blessing beyond compare and we buy more than our fair share of pregnancy tests, hoping for two red lines.  Minnesota Mom eloquently captures those feelings of hope and eagerness as we pray to see The Thin Red Line.

And when those two lines appear, we're off on a whole new adventure.  Kathryn, in England, set off on just such an adventure this time last year. She did it with a lot of prayer support and hundreds of cyber aunties who joyfully welcomed Kathryn's late-in-life Little Cherub.

And there is a little cherub at The Island of Hope, too.  His name is Jack (sort of).

Several of us have been talking lately about the paradox of having so many friends who have had so many babies.  The more people you know, the more stories you know.  We know stories of triumph and of unimagined joy.  But we have also heard the tragedies, the sorrows, the very real risks that come with having children. Cheryl takes us through the highs and the lows,to a place of trust and comfort. No one knows the gravest risks and the most terrifying fears better than Angel who has lived with an intimate knowledge of the fragility of life since the day she was born.  And she reminds us to never, ever take babies and birth for granted.

Helen shares the "labor" of adoption--a labor of love. Alice brings her trademark faith and serenity to the birth experience.  She tells the beautiful story of Catherine's birth and reminds us that we do not bring our babies into this world alone. She's also given us new baby pictures and some glimpses at the new miracle in the always lovely Cottage.

Sometimes, we pray for a baby and we get a surprise.  The Barretts at the Bonny Blue House must be really good pray-ers, because God gave them two-at-a-time babies this year.  And Mary Ellen is discovering anew that folks will do just about anything for those precious babies.

This Fair has given some moms cause for reflection.  Blair reflects on the gift of three daughters.  And Dawn reflects on the gift of three sons.

Cay considers her own babies and those of the people she loves. MamaJen shares  how to keep babylove alive even when there are currently no babies in the house.

Rebecca has devoted an entire blog to Babylove.  I don't know how she chose just one post.  She asks us to look again at the lovely dreams and happy days that come with sharing sleep with our wee ones.

Elena reminds us that we need each one of those babies and that women will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness (1 Timothy 2:15).

It's not just moms who are reflecting.  My eldest son has found a reason to ponder too.  He shares what the babies in my house have meant to him.

And what about me? I'm in a fog of Baby Bliss and pretty much the entire October archives is devoted to Sweet Karoline Rose.  She is an answer to fervent prayer--the rose picked from the heavenly garden, a balm to a tired soul, a fresh breeze of hope and joy.  She has enchanted our entire family. I live for this and it is such a lovely life!

Double Digits!

Mary Beth will turn ten tomorrow.  Since the Loveliness of Babies Fair will be here tomorrow, I thought I'd post her birthday post today. Her brothers call her "Mini Mom" and though it irritates her, it is a fitting nickname.  She is nurturing and competent, quite the lovely big sister.  Still young enough to play with American Girl dolls and pretend to be living in a Little House, she is also showing a maturity that takes my breath away.  Ten years seems such a short time ago!  Mary Beth is a bigtime blogger and she absolutely adores her friends from the Cottage and the Glen.  I laugh with their moms as we watch the second generation of cyber-buddies take shape. My first girl, I do so enjoy her and I'm so thankful for the chance to be a mother to such a dear girl. Happy Birthday, big girl!

I Live For This

When I met him, my husband was a baseball player--not just a pick-up game kind of guy, but a serious ball player, the kind who looked ahead to college baseball and talked with Major League scouts. We watched a lot of baseball during our courtship, snuggled on a couch in his parents' basement, eating Haagen Das ice cream and rooting for the Baltimore Orioles back when both Cal Ripken and Mike Mussina were in Balitmore. My husband grew up, but he didn't leave sports behind. Now he's a "player" with ESPN and his real life job is still games. We watch a lot of television sports in this house.  We tell ourselves it pays the mortgage.

I guess it only makes sense that major sporting events stand out in my mind as benchmarks along the way in the history of our family.  We announced to the world that we were expecting our first baby at a Super Bowl party, 1988 (the Redskins won). Patrick was born on a Redskins-Dallas Sunday. Stephen was born hours after Super Bowl XXXIII; Mike barely made it to the hospital. And Mary Beth stayed awake her first night in the hospital for the second longest game on record at the time--an Orioles-Yankees postseason heartbreaker.  I have never been so tired in my life, but she was determined not to sleep until she knew the outcome.

Really, postseason baseball has permeated the homecomings of five of our babies.  It just seems that babies and baseball are what we do.  One night last week, I settled in with my little boys to watch grandma's team (Detroit) win a World Series berth.  I fell asleep to Tommy Lasorda exhorting us all to watch postseason baseball.  In a voice that sounded eerily like one of my uncles from Brooklyn, he intoned "I live for this.  You live for this.  We all live for this." And I was out like a light, baby Karoline snuggled on my chest.  I awoke two hours later to a squirmy baby and Tommy again: I live for this he insisted. I sure do, I thought as I bent to kiss a sweet-smelling downy head and then to settle my newborn at my breast.  I sure do.

I live for the way she makes a perfect "O" with her mouth, the way she shudders a bit and sighs contentedly when she has finished nursing. I live for the tiny hint of a smile I see when she sleeps and the promise of grins and giggles to come.

I live for the two little boys who stayed awake while I took my baseball nap and are eager to fill me in on the details, since it is now the eighth inning and I've missed almost the entire game.

I live for the chance to watch my four-year-old former "baby of the family" cuddle her new sister and croon, "I just love, love, love Karoline." I live for a twelve-year-old tough guy who acts like all he cares about is soccer, but tries to hide his tears when it's not his turn to hold the baby.  I live for the daughter who witnessed her little sister's birth and still reflects that unparalleled joy.

There was a time when  "I live for this" was not a television slogan; it was not hyperbole. There was a time when I left a tow-headed baby and went to the hospital again and again to be drugged with poison in order to save my life.  And every day, I'd wake up and face those challenges with a single vision: my baby. I live for this. I live for him. All I wanted was the privelige of watching the baby grow into a little boy and then a big boy and then a man.  All I wanted was to get him to eighteen.

And I did.  We did.  God did.  I was granted the great gift of being present for my child, the gift of mothering the baby.  The baby is eighteen now.  We made it!  And there is a new baby.  Her lifetime stretches before me like a story begging to be written.  I know now how foolish it is to think I just need to get to eighteen.Mothers are never finished mothering their babies. I also know that God has a plan and that there are no guarantees--we don't know how long we have to live for this.

I have a better understanding of vocation than I did way back then.  I know that these children are God's children and His plan is what I want to live.  I know that as important as I thought I was to that baby all those years ago, the children that God has entrusted to me are my path to salvation, not the other way around.  Sure, I will teach them diligently and I pray that they will know, love, and serve God, but it is me who will learn the most in these relationships.

I know the sweetness of a newborn.  I know the joy of seeing a child grow.  And I've seen all the stages between brand new and full grown. 

I also know the gift of every single day, each little tick in time.  Every moment, really, every breath.  It's all such a miracle--that I'm here, that she's here.  It's utterly lovely. I live for this.  I really do.