So I feel like for the past few months I've been cooking nonstop.

Part of this is my fault. I'm very much a from-scratch person when it comes to cooking. I'm pretty much always looking for ways to go further down the unprocessed food chain.

Did you say I can MAKE my own coconut milk? Will it take LOTS of extra time and will my results be marginally worse than canned coconut milk but that will only cause me to try again and again and again? When can we start??

Today I was looking at a recipe that called for buttermilk and I thought "Well, I don't have enough time to buy my favorite cream from Costco and culture it and then churn it before tomorrow, so I guess this one's not happening." I know. I even annoy myself. In order for me to drive to my neighborhood grocery store to buy buttermilk I will have to give myself a pep talk. With a lip-pursing, steering-wheel gripping kind of pep talk, I can usually do it. 

Can't relate? Well, we all have our crosses, right?

Ugh. So yes. I spend a lot of time cooking, and that's a whole lot my fault. 

But we've also had a lot of people eating over here lately. My little brother's been living with us and he probably eats enough for two and a half adults, so I have to up my game on the regular. I have another bachelor brother in Houston who comes over semi-regularly, and it seems like every week we have some friend or relative driving through town and stopping in for a meal, and I feel like I'm just doing SO much cooking. And it's hard. It takes so much thinking and planning. And I want to be good at it. And it's hard. 

We hope to have a whole bramble of children. They will probably want to eat everyday. I'd love for our house to be a house of big meals and big laughter. But, geesh, if I don't feel like I'm already living in a loop of me clutzing about my kitchen chopping onions, wielding giant pans and pots, dishing out food, nursing a baby, unloading a dishwasher, processing some laundry, and then, hey, we're chopping onions again! 

And sometimes I have to lower my simple food nazi standards and buy a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store, sometimes I don't have the time to let my chopped onions rest long enough to develop their cancer-fighting allinase enzymes. I'm learning to make it through those moments.

I'm learning a lot actually.

Some little lessons like "When in doubt, triple the recipe."

"Unless it's from the Pioneer Woman."

I'm learning to talk myself out of stressful situations. Like when the husband is still not home, and we're barreling into toddler meltdownville, and I'm figuring out how to stretch the entree because I just found out that so-and-so is coming to dinner, and I'm begging Jake to run get a toy for the six month old in the Bumbo since my very modulated version of Little Bunny Foo Foo is no longer cutting it, all I have to do is get a little perspective, a little eye of the storm. I have to remind myself that this is just all I ever wanted. 

I have to remind myself that it won't do to stress out over preparing big dinners because big dinners are among my most favorite things.

I have to remind myself how happy all this feeding of big mouths and quieting of little ones makes me.

Because I'm so happy. Life has never been fuller or more demanding. Sleep has never been so precious or so unpredictable. My blog posts have never sung so many verses of the same song, but it's just the truth. I'm so blessed. And I'm so exhausted. And I'm so blessed.

Now I'm off to make another resolution to meal plan. 

The Angelus

We certainly are only scratching at the surface of liturgical living around here. Here's some daily bread for you:

Jake: Is it Lent or is it Easter?
Me: It's Lent.
Jake: (cries)

Catechesis? Check.

Neither Jacob nor I grew up Catholic. So this life of feasts and fasts doesn't feel very organic. The culture at large helps with the big ones like Christmas and Easter, but the lesser known ones - like today's Feast of the Annunciation - don't feel natural to me. At least not yet. They sneak up on me, and I encounter them via some social media outlet, and I fumble out a celebration like a person who missed the joke. I want to fill my children's lives with all the loveliness of the Church's traditions, and I want those traditions to feel as if they'd grown right up out of the earth, but so far my efforts have looked more like a mom directing a stilted pageant of hot cross buns.

I guess I want our family faith life to feel like this:

Jean Francois Millet's "Angelus"

I made this for Jacob one Christmas because, in addition to the Angelus being a favorite prayer of his, this is one of his favorite paintings. Side by side this couple labors, and together they interrupt their ordinary and set aside their tools, he takes off his hat, she clasps her hands, and they speak Mary's blessed words anew.

This morning I conquered my distaste for leaving the house alone, and I trucked me and the littles to Goodwill so I could score some makeshift planters for my succulents, the succulents that I bought last week so we could finally get some Lenten desert up in our house. Up until this morning they were sitting in a clump on our kitchen table, still in their black plastic cups.

 Instead of letting yet another feast day pass us by - instead of losing yet another opportunity in the fuss of "what shall we do?" and "how can it be perfect?" - today we did something beautiful.

Today we said yes to something beautiful.





I also said yes to a second cup of coffee when my toddler skipped his nap this afternoon. That was a good idea too.

Simple Gifts

Here we are squeaking in under the wire on the 7 in 7 challenge. 11:55pm. I feel like I'm writing a paper for college or something. Well get ready. Apparently deadlines make me corny. And no pictures because...11:56

A few weeks ago Jacob and I were at church with our minions. As usual we shuffled in a couple minutes late and thus found ourselves haunting a back pew. It was kind of an early Mass since Jacob's been working Sunday afternoons we've been going kind of early. We settled into our Mass rhythm as parents of little people. The baby was on my lap bobbling her head around, and the toddler was jungle gyming around the pew always within arm's reach of his father. They're pretty good in Mass at this stage. They mostly stay quiet and smile at the people around us, and I can kind of even have a prayerful experience.

This particular Sunday we sat behind an elderly couple. A very elderly couple actually. Lucy June was enamored by the cardinals painted on the woman's light blue cardigan. The husband's dark pants and coat hung loosely on his withering frame. Together he and his wife made the routine motions of Mass look strenuous. Close to the couple sat their daughter who was probably about sixty and also sporting a painted cardigan. I thought about the stage of life the couple was in, about how dependent they were. Their daughter had probably driven them to Mass. They were too slow to amble down the aisle for communion, so the bread was brought to them. Someone probably brings them groceries. They needed help to accomplish even small things in life. So much help.

Kind of like me.

As a still relatively new and relatively clueless mother of young children, I need help. I need help taking my groceries to the car. I need help to go to the dentist or clean the house or take a shower. I need help by way of expert advice and encouraging words and down time. I just need help. And, honestly, people are pretty helpful. But I hate needing help. I don't want to need help; I want to be a helper. I serve my children the live long day (and night) but my helpfulness rarely extends beyond my front door. I thought about this couple and the aging process that makes you more needy. I thought about how everyone has to eventually make peace with needing help. I wondered if it had been a struggle for them. I wondered how long they'd fought before they let their daughter drive them places or before they'd stopped trekking the aisle for communion.

By the eucharistic prayer, I was beginning to feel right sorry for all of us.

During the sign of peace the couple turned to offer us their hands, and they were so delighted to
interact with the children. I pointed Lucy June at them and she gave them a gummy juicy smile, and Jake shook their hands vigorously. And I remembered something, something not brilliant, but something important: I could give this. I could afford people glimpses of my children. Even though I'm still learning this whole motherhood thing and most days my orbit is all snotty noses and shoelaces, I had brought these children here today and they were bringing people joy.

As the service continued, I found myself comforted by this little reminder, encouraged, revitalized, happy for the little extra I'd been able to give that day.

Then I watched as the elderly man took his wife's hand. 

And my breath stuck in my throat. This longstanding love. The lady in the cardinal-print cardigan and her aged husband. The decades upon decades of simple gestures.

I cried through the rest of Mass.

I'm sure they had no idea of the beautiful gift they had given me.

7 Posts 7 Days: Why This is a Bad Idea

Here we are at the beginning of the week that Jen has dubbed Brace Yourselves: We're Writing 7 Posts in 7 days but perhaps we should just call it: "The week we all try to do what Grace does every week."

I always want to blog more. And there are all kinds of reasons why I don't. Sometimes I can't get to it. Sometimes it seems like there's nothing to document. Sometimes the words just don't come. I'm sure there will never be a good week for me to blog more, but this week is far far far from a good week.

Right now in general:

Still a newish mother of two.
Jacob is working virtually all the time.
We are in the early stage of potty training our oldest little person.
We're batting at about a .200 when it comes to toddler naps.

This week in particular:

Lucy June is (finally) getting baptized on Sunday.
Jacob's brother and a friend from LA are visiting on Friday.
Jacob's mom and sister are coming into town for the weekend.
My parents, grandmother, and sister are all coming into town for the weekend.
We're having a party on Sunday afternoon.

So why? Why am I doing this to myself?? There are a few reasons:

1) When life is already crazy what's a little more craziness. Blogging won't really add much to the hectic meter this week because we're pretty much at max, so what's a little more, am I right? I'm a firm believer that you get more done when you have less time.

2) Sometimes I lock the door when I go to the bathroom. Even though blogging isn't perhaps as essential as bathroom time, I still really value it and I feel just fine about occasionally making myself less present to my family so I can accomplish it.

3) It's a gift to myself. Friday is my birthday (add that to my list up there, yo) and I want to give myself this gift. Whenever I make sure my kitchen is really clean or sweep my floors before bed, I do it because I know how much I'll appreciate myself for it come morning. I look at my dirty kitchen and I say: give yourself this gift. And I repeat that through the drudgery that is late night dishwashing. And it never fails. When I wake up to that clean kitchen or that swept floor, when first thing in the morning I can actually see the chair that used to be a mountain of laundry, I'm so grateful to my productive late night self that I could cry. And sometimes I do. This Friday I want to toast my Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday self, and say, "You're Awesome Sauce." Or I won't say that because I'm pretty sure that's just plain stupid, but I will drink a margarita just for her.

But how will I do it? Well my original plan was to wake up early (ACK!!? Wake up before the babies when they don't let you sleep at night??? I know. I know. Too hopeful?) Lucy June, fitful sleeper that she is, will often doze in till a hefty 9am and Jake isn't allowed to come out of his room till his Christmas Lights come on at a mildly generous 7am (God bless outlet timers.) I figured 6-7am was my money shot. So this morning I carefully rolled away from my infant at 6:05, brushed my teeth, and sat down to write. Four lines later, the whole family was awake. Lucy June was squealing her "Not 100% happy" noises from her solo post in the bed while Jacob was tending to the potty trainer who was reveling in his bathroom-only words and shouting "Pooty Booty" on repeat from his own little plastic throne.

Why why why did this happen you ask? I don't know...Motherhood is magical.

I will try again tomorrow. I wasn't planning on trying again. At 6:15 when I was trying to nurse Lucy June back down and ready to forego predawn wake ups forever, Jacob came back in the bedroom and I told him I was sorry that I'd ruined our last hour of sleep and that I wasn't going to bother with early morning writing again. And then in the pale light of morning, my sleep deprived husband, who speaks love in ruthless ironies, proceeded to give me a hard time for giving up after one day... because he's a prince, and he loves it when I get chances to do stuff that I love. And if that isn't just the most inspiring thing. So he will be the reason that I get up early again tomorrow.

And for today we're going with Plan B.

Because the kids



both of them



can't help themselves. And I can't either.

(And, yes. I did have to look up how to calculate a batting average. I love you, big bro.)

A Good Day

We knew when Jacob started this job back in the summer that things would be crazy in January and February.

But we didn't expect it to be this crazy.

There was so much work to be had that my brother moved to Houston for it and is living in our third bedroom, and another friend from Fredericksburg is currently bunking in our (albeit pretty homey) garage and occasionally his wife (my best friend from childhood) and their eighteen month old join the fray. Don't read that sentence again. It's too confusing. Just know it's been BUSY. The days are filled with snotty babies and giggles and tantrums, and the nights are full of big meals and laughter and beer and husbands cleaning the kitchen after oh-so-subtle reminders from their domesticity-weary wives.

It's wonderful and very very hard. My friend and I managed to have a few conversations over the toddler din, and when we talked, we talked about our plights as stay at home mothers tending to the endless needs of little people; we talked about how the days are generally frustrating, always exhausting, and sometimes pretty decent. We also compared our days and experiences to our husbands' who for the time being are working all day every day. There are days when Jacob arrives home late in the evening, I toss a baby in his arms and shuffle off to the kitchen (via a solo trip to the bathroom) so I can get food on the table before our toddler barrels into the over-tired freak outs.

He holds the baby with one arm and tries to close out jobs on his iPad with the other, and in frustration he says: "I know you didn't see it, but I worked really hard today."

I drag a toddler to his eighth time out of the evening and rush back to stir the onions on the stove, and in frustration I reply: "I know you didn't see it, but I worked really hard today."

And it's not fun to be that wife. I don't ever want to be that wife. But I have been before, and I certainly will be again.

As I talked about this with my dear friend, I remembered a day not too long ago - a day when the house was still in boxes and the weariness of moving still hung over every moment - when a mom-friend here in Houston texted and said she could get us into the zoo for free that morning if we wanted to come. I was lying on the bed nursing Lucy June, and I started my stock response of how we couldn't because of all that we needed to get done blah blah blah, and then I thought: Jacob would love it if we went to the zoo. Jacob would love it if he came home tonight, and I said, we didn't get a single box unpacked today, but we did see a VERY pregnant elephant. And we did it. We went to the zoo.

As I told this story to my friend, I realized something: nothing blesses my husband more than when the littles and I have a good day.

So, husband mine husband dear, I've determined to have more good days. Each morning when I think of all the things I want to get done, I will remind myself to have a good day.

And even when I haven't had a good day, I want to stop in my frantic blitz clean of the living room before you get home in the evening and remember at least one good thing about my day. That way, when you ask me how the day went and I automatically begin the montage of crazy: "Lucy June ruined three outfits before 10am and Jake threw blocks at me while I was nursing and even though I feel like I spent the whole day cleaning the kitchen, it's still a mess..." I can finish the list with that one good thing: "...BUT Jake did spend half the day in a helmet and leg warmers telling me he was pretty cool."

Me: Jake where did you put my keys?
Jake: Ummm...I put them somewhere.

And now I must go have a good day...and get my toddler out of the bathtub where he has been for the last hour so I could have a cup of coffee in peace.