c l i m b i n g i v o r y
A little blog of Catholic wifehood, motherhood & dreams
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Blame it on the baby!
For as soon as I buckled down and made a blogging resolution last fall, we naturally found out we were once again pregnant and I was green around the gills for weeks. We since learned we're expecting our second boy and I've spent this spring glowing and sweating with second trimester enthusiasm for overhauling all that was cluttered, dusty and disorganized in our home, and all that was lazy and inexperienced in my daily routines. Being that there was a ridiculous abundance of all those things, I still have a hefty supply of work to do before we welcome our little man in late July . . . but I have firm hopes of our house being ready to witness the thriving of our family of five by then. We'll see how much blogging and other writing I can get to this spring, but (as I always profess and rarely fulfill) I do feel the awakening urgency to put the digital pen to paper. As Gandalf was wont to say, expect me when you see me! I see you sit in patchwork sun
From clouds that mute the earth Wind spilling on the rippling grass To tease your chin with mirth I see you in the furrowed frown Of earth's abundant beds Your fingers sifting diligent For tiny acorn heads I see you planted, lioness, Among the weeds and woods Red-cheeked, somber, pondering Our house, our gold, our goods All with a silent innocent stare Of fawn amid the trees All with the solemnly hushed air Of female reveries All with the smallness of a bird With dirt-stained hands and feet Squatting quiet in our lawn Watching your brother eat. Here I am, returning punctually as promised, for better or worse . . .
Once I made my commitment last week to write something here every Wednesday, I immediately started wondering . . . well, what exactly am I going to write about? Not in the sense of someone gleefully cracking their fingers over a keyboard about to receive fevered pulses of genius. Rather, in the sense of blankness. And so I started scrolling my old blogs. My eyes skimmed over so many posts from a lifetime ago. Entries written by a single girl, a young engaged girl, a young woman pregnant with her first baby. Words really poured out of me then. Words upon words. (Probably too many words. Ay yi yi.) So passionate about everything, amply loquacious, always bent on humor, and fertilized by nearly unlimited uninterrupted time. (. . .intermission while I settle my darling male offspring for the fifth time in bed…) And it’s really been so long since I’ve written consistently about anything–years, literally–that this (the relationship to my writing, I suppose) all feels like a rusty tool in my hands from which I’m blowing off dust and tapping away the cobwebs. Of course I’m the same person. But I’m also absolutely not the same. Perhaps this year above all others, I exited the chapter of being a youngster passionate about the head-knowledge of life and how it should be lived faithfully, and was thrown headlong into the living of it, which honestly has been peppered (doused) with things like stagnation, slow growth, intense suffering, conversion, repeated ad infinitum. And that just changes you. Everything I knew and was comfortable in had to be soundly rocked, shattered even, by the trials and purifications of marriage, motherhood, spiritual journeying–and the pieces put together by Jesus alone. I was taught what I had always “known” - everything is for Him. All things are sustained only by Him. In Him alone does suffering make sense - it is through Him, with Him, in Him. So how do you even start writing anything again, when you’ve been awed, humbled, broken, and silenced before the Renewer? Well, you start by writing about housekeeping, naturally. (So see, I haven’t really changed much at all!) We’ve been in a good little spurt of orderliness this week, I’m happy to say. It always helps when things aren’t chaotic and I’m not flying around outside the home (in fact, I’m realizing it’s vital, or at least that in a busy season I can’t have both, or at the very least that I have more things to learn in order to narrow the gap between tidy-quiet-week-life and busy-messy-week-laundry-standstill-life). So I’m already prepared for things to hit the fan with next week being Thanksgiving. Both our families are local and Thanksgiving for us (thanks to some really wonderful traditions that I genuinely love) means four solid days of festivities which include sleepovers. The kids will have a blast and we’ll return to our (hopefully tidy…) domain deliriously exhausted but happy. (And is anyone else deeply, abysmally, profoundly relieved there is an extra week between Thanksgiving and the start of Advent this year? I can barely keep up and this week will be my saving grace to hopefully accomplish our yearly goal of completing all Christmas shopping and Advent preparations before the First Sunday.) But I digress. The whole point of embarking on this topic was to give myself a chance to write down some habits that have been really working for me in the hopes that I’ll kind of figure out which ones to prioritize during the busier upcoming season . . .
Until next Wednesday! Popping on here to post an impulsive resolution I made a few hours ago to write something here every Wednesday! Because the bleak alternative is to post here every six months and feel totally incapable of writing anything coherent because too much life has gone by, where to begin, and all that.
So here I am! Of course I am experiencing the aforementioned thoughts and feelings of having too many events and nebulous memories and thoughts to put down . . . hmm . . . JA and I were on marriage retreat from Friday to Sunday, and it sounds very pat to say God used it to radically transform everything about our lives, but . . . it's basically true. Praise the Lord for His abundant mercies on both of us and our marriage! One of my favorite changes we came back home and made as soon as we could was our own little prayer corners for mental prayer first thing in the morning and for our examen and night prayers before bed. (It makes us sound so devout to write this down . . . nothing could be further from the truth and we are fumbling around but we know it's the right thing to do so we press on!) His is in the walk-in closet and mine is in a corner by one of the windows. It honestly takes me back to being a girl in my parent's house with my own little altar in my room that I could go to any time, with my books and holy cards arranged just how I liked them. Having it there now makes me want to go pray more in the little moments snatched out of the screechy smelly toddler-filled moments of my day . . . funny how that works. I'm so thankful though. The retreat as a whole was and is too precious to really write in depth about (as it relates to our marriage, anyway,), but it was overflowing with power, grace, healing, abundant tools, clarity, a growth in mutual tenderness, affection, love . . . what more can two lovebirds four years and two toddlers in ask for, anyway? ;) I still can't believe God gave us this gift and I don't want to waste the smallest part of it. Coming back from 2.5 days away to the lovely chaos of our children and their constant interruptions was a wee bit of a challenge for me as I tried to catch up on our calendar, to-do lists, upcoming events, grocery orders, etc. but the transition has gentled now and I feel more anchored in God's loving presence during my day. The kids have mild colds and we're still getting our heads above the surface of laundry but everything else is settling. I need to buy a new autumn-scented candle to mask the perpetual vague scent of dirty diapers and vacuum a few places but other than that, I'm satisfied. So much more to write but I'll let that be enough for tonight! Bye! Today . . . September 17, 2023
Under the sky . . . Warm but not too hot or humid, sunny and breezy and blue Under our roof . . . That period of 3pm-6pm that is known as Sunday Recovery (and we had potluck today too, so we got home right before 3) . . . Adrian fast asleep in his sweaty church clothes on our couch, Rose in a diaper crawling and making a semi-cheerful nuisance of herself on our bed, Sunday football on the TV. The house is half-tidy, half-not, and our suitcases from Wednesday still need to be unpacked, so . . . Monday problems. I'm wearing . . . My new dress that is basically a perfect autumn floral dress - warm blue background, small white and orange floral print, long sleeved and cinched at the wrist, a flowy fit with a waistline sash and a wrap bodice for nursing. Dinner starring as . . . We are going out!! A double date with our old friends and mentors! Mediterranean food, and I'm eyeing a lamb burger with feta that's on the menu . . . A mood in three words . . . Uplifted, grounded, thankful A favorite . . . Staying in a new dress all day . . . knowing fall is just around the corner . . . baking bread . . . having the children peacefully riveted by VeggieTales for a moment after a tiring but worthwhile day. Hidden thoughts . . . Oh my. Too many to number! It was a very effort-ful Mass, so to speak, for JA and I, as the kids are still definitely in the thick of recovering from travel. Whining, clinging and crying abounded and I barely had a moment of recollection during the liturgy. Hours later, as we left potluck and I ran back into church to grab a sippy cup, missal and food we'd left inside, I went into the sanctuary alone and looked at the tabernacle and tears sprang into my eyes. He was there, and He knew all things. The wife in me . . . JA and I fell into talking last night about what we'd advise our younger selves to do before getting married if we could. I instantly knew mine: "Don't get social media! Be disciplined in daily prayer, the Sacraments and go to Mass more!" I wish I could go back and spend those early days better! But thankful I can take the knowledge forward. This year has been one of much grace, mercy and renewal and I pray it will be the first of many. And just a friendly reminder to myself to not hold on to silly things like if my bread was crusty enough to his liking or how much or little he talked during dinner. The mother in me . . . is ready for the kids to get back to normal behavior and sleep and is imploring Heaven for patience and wisdom in the meantime! The child in me . . . wants to go someplace cold and twirl around under falling leaves. Gratitude . . . for grace and Divine love . . . and a new staple oatmeal raisin cookie recipe I found yesterday. xo, Mary Eastward the dawn rose, ridge behind ridge into the morning, and vanished out of eyesight into guess; it was no more than a glimmer blending with the hem of the sky, but it spoke to them, out of the memory and old tales, of the high and distant mountains. (J. R. R. Tolkien) We did it! We packed up and flew our young brood for a week to Wyoming to stay with my beloved sister. Chilly mornings, the sun pressing intensely hot yet light on your skin at noon, breathless vastness at sunset, glory, farmers' fields, homemade donuts, a slow and tactile life. And the mountains. Heart-changing, healing. I saw myself and my true tiny size - all my life, the pains and glories and ordinaries wrapped up in it, the shocks and deep desires and plans, all a speck under the shadow of these mighty creations of God. And I was at peace. I drank in the majesty and stamped it in my memory and wrapped up the peace to carry home with me.
The children drank it in too, playing with their adorable cousin all day, their fingernails dirt-stained and skin beautifully browned by the sun. Of course there were the occasional fatigues and irks of human nature, but they did so well. My sister's home felt like my grandmothers' homes, one of the coziest places I've ever been. It was such a gift to spend quality time with my sister in a way we'd never done since the both of us had gotten married! And . . . "Well, I'm back." Once again hoping to return to a season of more regular blogging! My veins are afire with making autumn come a wee bit early to my home, revving up fall menus and baking breads and all that. It's late and my husband is almost home so I'll keep this initial post short, a bookmark to return to with more of my unimportant but good-humored ramblings soon. xo, Mary Well, this is just to say I was halfway through writing a wonderful blog post today with truly inspired words pouring onto the screen while the children napped . . . and I accidentally deleted all of it with no draft saved. Poof! Vanished! Irretrievable! An hour spent on words I loved, gone! What a kick in the gut!
I actually cried . . . and now I'm here, boiling shrimp and potatoes and corn for dinner and it's taking an eternally long time. So I thought I might as well get back in the saddle rather than resigning blogging for evermore. Through my tears, I did ask God why that effort had to be wasted (and I didn't even ask God why we had to have our RSV hospital stay . . . trivial sufferings are usually impossible bear while we shoulder enormous ones with a decent amount of courage) but after thinking about it and wiping my nose, I realized how many afternoons I've wasted the time I could have been writing or doing anything creative with social media or other brain candy, and how I utterly took for granted the time I had today to write. So, a little more humbly, I will press on and write other things and leave those words unwritten - or, as my husband said with a fond if slightly teasing smile as I mourned my loss over our afternoon tea, "They're meant to only be in your heart." Today . . . October 18, 2022, Tuesday, Feast of St. Luke
Under the sky . . . Glorious blue, a full brisk wind, bronzing leaves, neighborhood wind chimes coming through our cracked-open living room window. Under our roof . . . A veneer of semi-order hiding bigger disasters of disorganization . . . ones that naturally come, I guess, with having a two-year-old and a seven-week-old. Please don't look in my closet, through any of the kids' clothes, in my pantry, the laundry room, or any drawer in the house. But there are fresh flowers, though. And we have fresh groceries and both the kids got bathed today! So I won't weep! I'm wearing . . . Maternity jeans that, unlike the rest of my clothes, don't really fall into either the too small or too big category. These actually fit ok! Black and purple socks. Nursing tank and a thin sweatshirt proclaiming "TODAY: it's a good day." My watch, the hands of which have decided to run two and a half hours behind for the last week. Time to get a new watch. Hair in a clip, no makeup because of this itchy sty in the corner of my left upper eyelid. A hopelessly tangled scapular . . . I would really really love a new scapular but keep failing to remember to find/get one! Dinner starring as . . . Hamburger steaks with mushrooms and onions, potato wedges, zucchini and squash sautee. We are determined to not eat out so much, the last and steepest vestige perhaps of the survival mode we've been bobbing in and out of for almost two months. A mood in three words . . . Tired, previously-discouraged-but-now-placid, thus-pensive A favorite . . . The scene and sounds of Adrian eating blueberries. That kid loves blueberries pretty much more than me. Hidden thoughts . . . The house clutter and our laundry situation in particular were really getting to me recently. After a very full day yesterday I sat down and (rather foolishly) planned that today I was going to get A LOT done on the house and fix these persistent messes shoved behind doors and organize everyone's clothes (our master closet is a disaster) and switch out seasonal clothes/clothes Rose has already outgrown and then go shopping for new clothes for my burgeoning toddler (I already went a week or so ago and then came home to the realization that he needs way more than I got!). Not to mention I needed to bathe them, make calls to figure out weird bills and debit card fraud (and does anyone ever really want to do that sort of thing when they're already feeling overwhelmed)? Enter my big boy this a.m. whose every emotion is dialed up three extra notches today; combine it with my own growing fatigue and I realized within the first hour that I was going to have to make a major expectations shift for the day. While I was fine with it at first, by the end of lunch I was in a little pond of frustrated, overwhelmed tears. I took the kids on a naptime drive and, as always, it lifted my mood. The wife in me . . . We're imperfect people and our marriage is an imperceptible daily kind of process of climbing but then you occasionally pause and realize you're standing under an unusually beautiful branch or in an especially pleasant patch of shade that wasn't part of your tree before, or was smaller once and now more matured, and you can see how your tree is growing and how you know and love one another more than you did before, in a quietly stronger kind of way, not perfect but there's a richness, a slow richness that you notice every once in a while and thank God for. I wrote this a few daybooks ago (read: a year ago) and it still rings so true. I love what these past two months, this growth into a family of four is doing to our marriage, both the beautiful and ugly parts. We have been forced to grow even more out of ourselves. Sometimes we are bone-exhausted, sometimes we are impatient and angry, but sometimes we are laughing ourselves into a stomachache and sometimes we are filled up with the tenderest love and pride for our two little kiddos. As I'm trying to slowly wean myself from social media after the craziness of the past few months (to be detailed in subsequent posts) where I succumbed to scrolling IG after a rather long time off of it, I've been trying to read more constructively. In particular I've been focusing on the accounts of widows, or mothers who have lost children. You really can't find more gifted writers and I have found no deeper and more poignant reminders to take none of my precious family for granted. It is so hard in the fatigue and adjustments we're undergoing to not get resentful in my marriage. Hyper-focusing on his perceived shortcomings, the differences of our opinions, temperaments, love languages etc. etc... A productive conversation about annoyances is a good thing, but muttering a list of grievances to myself in my brain all day is something I hate so much but have certainly been guilty of, and once I give it a foot in the door it refuses to rest and feeds itself without end. Reading the writings of women who would give anything to see their husbands again and not to be solo mothers chastens me to my gut and inspires me to put my big girl pants on and give my beloved husband a break from my interior nitpicking, to flirt with him instead, and to pray for those heroic women. The mother in me . . . needs to stop, stare and snuggle my babies and be at peace with my house. The child in me . . . wants Rotel cheese dip and anything with dairy (can you tell I'm not eating dairy? ;) Gratitude . . . for our beautiful family . . . and that Adrian loved and accepted his new thrifted jacket! Hello dear long-neglected blog! It's refreshing to be back.
I'm happy to report that the house is in reasonable order and routine, I know what's for dinner, Adrian is napping on the couch, and I've finally resumed more work on the magnum opus this past week and it's been gloriously inspiring. Rose ... I haven't written anything about her here. It's been quite the half-year of not blogging, not on purpose naturally but you know ... anyways, we are more than halfway through the journey of waiting to meet our sweet daughter after losing Stephen-Mary. So much could be written here but I don't have time and my eyes are dry and tired from being on a screen too long and wearing embarrassingly old contacts. It's enough to write her name alongside ours. Husband, myself, Adrian and Rose. It has a good ring to it. I found a coffee table last weekend for $25 at the thrift store and I told my husband it makes me feel like an adult. Whatever that means. But it is marvelously large without being too large and really expands our living room somehow. I put some blue-painted vases (also collected at said thrift store on same said day) with some artificial greens as a centerpiece and am a very happy woman. Waiting on curtains for our living room and kitchen to arrive! We've only lived here a year!! Yes, I have been rather frantically nesting in some places and fluff the couch pillows three times a day. Well, every time someone sits on the couch. We went to the beach with my family right after Easter and it was just lovely. Hence the beautiful shoreline image adorning this post. Stock, of course- I hardly ever take pictures. I leave that to gifted siblings. Husband's precious grandfather passed away the Sunday after Easter and we'll be making the cross-country trip to his home state in two weeks for the funeral. I have been embarrassingly emotional and hormonal this pregnancy and in many ways feel like I'm pregnant for the first time all over again, so strange and new a territory this is. All shall be well eventually. She's worth it. Did I mention I've resumed work on the magnum opus? Of course I did. But saying it twice pleases me twice as much as saying it once! I shall finish this work before I die!!! |
MaryWife to my best friend. Mama to a gregarious 3yo boy, a determined 18mo daughter, a darling baby boy due in late July, and a miscarried child we gave back to God. (photos are from Unsplash unless I note they're mine :)
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