What's so wrong with trashy books (or movies)?

Our weekend was filled with runny noses, pink eyes (I die. The second worst of childhood ailments, dethroned only by vomit), and lots and lots of reading.

The kids and I and even daddy all had books in piles around the house, freshly liberated from the library down the street and competing with Netflix for our winter-bound attention.

I must confess I spent the better part of Saturday reading a book I probably should not have finished...and I'm going to tell you why.

But first, a little background. Last week I asked my lovely readers who follow along on Facebook for some literary recommendations. And boy did I get some. You guys are so awesome, you flooded my newsfeed with more than 100 titles.

One evening later that week, after bedtime, I snuggled down with my laptop and my library account and went on a little hold binge, filling my e-cart with close to 50 titles. It was addictive, like shopping without money. Well, maybe like shopping with taxpayer money...but less of a sting than Amazon, for sure. (50 titles was a bit enthusiastic though, I will admit. Especially since 20 of them popped up in my email the next day as "ready for pickup." Oops.)

I trudged through the snow with one small boy in tow and we retrieved about a dozen titles, probably more than I could read in 2 weeks, but hey, a girl can dream. 

Sure enough, the powers of illness and weekend frigidity combined and was stayed inside reading plenty. Enough for me to finish one entire novel and crack into another one, only to be discarded and replaced by a 3rd option.

Here's where things get weird though. You see, the first book I read, while engaging, was ... questionable in terms of content. It was little things here and there at first, offhand references to casual sex. Details about make out sessions. Backstories involving (thankfully) derailed trips to the abortion clinic. And things kind of escalated from there.

The problem was though, I was so engaged in the story line and the characters by the time things got really steamy (read: super trashy) it was hard to shut the book and walk away. So I didn't. I read the whole dang thing and pretty much enjoyed it but definitely squirmed through increasingly larger sections of it. 

And afterwards, I felt acutely that I had betrayed an essential part of myself: my conscience.

For someone who can write confidently about skipping 50 Shades of S&M and has no problem flipping over the top copy of Cosmo in the checkout line, when it came to a book that was already in hand and being enjoyed, I had a more difficult time stepping away, even though I was fully aware that it was bad for me.

And no, I don't think that I committed any mortal sin by finishing a smutty novel, because I was skimming through the squirmy parts and was definitely repelled by - not attracted to - the sins being committed on the pages. But still. I didn't look away.

And I should have. I should have shut the book and played with my kids. Or picked up another title and tried again. Or, hell, painted my toenails or jumped on the elliptical or taken a nice long bath. There are plenty of things a tired mom can do with her limited leisure time that don't involve torrid affairs and steamy sex scenes in the back of cars.

Because here's the thing: every time I expose myself to the glamorization and normalization of evil - be it promiscuous teens losing their virginity, extramarital affairs, premarital sex, period - I lose a little bit of my natural (and supernatural) sensitivity to these sins.

It matters little that I will probably never personally commit them, (and I'm more than aware that there but for the grace of God go I); but when I am granting them entrance into my imagination - and my heart, because it dwells there, too - then I am throwing open an opportunity to grow not in virtue, but in vice. To do one thing with my "real" life, but to play by different standards inside the equally-real world of the mind.

And why invite those imaginary characters to come and live inside of me, occupying space in my brain and my heart where I'm desperately trying to cultivate virtue to impart to my kids, and to overcome the smallness and the very real fallenness of my own interior world?

We all struggle with sin, and thanks to the grace of God, we all have access to the grace to overcome them. Again. And again.

But that is by no means a license to roll around in the mud in our minds, rationalizing away the imaginary teflon divider between body and mind, spirit and flesh.

What we put into our bodies - our minds, our selves - matters. It matters because it becomes a part of us, just as much as the food we eat and the water we drink. It is incorporated into us in a permanent way. And as much as I have the authority over what will become irrevocably a part of me, it is my duty to exhort quality control over the raw material.

That's why it's not okay to go see a porno movie, even if it's mass-produced and wildly popular.

That's why I should probably delete that raunchy rom-com from my Amazon playlist, even though "it's a cultural classic" and "a little smut never hurt anybody." Because actually, all sins start small, and they have to start somewhere.

It's hard enough to cultivate virtue in a culture that is anti-virtuous, the enshrines and celebrates the very things we are commanded to avoid: murder, adultery, gossip, slander. 

Why compound the difficulty by filling our brains with the crap we're trying so hard not to step in ourselves?

Why read stories about characters succumbing to temptations we're striving mightily to overcome ourselves, entertaining plot lines that, if played out in vivo, would land us right in the confessional (and maybe divorce court, or prison)?

The past 6 years of living without cable has made me much, much more sensitive to televised smut than college Jenny ever dreamed of being. So yeah, my standards there are fairly high, but its' because I'm not regularly exposed to it. The boiling frog effect hasn't set in, and I'm instantly repulsed  when I see something graphic on tv that I know is wrong, in part because it's so shocking and so out of the ordinary.

I need to be more careful about what that looks like in terms of reading material too, though. Because just like you can never unsee something once it's flashed across your vision field, it's very, very difficult to divest yourself of the written word, too.

And I'm having an epic enough struggle swimming upstream in this culture. God knows I need all the help I can get.

I'm not going to undercut myself with friendly fire by reading "harmless" chick lit filled with innuendos and sex scenes between imaginary characters. Because they might not be real, but I am.

I'm a real flesh and blood woman with real struggles and real proclivities to sin. And I've also been entrusted with a husband to care for, and 4 little souls to guide back to Him.

My God, I need all the help I can get. 

And when I do need to escape (and I do, very much, very often in these exhausting early years) it ought not be to a place I have no business visiting, even if only in my imagination.

There's plenty of other stuff I could be doing with my free time, anyway. I could paint my daughter's toenails, watch a make up application tutorial on Youtube, write my husband a love letter, curl my hair, shop online for some cute unmentionables, go for a run (or a walk, as this widening load would have it), call my best friend, stare at maternity style posts on Pinterest...etc.

(I'm intentionally leaving out the titles of the books in question, partly because I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings or embarrass them if they did make the recommendation, and partly because I do believe that different people have different thresholds for what makes them squirm.)

 But I do want to challenge myself - all of us - to be conscious of that threshold, and how we can deaden or attune our own consciences with the choices we make and the company we keep, even in our own imaginations.

Maybe especially there.

Oh, and for the the record, I'm currently reading O Pioneers! by Willa Cather, at someone's excellent recommendation. And loving it. There's plenty of grit, there too. 

Because I'm not looking for an impossibly squeaky clean "unrealistic" universe, but for one that plays by natural law. Think "Les Miserables" ... plenty of sex, plenty of sin...and plenty of realistic consequences for what happens when we fail to choose the good. That's the kind of steamy I can handle.

Or a bath. I can always handle a nice hot bath. If only the kids would all nap at the same time.

What does the Catholic Church say about IVF?

Mouthful of a title, right? Let's just say I'm doing it for Google's sake.

So, painfully obvious disclaimer: I am neither a bioethicist nor a theologian. Well, not officially, anyway. I've got 2 semesters of grad theology under my belt, but the only letters associated with my name are Mrs. So read on, knowing that I'm just a girl with an internet connection and a voracious appetite for moral theology and science. (In other words, these here are layman's - or laywoman's, as it were - words.)

I have been blessed with 3 beautiful, exasperating children in just under 5 years of marriage. In other words, I am in no position to talk to anyone about the heartache of infertility, or about the devastating sorrow of losing a baby to miscarriage. But here's the thing: I have friends. And I've watched their pain and I've seen the ache of longing in their eyes. And I see the messages the culture is sending out to women (and men) who suffer from the desolating poverty of infertility, and they are being fed a steady diet of bullshit that only adds to their suffering.

I want to offer the truth. Anything less than the truth is an affront to their dignity, and to the dignity of the children who they long to conceive.

The Catholic Church has that truth. She holds it in sacred trust, the inalienable belief that every human life is sacred, from conception until natural death, and that the creation of human life itself is holy. Hallowed ground.

So that's where I'm speaking from.

There's one more thing I want to say before we dive in. And it's about authentic reproductive technology: NAPRO.

I have a dear friend who was pregnant when we first met, back when I was a full time office gal. I was only months away from my wedding and couldn't get enough of her pregnancy stories and baby kicks. As our friendship grew and her belly expanded, she shared more details. This was actually her fourth pregnancy, she explained, and she'd had three previous miscarriages. But she couldn't get a referral to a high risk OB until after that third loss.

And then, do you know what the solution was for her body to carry that fourth precious baby safely to term? Progesterone. One pill by mouth daily, for the first trimester. Cheap, simple, readily available... and an option she didn't even realize she had, because she wasn't yet "high risk" enough to be referred to a doctor who knew what the hell he was doing.

That kind of dismissive, laissez faire medicine, practiced all too often in ob/gyn groups around the country, is the worst kind of insult to women.

So do yourself a favor and google around for a NAPRO doc near you.

Because you deserve to be served by a doctor who understands how your body works, and why, and who isn't content to write you an annual scrip for birth control to try to shut your reproductive system down.

(And then happily write you another scrip for fertility drugs when you change your mind 3 years down the road but it turns out, your body didn't like being messed with. So now rather than worrying about getting pregnant, you're having to worry about getting pregnant. Because it seems like now you can't.)

But what if it's more serious than that? What about couples who have no other means of recourse than IVF or even surrogacy? How can the Church tell them no, when all she speaks of is the goodness of children and the sanctity of life?

For those very same reasons. Because children are good, and because life is sacred.

Children are good. And they are gifts. We vow to accept them lovingly from God, but the converse does not hold. We cannot demand them angrily, desperately, when they do not come. No matter how great the longing. His ways are not our ways, and oh how easy it is for me to write this while my 3 little gifts lie snug in their beds down the hall.

I haven't felt the pain of infertility. It is a pain I will never know, intimately. But I do that the Church, as our mother, never asks of us that which would harm another person, and certainly not that which takes another person's life.

Many of our current reproductive technologies are harmful, and some - IVF in particular - depend specifically on creating a number - sometimes a large number - of "backup" embryos, both to ensure the success of the couple's efforts to conceive initially and for future use, should they desire more children.

From the get go, IVF is problematic because it violates the dignity of those children created in a laboratory setting. A child has the fundamental right to be conceived in the dignity and privacy of her mother's womb, the fruit of the love between two parents who are committed to each other and to her.

Anything less is poverty for that child, no matter how well reasoned or rationalized the motives of the adults involved. Does that sound crazy? If it does, it's only because our technology has so rapidly outpaced our morality that we accept just about anything at face value, simply because it is possible.

In most cases of IVF, multiple embryos are created and introduced into the mother's uterus, with the hopes that a few good ones will implant. The remainder who survive remain in limbo, kept frozen in a lab until their parents decide whether to implant, destroy, or donate.

Once inside mom, if too many "successful" embryos implant, the joyous event of a longed-for pregnancy is now marred by the dark shadow of "selective reduction," aka abortion. The parents and doctors must now choose which of the baby(s) have the best chance at making it to term, and abort the remainders.

Do you see a common thread running through it all? It's all about the adults. None of this is done for the sake of the children, or with consideration for the dignity - or the suffering - of the children.

Conceived in a petri dish, selected from an unlucky crop of frozen siblings, perhaps the survivor of an early abortion on other siblings...and finally, against all odds and many thousands of dollars and hours of pain later, brought into this world, on demand.

Loved, yes. But demanded, first.

Openness to life, we talked about earlier in this series, means openness to loss. But it can never mean intentionally causing the loss. It doesn't mean going to any extremes to obtain life, to demand it and wrench it from God's hands and fit it into our own script.

Is it fair?

Hell no it's not fair. It's not fair that I have children while some couples who don't, can't.

But life isn't fair. And there are all kinds of sufferings and different-shaped crosses we're asked to bear. It sounds so crazy but it really boils down to this: just because we can do something, doesn't mean we should.

Just because we can harvest sperm and egg from willing and desperate would-be parents, willing to shell out thousands for a baby of their own, doesn't mean we should.

Just because we can create new human life in a petri dish, coaxing the requisite genetic material together and then discarding the chromosomal losers, doesn't mean we should.

Just because we can implant a half dozen viable embryos into a woman's uterus with the selective reduction of as many of 5 of them as the failsafe backup plan, does't mean we should.

There are all kinds of things human beings are capable of. But not all of them are good. And in this case, as in so many others, the ends do not justify the means.

For couples who are suffering this incredible pain, the Church has a message of love and of mercy, and more than anything, of being a safe harbor where you can rest and not be further harmed, or cause harm yourselves.

IVF is a terrible poverty to the children involved, first and foremost. But it exacts a terrible price from their parents, too. No parent wants to willingly participate in the harm, destruction, or death of their child. It's unfathomable. And yet we have this billion dollar industry, rushing grieving couples through their office doors and helping them to do exactly that.

There's so much more that could be said, and much more eloquently, but this is long enough. 

There is no judgement here. Only truth, and sorrow, and a genuine desire to bring clarity to a deeply problematic and painful suffering that is rampant in our culture. 

The world promises relief from suffering through denial, manipulation, and force. But Christ says something different. 

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

Easier said than done, right?

Click here for the rest of the series.

When NFP is hard to swallow

The funny thing about talking shop about NFP (Natural Family Planning) with other users is that the conversation, either online or in person, usually goes one of two ways.

Exhibit A: NFP blows. Meet my fourth daughter, Maria Faustina, miraculously conceived 13 days post peak. She's our 5th child in 6 years. Still, be it done unto me according to my chart...

or else

Exhibit B: NFP is so magical. It will change your life, divorce-proof your marriage, and guarantee smoldering, ecstatic sex almost every day of the month (except for a teeny tiny window, if you're seeking to avoid pregnancy.) You're an idiot if you find it challenging. Because science.

I guess I fall somewhere in between there. And I'd guess that many of us do.

I had the opportunity to speak to a group of beautiful mamas at my own parish yesterday (talk about humbling) and it was just so refreshing to be able to speak openly and honestly about the beauty AND the struggle of NFP. Because, like so much else about love and marriage, it's not always easy and it's not always clear. Because sometimes it's cloudy. Or cloudy-clear.

Aaaaaanyway, the thing is we aren't doing ourselves any favors as a Church or as couples in desperate need of support, fellowship, and wisdom from other families in the trenches if we don't speak openly about this thing that we're all expected to do (wink, wink) but that few of us are actually doing. And those of us who are doing it? Well, we're idiots. And sometimes we believe that to be true.

It's not easy being open to life in a culture so utterly opposed to it.

Our neighbors think we're weirdos. Our parents think we're irresponsible. Our bosses think we don't know what causes that. And our cashiers at the grocery store wonder if we know where the condoms are stocked.

Here's the thing though; Jesus doesn't promise convenience, lack of suffering, or predictability. There was something about a cross and lifting it upright and, you know the rest.

We live in a time and a place where convenience is the highest good. I think some of us actually worship it. I think of this most often when I'm doing the microwave dance, reheating my morning coffee, wondering how 28 seconds can pass so slowly and if I stare intently at this glowing box, will it heat any faster?

But Christianity is not convenient. 

Forgoing contraception and having difficult, meaningful, frustrating conversations about love and eternity with your spouse month after month after month...is not convenient. Having a baby 11 months after the last one was delivered, or facing down months and maybe even years of abstinence due to a medical diagnosis is not convenient. Learning to practice temperance, self control, and chastity within - yes, within marriage - is not convenient.

But convenience doesn't guarantee happiness. Or rather, it doesn't guarantee joy.

Using NFP will not make you happy. It will not earn you a free ticket to heaven or a front-row seat at a papal audience. It's not a panacea for marital woes, and it's definitely not some baptized, back-assward Church-approved method of contraception.

It's more than that. But also less.

NFP is, first and foremost, a tool. It's something the Church, backed by scientific research, offers to her children as a means to understanding the mysterious and often confounding gift of human fertility.

Contraception, on the other hand, is the deliberate dismantling of fertility. Rather than seeking to understand, it shuts down, short circuits, or disables it.

NFP and contraception have something in common in that both can be used to avoid pregnancy. But only so much as both an umbrella and a nuclear bomb can shelter you from the rain. One works within reality, the other creates an alternate reality. And it's not pretty, though it might be very effective at keeping you dry.

NFP isn't Catholic contraception. But as long as those of us who bow our heads and bend our knees to the teachings of Christ and His Church on the matter try to compare it as such, whether in our mirrors or in conversions with each other, we're going to come up short. 

Contraception offers apparent freedom and happiness to couples longing for love. But it doesn't deliver. It can't. It cuts off love at the root, making small what could grow into something grand and majestic. 

NFP isn't a failsafe, foolproof guarantee against marital unhappiness. But it isn't self destructive, either. It's actually morally neutral; we inform the morality by our own use of it, and the choices we make.

So let's have this conversation, shall we? Let's admit that yes, living the Church's teachings on sex and marriage is difficult, insanely difficult in some circumstances. Especially in this culture, in this moment in history, in this climate of me-ness and mine-ness and all the nesses. But let's go further. Let's let people in for a glimpse at the messy, the chaotic, the honest, and the beautiful. Because for everything this culture lays claim to, beauty is not a credible option. We are starved for beauty, searching for meaning, and desperate to find - and to be - love.

And marriages that are truly open to life have a depth and a sincerity to them, even in the difficult moments, that is wildly attractive. That's the real reason people can't stop talking about it. Sure, some people are legitimately disgusted by the sight of more than a couple children trailing a simliar-looking adult in a crowded shopping center. But they're the minority. 

People are naturally drawn to what is true, good, and beautiful - so let's draw them in. And let's not be afraid to look them square in the eye and say, yes, you're right, my hands are full, and somebody just pissed on my foot in the Chipotle bathroom a few minutes ago...but I'm still going to keep them.

Click here for the rest of the series.

Let's be Done

I so want to throw my hands up and yell 'enough' to the beneficent creator of the universe who has seen fit to send three bouncing bundles of joy our way in a little over 4 years. Especially after days like today. Especially after bedtime pretty much every night. 

Even now, as I sit here convalescing in the family room, I can hear faint wailing coming from the back corner of the house as the boys resign themselves to the cyclical horror of pajamas and comfort objects in their black-out shade darkened bedroom. Evie is also starting to whimper, because 45 solid minutes of nursing wasn't sufficient to quench her raging bedtime thirst.

With no small amount of effort and resentment I heave my weary body off the couch and pad towards the kids' rooms. I hate this part of the day, and yet I am so very aware of how fleeting these frantic years of littleness really are.

It's also moments like these when I most closely empathize with our contraceptive culture. Because dammit, this is hard.

If that were the end game, keeping life relatively uncomplicated versus taking up one's cross and following…well then sign my doctor's name on the dotted Rx. I can completely understand why a couple would choose to limit the madness, to shut the door on the possibility of further complications, and to issue an indefinite 'no trespassing' mandate to the God of the universe, posted in plain sight on their bedroom door.

But that's not the endgame, is it? 

Our mortal toil here on earth is exactly that: work. A lot of it. No matter the circumstances or situation of one's life, nobody gets out without putting in some hard time. And children are a lot of work. In fact, they're kind of the perfect means by which those of us called to the married life can work out our salvation with fear and potty training. 

But they're more than just work, however ardently popular culture - and tired mommy bloggers like me - might try to convince you otherwise. They're also immortal souls. Little images of the Word made flesh, Who dwelt among us. And they deserve to be seen as more than accessories or add-ons to an otherwise 'perfect' and ordered life. 

Children are not something you 'do' in marriage once you've bought the house, landed the job, and signed the second lease agreement for the fancy SUV. They're actually the point of marriage, the other half of the twofold equation for 'the good of the spouses and the procreation of offspring.'

Surprised? Anyone in this culture would be. After all, how many times have we heard otherwise, been instructed otherwise, even heard preaching that insisted otherwise?

Children, our culture would have us believe, are optional upgrades at best, and life-ending impediments to happiness at worst. This is the fruit of contraception, and its evil twin sister, abortion. Children have become, in our minds, the enemy. The enemy of happiness. The enemy of productivity. The enemy of comfort, wealth, and leisure. And in making them so, we have aligned ourselves against God Himself.

"Whoever shall receive one of these children in my name, receives me: and whoever shall receive me, receives not me, but him that sent me."

We can easily forget, in all our planning and charting and discerning, that we're not ultimately in control. Even when science purports to tell us otherwise. Even when our hearts desperately wish we could be. Life, despite our best efforts to manipulate, frustrate, create, contort, and confine, is not entirely under our jurisdiction. To believe and to act otherwise is to live a lie, to mistake a charade for reality. 

Contraception has become one of the greatest charades in all of human history. It offers us the ultimate illusion of control: control of life itself.

Honestly, the Church doesn't condemn the practice of contraception because she wants more butts in the seats. She isn't trying to corner the market on future human beings, and she certainly isn't attempting to chain women to the cookstove with dozens of children, keeping her happily at home and tucked away from the public square. Couldn't be further from the truth.

She condemns the practice of contraception because of what it does to the person, to the marriage, to the potential children in question. It's all for love, and whether or not modern man can wrap his skeptical mind around this, it's the truth.

In his new pastoral letter, released today, Bishop Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska tells us the following: 

"God... created marriage to be unifying and procreative. To join husband and wife inseparably in the mission of love, and to bring forth from that love something new. Contraception robs the freedom for those possibilities."

Isn't that wild? It's the very opposite of what we've been sold by media and marketing and hollywood and…insert blame here. In many cases, it's the opposite of what we've heard at church. 

Contraception doesn't make us responsible adults; it renders us sterile adolescents, unable to grow in our faith or in our relationships. 

Bishop Conley goes on to quote soon-to-be-saint John Paul II:

In 1995, Blessed John Paul II wrote that our culture suffers from a “hedonistic mentality unwilling to accept responsibility in matters of sexuality, and… a self-centered concept of freedom, which regards procreation as an obstacle to personal fulfillment."  Generous, life-giving spousal love is the antitode to hedonism and immaturity: parents gladly give up frivolous pursuits and selfishness for the intensely more meaningful work of loving and educating their children.

What the what? An obstacle to personal fulfillment? Hell, I feel like that every morning at 6:45. My children are deeply, endlessly opposed to my deepest means of personal fulfillment: sleep.

So you see, even my pew-warming butt needs to hear a message like this. Over and over again. And to re-read Humanae Vitae with a discerning heart and open eyes. 

Children are not some kind of marital accessory, a means of 'leveling up' to the next developmental stage of a romantic relationship. They're something new entirely. And at the end of the day, God forgive me for forgetting this over and over again. I am the foremost of sinners in the arena of marital love and charity. It's part of why I'm so deeply, painfully grateful for a Church who helps rehabilitate me daily. Hourly, some nights.

But perfect love casts out all fear. 

Fear of failure. Fear of bodily destruction (hellooooo stretch marks and extra 30 lbs). Fear of ridicule by a culture utterly opposed to what we are doing with our lives. Fear of loss, even…because the more you have to love, the more you have to lose.

Perfect love. It's the antidote to fear. And the antidote to a culture so utterly self absorbed that the very notion of delaying gratification or suffering for love of another is regarded as pathological.

Fear is at the root of our enormous distrust of life and our hopeless misunderstanding of love. We are a culture rich beyond belief, unprecedented in all of human history…and yet we live like anxious paupers, scrabbling around in the dirt for our daily bread when the One Who created us wants to lay a banquet of unfathomable riches.

I am the foremost of sinners. The most anxious pauper, scrabbling around for a scrap of security or worldly regard, worrying constantly about how things look or feel. Thank you, God, for illuminating my darkened intellect with the Truth of Your good plan for human life, for human love. Though I rail against it internally almost daily, my stubborn will consenting over and over again not my will, but yours, be done.

And that's why we never say never. We never declare, with any certainty or advanced knowledge that we're 'done.' Because who knows? We might overcome our deep-seated natural tendency toward selfishness again at some point in the future. And because we're not intentionally frustrating the procreative power of our married love, there might very well be a name to go along with that momentary lapse in selfishness, 9 months down the road.

Let's never be done living God's plan for our lives. Not until the final curtain call. 

(Read Bishop Conley's entire letter here. It's beyond good.)

Ciao y'all

Forgive my radio silence yesterday, but girl's night out called and I answered, and I just couldn't seem to find the time to do my duty. The margaritas, however, were delicious.

I've been noticing some new faces around the comments lately and some increased activity on bloglovin and Facebook, so I thought I'd go ahead and introduce myself to you dear new readers. No doubt you've stumbled over here via the Edel Gathering homepage or perhaps Jen or Grace sent you (so my stats tell me), but at any rate, you are very welcome here. Very welcome indeed, Mrs. Bates. 

I just figured I perhaps owed you a little introduction and I figured what better way to do that than in a feigned third person interview? Plus, 66% of my offspring are wailing themselves to sleep right now and my husband is working for at least another 2 hours tonight and that soothing white noise on the sound machine? It's just the background ambience I need in order to conduct a proper interview with mahself. 

Without further ado, may I present to you, Mama Needs Coffee's FAQs (or something like that).

1. Who is this coffee lover, and how much caffeine does she actually consume? 

Hi, I'm Jenny. I'm married to Dave, who works for the Archdiocese of Denver. We live in a southern suburb of Denver proper, and we've been happily married for 4.5 years, in which time we've accumulated 6 separate addresses. The most recent address before this one was in Rome, Italy, where Dave worked as a journalist for Catholic News Agency, covering the Vatican beat. Yep, that's a real thing. We're pretty much done moving for now, though, much to the relief of grandparents on both sides. Italy was a blast. It was also supremely lonely/frustrating/confusing/charming/historic/socialist. Choose your own adventure from the archives and see for yourself.

(Oh, and I drink one to four shots of espresso per day, depending upon the night before. Yes, even when I'm nursing/pregnant. Makes 'em smart and tough.)

2. Why are your kids so close in age? Are you done?

Honestly, I was almost 27 when we got married, and Dave was 30. We're just making up for lost time.

In all seriousness though, we're practicing Catholics, and with that we believe in managing our fertility naturally, and without the use of birth control. As even a cursory examination of this blog will tell you though, I know a lot about contraception, and even if I were straight up atheist and living la vida loose and loca, I still wouldn't be popping the Pill. It's not only a moral issue, but a medial issue. And an environmental issue.

As for the 3 kids in 4 years? What can I say, we just like 'em. We figure we'll keep going till we get an ugly one. Meanwhile, please be at least a teeny bit classy when you're asking me about my sex life in the Target checkout line. I warn you, my comebacks can be a tad caustic when I let fly the first things that come to mind. 

3. Why blog? And why not monetize it, or at least learn some basic design-y tricks to make it look less like…it does?

I've been blogging since 2006, long back before it was cool. What started out as an outlet suggested to me by a college fling (who, incidentally, was a huge fan of this site called "Et Tu, Jen?") ended up having greater longevity than the relationship. We ended, but the virtual ranting didn't. And so 8 years and one name change later, here I be. Speaking of Jen, she claims the title of her forthcoming book was inspired by the headlining quote on my old blog, which is, admittedly, a good one. 

I haven't monetized it because honestly, it seems like a hassle. And because I have a full-time job already. (More on that later.) I write because it makes me feel alive and because it's how I process the world. Whenever I get emails asking about sponsored posts or guest posts I turn them down, not because I'm not flattered, but because that's not why I'm doing this. I don't have a brand to build, and honestly, I swear kind of regularly. And address controversial topics. And frankly, I like having the freedom to to so. (However, if anyone wants to send a killer diaper bag or amazing footwear my way, I will happily write you a love story and host it here.)

4. You have a real job?

I mean, 3 kids in diapers, you do the math…

No but really, I work full time, from home. Hence all the recent chatter about a mother's helper. I'm the content editor for a news aggregator called Heroic Media News. It's a news site that features content on life issues from all over the world. On a given day we cover everything from euthanasia to abortion, and surrogacy to the death penalty. It's fascinating stuff, and what makes Heroic Media News different than just about any other site is that the content is 100% relevant to major bioethical issues of the moment, but is pulled from a wider variety of sources than almost any other news outlet can claim. Secular, religious, state-run media, academic papers, you name it. If it relates to life and family issues and it's breaking news, you'll find something about it on Heroic. 

Our parent company, Heroic Media, has been in business for the past decade and is focused on offering life-affirming choices and resources to women in crisis pregnancy situations through various media outreaches; billboards, tv commercials, radio spots. You name it, they've done it. And they've done it well.

In addition to curating the content for the website, I also direct the content for a weekly television show by the same name. It's currently slated to begin airing on EWTN in April. The show, (which I will infrequently appear on as a guest anchor) will cover 5 breaking stories from the week. The aim is to "catechize through the news," which sounds odd, but hear me out. Technology and legislation - especially in the reproductive sciences arena - is moving ahead so quickly that there is often little or no thought given to the morality of a new advancement. We're so caught up in the "can we?" that very often nobody stops to ask the "should we?" What we're trying to do with Heroic is help people to reason through and to understand the moral and social ramifications of issues like abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and end of life care. You'd be surprised how few people have ever heard a homily on IVF, or who have ever discussed palliative care versus extraordinary measures with their own families. We want people to have these conversations. They're important. Maybe even the most important. 

So Heroic Media News. Read it. Bookmark it. Visit it every day. And feel very free to send news tips my way any time!

5. Did you study journalism? Or English? 

Yes. And no. I mean I was a journalism major for a semester, I think. But I was also a history major, an English major, a psychology major, an earth sciences major, and I ended up turning my tassel for a degree in the now-defunct school of mental health and human services. (Hail, Steubenville, made up majors.) 

So no, I didn't actually graduate with an official mandate to write, but writing has always been my thing. My first ever real published article appeared in Our Sunday Visitor way back in 2007, and the publishing bug bit me hard. Real hard. To date I've published more than 50 pieces for various publications both in print and around the web, and there's more fun coming this spring.

6. So, a book?

Honestly I'd love to write a book. (And no, no deals currently in the making. Not any solo projects, at least.) I think I'd write about contraception, and about how very wrong our culture has got things in that department. Or maybe about parenting and motherhood. (This would largely be a blooper reel, as I'm sure is self evident.) Or perhaps a memoir of our 9 months in Italy. At any rate, one day…

7. Do the things you write about really happen to you? Surely you're using hyperbole.

With very few exceptions, the shit that gets laid down on this page is real. I don't know if there is something about my manner or person that invites utter weirdness from strangers, or if perhaps I am just more attuned to finding and then recounting the humor in daily encounters, but let me assure you, I really do discuss teenage promiscuity with strange men at the Grease Monkey, and I've been known to encounter all kinds of … kinds at the big red bullseye. Plus, my kids are really weird themselves, and are thus an endless source of material. Just this morning I was trolling the Drudge Report with JP on my lap when he excitedly shouted "there's daddy right there! there he is!" while pointing at my laptop. The image he was so jazzed over was of Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama, so I'll leave that to your imaginations as to who my baby daddy more closely resembles…

And with that cliffhanger, I'll bid you a lovely evening, and repeat my gratitude for your time and interest. Truly, it's an honor to have so many new readers. I hope you'll take off your coat and stay a while.

How (and why) to Catch a Mother's Helper

So leave it to the old mommy blogger identity to make my recent post about getting a MH one of my most read to date in 2014 (like thousands of page views, go figure).

Apparently you guys want to know more. Well let me be the one to bring you into the happy, light-filled place where well-rested and highly satisfied mothers dwell: the land of helpful teenagers.

Now, I've heard you can get your own helpful teenagers with approximately a dozen investment years of blood, sweat, and tears, but I don't have the luxury of a decade + of mothering under my belt yet, so I had to outsource.

I had several well-respected moms of many extol to me, via email or the combox, how very useful one of these mythical creatures could be, and, even more helpfully, advise me on how best to lure and capture one. So allow to me share the recipe.

First, know what your needs are. Maybe you're the kind of mom who loves to read books, play imaginary games, build endless railroad tracks, and sing lots of kid's songs out loud. But maybe you'd gladly pay someone to fold your underwear and mop your kitchen floor. So tailor your search accordingly. I, however, am very much not that kind of mom.

The tremendous amount of energy it requires for me to engage my introverted momself with my kids all day long is actually weirdly rejuvenated by vacuuming, uninterrupted laundry folding, and even the occasional toilet scrubbing. Plus, I am a bit of a perfectionist in the housekeeping department. Don't get me wrong, my house is not extraordinarily clean, but it for sure is cleaned to my standards and my standards alone, by me. I love my kids, and I also love someone else entertaining them while I take an hour of uninterrupted time to clean. I know many moms who would rather have the cleaning help, and that is fine too. Just be clear in what you're looking for.

Secondly, have a realistic budget in mind. Take a gander at your local Craigslist or Care.com ads for childcare help, cleaning, etc. and get an idea for what the going rate is in your area. Think of what you'd pay a babysitter. Ask your friends what they pay theirs. Heck, ask your friends if they employ mother's helpers of their own. I was shocked at how many of my girlfriends had recommendations for me. And all this time I thought they'd all been Super-moming it on their own…

If you're willing to hire a younger teen, you can definitely save some money. Be prepared to have to be more flexible in terms of availability, however, as they might be younger than driving age and might not be able to handle more than 1 or 2 kids on their own if you decide to leave the house.

Third, know where to look. First, ask your local mom friends. Call around to local churches and inquire with their youth ministers or youth pastors, (think outside the Catholic ghetto - good opportunity for evangelization, too!) ask the barista at your regular coffee spot, or ask your friends who teach or coach at area high schools. If your city has a homeschooling community or email list, this is a great resource, especially since homeschoolers have much more flexible schedules.

Finally, don't feel the need to explain yourself or hover around your fabulous employee once they're on site. I mean obviously you'll want to observe them with your kids, have a character reference or two, and be confident that they're responsible and friendly, but then… back off.

My biggest concern when I was considering making this move was that I'd feel awkward having somebody in my house while I'm there, and that I'd have to justify why I was essentially paying someone to hang out with my children while I took a nap, did some writing, ran errands, went to the gym or just sat on my bed, nursing and reading a novel. Stop it. You don't have to explain to anybody. Even moms deserve the chance to shower without spectators, and I know my husband would rather come home to a smiling wife who might have even cooked dinner than to a frantic shrew who tosses him a screaming baby as she runs past him into the night for an hour of escape. (Don't I paint a rosy picture of family life? Whatever, postpartum mothering is hard.

Hard, but cute.

Mothering in this culture is hard, period. For starters, those of us who don't commute to an office have to answer the idiotic inquiry do you work? at least on a weekly. Coupled with that is the reality that modern America is not exactly family friendly. Sure, there are kids play places and programs at the library for little people, but hardly anybody lives nearby enough to their extended family to get any real help, and childcare is so expensive that it necessitates (and also creates the need for, by the way) a second income. Plus, nobody is home during the day on most weekdays, so if you're staying at home, you're going it super alone. It ain't natural, I'm telling you. And it isn't the way mothers the world over are doing it.

There's a reason so many of us are burnt out, lonely, and wonder on the regular whether our work means anything at all. In the eyes of our culture, the answer is too often a big, fat no. But the eyes of the heart reveal a different answer. What we do is infinitely and eternally important…but we were never meant to do it completely alone. Ladies, don't be afraid to add a co-worker to the corporate payroll when you've found yourself with a broader job description. There ain't no shame in upping your game, even if that means expanding the roster to include some new talent.

I hope this helps you struggling and lonely mamas out there see the idea in a different light. And if the cost is intimidating to you, perhaps there is a solution that doesn't cost a thing. Maybe there's another mom in your same situation who would be willing to swap kids one day a week, and the two of you can take turns relieving each other. Maybe your mother-in-law is local and is dying to be invited to help you with the kids on a regular basis. Maybe there's a teen in your community who just loves little ones, and who would want to come play with your kids for no cost at all. You never know until you ask.

For our own situation, our MH is  15-year old homeschooled high school student whose parents were willing to drive her both ways (this was hugely important to me) two days a week. She comes Monday and Friday afternoons from 1:30 - 5 pm, and I usually entrust her with my 3.5 year old and my 22 month old for the entire time. I will also leave her with the 9-week-old, as long as one of the three kids are asleep. (She doesn't have any qualms about taking care of them all, but I feel like 3 little kids is a lot to ask of a 15 year old.) When I do leave the house, it's usually for an hour or so while I shop or work out. I won't put her specific salary, but the going rate for babysitting in our area is 8-12 per hour, and I stay within that range.

Hope this was helpful and not sleep inducing. (And thanks for a second day of motivation, Jen.)

Abortion: Hollywood gets it right

(*Spoiler Alert: if you're behind on your Downton consumption this season, look away)

Or British Hollywood, such as it were.

Last night's episode of Downton was one of the best on-screen depictions of the reality of a crisis pregnancy that I've ever seen. Not because it was brilliantly written (though it was) or because the characters were compelling in their dialogue and emotion (though they absolutely were), but because it was realistic. At least, as realistic as the fictional depiction of an earl's daughter falling pregnant by an older married man whose wife is interred in an insane asylum can be. Ahem.

The truth behind most crisis pregnancy situations is not a political truth, as so many on both sides of the issue would have us believe, but a deeply human one: loneliness.

I don't mean loneliness in the sense of isolation, necessarily, though it can certainly be that, but rather, I'm speaking of the loneliness that affects someone who perceives themselves to be alone in a crowded room.

I am alone. I am abandoned. I am trapped. Nobody can feel what I am feeling, and there is nobody who can help me out of this place I find myself in. I am utterly alone.

That is what drives most abortion-minded down to the nearest Planned Parenthood or women's 'services' clinic. It isn't politics. It isn't even religious beliefs, or a lack thereof, necessarily. It is loneliness, and the fear that accompanies the desolating poverty of options that a woman facing a crisis pregnancy perceives.

My parents will kill me. My boyfriend will leave me. My Church will reject me. My husband will walk away. Her husband will find out what we've done. I'll lose my job. I'll lose my friends. I'll lose my life.

Abortion might be a buzzword in our culture, but the banality with which we discuss it betrays the truth of the matter: it is a horror, for every body involved.

With the rare exception of those abortion apologists who are so wounded, so enamored of this culture of death that they've pledged their allegiance to, and perhaps a handful of truly earnest practitioners who have deadened their minds and souls to the gruesome reality they participate in, hardly anybody is truly pro abortion. You might spend some time on CNN or MSNBC and walk away believing otherwise, but don't mistake the cacophony of a few shrill voices for the silent dread of millions of quiet ones.

Abortion is awful.

As the storyline for last night's episode played out on the small screen, we were made privy to Edith's visible interior struggle over her situation. In one scene she confesses to her mother that 'she has bad thoughts sometimes' and wonders aloud if she is, in fact, bad. Her mother reassures her that we all have bad thoughts, but that 'acting on the bad thoughts is what makes someone bad.'

If only more parents were willing to have that simple conversation.

When Edith announces to her aunt that she intends to 'get rid of it,' the older woman reacts with natural horror and pity, not with a callous agreement or an 'atta girl, you exercise your right to choose.' That isn't realistic. Nobody feels that way, not in the real world of flesh and bone and complicated situations and sorrow and regret. The media might (usually) want us to believe otherwise, and the small chorus of bitter and twisted voices promoting abortion for abortion's sake might want to convince us it is so, but let me assure you, it is not.

I have sat with women as they wrestled with the decision whether or not to take the life of their child, walked alongside them as they entered the bubble zone surrounding a 'clinic'.

If any of them failed to see the humanity of their unborn baby, none of them voiced it. Maybe the belligerent boyfriend accompanying them into the clinic did, or perhaps the aging and angry mother (grandmother, really) escorting them firmly by the elbow…but not the mother herself.

No matter what the media - or Cecile Richards - tells us, the truth is that abortion is always the fruit of a hideous, soul-wrenching decision bred of a lack of options (either actual or perceived) and most of all, that ultimate loneliness.

As Edith sat perched in the dingy waiting room of an illegal abortion clinic in post WWI Britain last night, she bared her aching heart for the audience as she admitted she would never be able to return to the nursery at home, the nursery containing her niece and nephew, her sisters' children.

"Yes you will, in time, you will." her accompanying aunt consoled her.

"I know that I will not. I am prepared to kill the wanted child of the man I love."

Edith's fear of rejection - by her family, by her missing lover, by her society at large, is so great that it forced her to consider what she herself recognized to be unthinkable: killing her own child.

It's never a simple decision, let alone a celebratory one. With few exceptions, the decision to abort is a painful one. And so is the decision to choose life. Edith, ultimately, did. And she didn't do so for political reasons (crowed the tired, predictable leftists blogosphere this morning) nor for lack of courage. Her decision to embrace the life of the child she carried was born from courage, from the decision to face the unknown rather than to embrace the horror of the known. And ultimately, it was a rejection of loneliness, of the lie that 'I am alone' and 'there is no other choice.'

May her courage, while imagined and portrayed by a skillful actor, breathe a spark of life into a culture obsessed with death. And may her fictional story speak to women living this an all-too-familiar storyline out in real life.

Huge with Child

Here's my advice to all you gestating women of size out there in cyberspace: don't ever, ever agree to appear on camera in your third trimester of your third pregnancy in roughly three years.

Ouch.

I'm filming some Catholic content for a forthcoming project spearheaded by a major Christian media company, and while I'm flattered (and deeply, deeply confused) to have been tapped to speak on parenting, I'm now reeling from the approximately 6.5 minutes I just spent reviewing unedited footage of myself talking about discipline and sleep deprivation while looking absolutely huge. Huger than I imagined myself in my wildest nightmares and certainly much, much bigger than those floor to ceiling mirrors at the gym are willing to admit. Oh holy hell, only 7 weeks to go, how much bigger can I get?

At least I'm in the good 'ol USA where perhaps a handful of other women can relate to my significant swelling in stature. Roman mammas would have run screaming from me in the piazzas, I presume, stilettos clicking hastily away down cobblestoned alleys, errant cigarette butts tossed aside, still smoldering, while clutching their petite pregnant bellies in horror. Bellies which more closely resembled  a taut, youth league basketball stuffed under a thin veneer of cashmere.

I love these little people so much, but they have destroyed my body. Not just altered it, but absolutely destroyed it. I just have to believe that I am being remade, stretch mark by stretch mark and dimple by wrinkle, into someone more beautiful and more worthy of the immense dignity of this vocation. But no wonder, no wonder motherhood is so denigrated by our society: it's appalling. Not on everyone, certainly, and not at all times, but when it comes down to it, it's basically biological war being waged on a woman's physique. And what mothers - what I - choose to do in response reveals the deepest held beliefs about the worthiness and the nature of the call. Do I really, really believe there is some higher purpose to what I'm doing here, aside from propagating the gene pool and ticking the next box on my life-long to-do list?

After looking at myself looking like that, I sure as hell better believe it. Because otherwise why, why, oh why would anyone undergo this kind of searing, soul-scarring transformation, this death and dying to self and to the world and to one's image in the mirror...all for love of another? And then possibly another. And another. 

I hope this is not coming across as some bizarre mashup of piety and self-loathing. I'm honestly stunned by my own appearance, and stunned by my reaction to it all the more so. I might hate what I'm seeing, but I have the emotional and spiritual distance for the first time in all my life to realize that she isn't fully me, that I'm more than the sum of the camera angles or the reflections tipping my own image back to me. So is it horrifying? Decidedly so. But there's a degree of detachment that I haven't experienced before, and that's pretty surprising. In a good way.

So here I lounge, debating between a long, hot bath in the semi-clean tub only recently vacated by two pair of toddler buns clutching melting Klondike bars in their grubby fists versus a nice hour in bed with my current dystopian young adult fiction addiction of the moment (Allegiant, the final book in the Divergent trilogy, FYI), and while my larger-than-life image will be forever burned into my retinas, I don't think I'll lose sleep over it tonight. At least not as much sleep as will be claimed by sciatica and heartburn.

And so to all you other big, pregnant mamas out there: I salute you. It's not easy being stuffed full of life in a culture that gluts itself on slender death, and it's certainly not always easy to look yourself squarely (roundly?) in the swollen face and say, bring it on, I got this, I was made for this. But you're doing it. We're doing it. 

Motherhood: it's not for the faint of heart (or for the small of pants.)  

Room for Cream

This being my triple crown pregnancy, I've had the distinct pleasure of finally being able to relax a tad about this whole gestation business. This is not to say that I don't still Google fatal conditions and occasionally lie in bed frantically poking at my abdomen, trying to make a sleeping baby prove her continued existence via kicked out Morse code, but I'm a little more chill about most of the 'thou shalts' and 'thou shalt nots' that accompany an American pregnancy.

Yesterday morning, for example, when I broke my own newfound resolve to stop drinking terrible coffee and ambled into Starbucks for a $2 cup of drippy Pike Place, my order was greeted with a raised eye by Mr. Barista.

"So you're not worried about caffeine with the baby?"

As my other two babies were not dragged on this particular coffee run, I had no visual aids, but I communicated to him that 2 out of 2 pregnancies had turned out well enough, java jolts and all.

He chuckled a little and handed over my disappointing cup of joe, and I dumped non-organic half-n-half in to further insult the injury. My poor, defenseless in-utero babe was now swimming in caffeine and cow hormones.

Beginning this pregnancy in Italy and ending it in America (my 2 months more pregnant than I am now self is punching my current self in the face for even mentioning 'the end' at 28 weeks) has given me the privilege of seeing two very different perspectives on procreation, and both have their strengths and weaknesses. In Italy salad was dangerous business, as was carrying my then 14-month old. Wine, however, was fine. Encouraged, even, as a way to soothe mother's anxious nerves at the day's end and ensure that the wee bambina had a sophisticated palate upon arrival. (Love that line of reasoning.)

In America, wine is not only frowned upon (quite literally by strangers in restaurants, if you're bold enough to drink in public) but websites and plenty of MDs go overboard preaching fetal alcohol syndrome to women rarely accustomed to imbibing more than a glass or two of Chardonnay in a given week. Ri-diculous.

Even exercise is controversial here: either you're overdoing it ala last week's Crossfit controversy (Google it if you don't know what I'm talking about) or you're condemning your helpless babe to type 2 diabetes in the womb with that second bowl of Cherry Garcia.

In other words, it's hard to strike a balance.

I think  this time around I've just about got it down. I work out 3 or 4 times per week, nothing crazy, but sometimes I get ambitious and do 4 miles on the elliptical, which my back promptly informs me is a terrible mistake, usually around 2 am the next morning. Some evenings I'll have a glass of wine or a beer with dinner. Last month on a date night at the Rio (Coloradans, you know what magic I speak here) I even had a (gasp!) mini margarita. I know, I know...worst mom ever.

Except here's the thing: I'm not in some kind of 'temporary' state during pregnancy and nursing. In fact, over the nearly 4 years we've been married, I think I've had 5 collective weeks where I wasn't one or the other. And 2 of them were our honeymoon. So the whole 'no drinking/no coffee/no Tylenol/no heavy lifting/no soft cheeses' business? Not gonna fly.

Call me crazy or uninformed or what you will, but women have been carrying, birthing, and feeding babies a lot longer than the AAP has been blasting missives of doom onto the WWW, so I've got a feeling there is more collective wisdom in childbearing and rearing than in the entirety of BabyCenter.com. Add to the crazy the fact that most moms-to-be have been pumping their bodies full of doctor-proscribed synthetic hormones and chemicals for years and years and, well, I think you can see why I'm skeptical over the medical establishment's recommendations for gynecological health. Or health in general.

I actually think it's a symptom of the larger anti-life culture which sees pregnancy as some kind of disease (unless it's planned, and then it's a critical high-risk condition). In reality, pregnancy is a normal - albeit special - season in a healthy marriage. And unless you're screwing with the process or are struggling with infertility, it's a season that comes around again and again...and again. As seasons are wont to do.

So yes, I will drink that coffee. Might even make it an espresso, while you're at it, since I have 2 nanny-less toddlers to keep up with all day long. I've got plenty of other primo opportunities for mommy guilt in my life, no need to seek it out in the bottom of a wine glass or a plate of melty Brie.

Cheers ;)

A Girl Walks Into a Bar

No for real, I met my husband in a bar. A Mexican bar. Dreams do come true.

Well okay, it was the Hacienda Colorado, and technically, we were at the hostess stand in front of the bar...but still. I distinctly remember our first conversation happening over giant margaritas.

The night in question. View from Dave's perspective. I'm in the middle.

Let me back that up to the summer of 2008. After 3 long, hard, and gloriously transformative years at FUS in Steubenville (finishing my BA, dabbling in my MA, working for one of my Catholic heroes, learning how to drink responsibly, etc.) I was ready to beat a path eastward...to DC, specifically, where I had dreams of working on the Hill, for some thinktank, or just being generally awesome and well-paid for it. Strangely enough, those dreams did not materialize, for reasons which I cannot to this day fathom. I mean, a 5-year college graduate with a degree in 'mental health and human services' and zero political experience? Come on.

Midway through that summer, I found myself, with my boss' encouragement, applying for a position with FOCUS at their Denver headquarters. I'd known a few good FOCUS missionaries in my fuzzy days at CU Boulder, and I'd been mightily impressed by them. One resume and a flurry of phone calls later, I found myself on a flight bound for Colorado, still determined that I was going to 'make it' in DC, but willing to give this other opportunity a shot, too.

Wouldn't you know, the interviews went great. And I'd be doing some menial administrative work, yes, and writing grants, which, at the time, I didn't realize would endanger my very soul and suck all the hope and goodness from the world...but I'd also be free to contribute to other projects, and to write various texts and campaigns for my department and others within FOCUS. All I remember hearing was 'get paid to write' so obviously, when they called to offer the job, I accepted.

Back it up to interview weekend, though. My little brother picked my up from the airport and dropped me at a girlfriend's house from college (hi, Diana) where I'd be camping out for 3 days. She and her roomies were gracious enough to host an extra body for the long weekend, and indeed went a further mile by arranging some extra-curricular activities for the Thursday evening before my interviews.

As we were putting on makeup and trying on clothes to go out that night, Diana casually mentioned that she'd asked her boyfriend (now husband) to invite his roommates to meet us at the restaurant we'd be starting at. One in particular, she assured me, was worth meeting. He was an editor. I was a writer. Didn't I think that was interesting?

No, no I did not. Not particularly. Still smarting after yet another failed Steubenville 'I'm discerning my vocation to you/ no, to the priesthood/ no, to you/no, just kidding, to another girl' I was not in dating shape, to say the least. But Diana was insistent that roommate and I would hit it off. So much so, that when her future husband reported back to her with a headcount for the evening, she took matters into her own hands, lest her plans be foiled.

I remember getting to the restaurant and hearing Diana still on the phone with Dave, coaxing him to just  'cancel your plans, you can always drop by that party later' and please come and meet us for dinner. I have no idea what kind of promises she made to him, but he did eventually show up at the restaurant, and I was immediately aware that this was the guy I was supposed to meet. And honestly? Not my type.

But he was really nice. And really easy to talk to. And even though I thought he might be a little bit into one of her other roommates, (he was) he spent at least a half hour talking with me about my upcoming interview (he'd been a FOCUS missionary for 3 years, imagine that!) and was so engrossed in our convo that he even swapped seats with one of the guys to get closer in. (Okay, so maybe he was a little bit into me.)

I don't remember why this seemed like a good idea, but after dinner, we all piled into somebody's early 90's Pontiac and drove downtown to...a Lutheran church. In an old Victorian house in a trendy neighborhood. Because, in the attic every Thursday night: swing dancing!

I don't have a long list of 'things I refuse to do' because hey, for the most part, I'll try anything once. But swing dancing is definitely on that list. Along with playing Settlers of Catan and drinking non-alcoholic cocktails. I'm sorry, life's too short to be intentionally miserable.

Imagine my horror to step into a stifling attic filled with nascent hipsters in saddle shoes showing off their sweet moves and oh, was that a table full of gatorade in the corner for refreshment? Perfect.

I backed slowly into a corner and prayed for some kind of relief, perhaps in the form of a contraband cigarette on the fire escape. Did anyone in our little group smoke? But then there was Dave, coming towards me and, looking almost sheepish, extending his hand with an eyebrow raised. He seemed to be saying 'Hey, why not? We're here, after all.'

Oh what the hell.

I gamely let myself be led out onto the dance floor and steeled myself for a sweaty, awkward 5 minutes of indelicate shuffling and bouncing, because I sweat like a mother and I have no rhythm. None.

No sooner had he put an arm around me then I heard - or maybe felt? I don't know, this part is admittedly really weird, and I had never nor have I ever experienced anything like it since - an interior voice, clear as a bell, telling me:

"You're dancing with your husband."

I'm sorry, what?

I actually stepped back and held him kind of at arm's length for a second, so shocked was I and so disturbed to be hearing voices in the attic of a protestant church while swing dancing.

Uh, God, if that's you...he's not exactly my type. I mean, no offense.

But apparently, the line went dead.

I could go into the rest of the night's details, about how we ended up at a biker bar with a sequin-jumpsuited Elvis impersonator jiving onstage while an ASL translator painstakingly performed the lyrics to a completely hearing crowd (in retrospect, she may have been really drunk, and those may have been her interpretive dance moves), or about how he DIDN'T ask for my number nor did he offer to drive me to the airport in the morning (his roommate did. For which I still give him crap).

Instead, I'll skip to the part 6 weeks later, where he'd convinced me to be his date to a wedding in which he was the best man, thereby dooming me to ride the party bus to the reception with some scrutinizing bridesmaids and a whole bunch of other very well-dressed strangers.

Young, in love, and eating corn chowder.

As the reception wound down, we ended up wandering a bit into a nearby alpine meadow and there, under a starry sky at 10,000 feet above sea level, la prima baci. Perfecto.

7 months later, this:

And then 8 months after that, this:

And then, you know, a couple of these:

I still hate swing dancing. But gosh, do I love margaritas.

Thanks for the memories, Grace.

7 Quick Takes

Why yes, I have been reduced to posting exclusively when link-ups are involved. And just when this lovely little blog was starting to heat up.

C'est la pregnancy.

1.

Morning sickness. It's over, and not a moment or 11-weeks too soon. I will take bone-crushing fatigue and cravings for baked potatoes over all-day nausea in a heartbeat. And speaking of hearts, mine doth go out to expectant mamas who truly suffer. Especially the HG varietal. I was starting to think for a minute that I was riding that horse, but the clouds have parted, the sun is once again shining, and I don't run screaming and gagging past the seafood stall in the market most mornings.

2. 

Houseguests. My husband's best friend (who is a brand new,13-day old priest!) has been staying with us this week, and what a joy it has been. Mass in St. Peter's basilica on the altar of Bl. John Paul II, Mass in our home, served by my somewhat enthusiastic 2-year-old who only wandered off to play with trucks 2 or 6 times during the liturgy, and countless moments of consolation and joy after 5 long, arid months alone in this city. So very blessed. 

Every new priest's dream. And not a shabby morning for our family, either.

3.

Chipotle. Super Target. A car to drive around in. Oh, I mean my family and friends, in 20 short days. Oh America, I am longing to be home again, and all that stands between us is 3 short weeks and an 11 hour red-eye from London to Denver. Should be relaxing, rejuvenating, peace-filled, etc. 

4. 

This piece I wrote for the Heroic News blog got picked up a couple different places. And normally when I write 'controversial' I'm filled with comment-dread and holding my e-breath for the comments to start rolling in rough and dirty...but now I don't read them! Weeee! Such a simple, stupid epiphany that has saved me so much e-grief. Because non-blog related pieces aren't meant to be dialogues between the writer and the world.

5.
Can I just say, being pregnant in Italy is a biiiiiig change from being pregnant in the US of A. Or maybe it's just that every pregnancy is different, etc. etc. But I've lost 6 lbs so far (beer weight? Am I a frat guy?), and I'm still not showing at 11 weeks. (Due to, I don't know...All the walking? No processed foods? Eating a loaf of bread a day?) Both boys had me in maternity fat pants by now, and I have to say my relief is immense as I contemplate walking down someone else's aisle in 4 short weeks in a gorgeous bridesmaid dress and having the optimistically-sized-last-December beauty zip right up. Fingers crossed.

Also, stuff like encounter number two in Steph's post never, ever happens here. Or if it does, the language barrier is such that I don't know when it's happening. Which makes me feel...normal. And even though Italy has the lowest birthrate in all of Europe and there are no babies here and there will be no native-born Italians in another two generations if they continue in this fashion...well, these people love babies. Not enough to actually have any of their own, mind you, but oh my goodness do they like to love on mine. And sometimes take them out of my arms in public places...

6.
Joey and JP kissing 'baby' over and over again and talking to my stomach and making big plans for 'baby Jesus coming at Christmas time' and 'playing trucks all together' and 'drink hot milk.' Okay, son, whatever you say. Also, Joey insists that bambino numero tres is a 'he' named Tonio.
'Baby has a penis, Mommy.' Over and over again. Hopefully never in public, but there's always that 11 hour plane ride on the horizon...

7.
Baked potatoes for lunch, every single day this week. Slathered in Heinz ketchup, imported from a specialty store across town and enjoyed with inappropriate gusto. And did you know, Italian Heinz has no artificial flavors, colors, or preservatives? It's basically health food, people. I only do the very best for my babies.Weirdest pregnancy craving ever? Nah, with Joey I couldn't get enough of salt and vinegar chips paired with salami and cheese, and I hunted green chile like it was my job. I fatefully and regretfully consumed a super-hot varietal on the eve before labor, and, well, Yolo.

Go forth to Jen, and visit all my e-friends.

Don't be selfish, have a baby

At least that's the gist of what Pope Francis delivered in his homily this morning. God I love this pope.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to get back to trying to embrace selflessness and  attempt to enjoy being pregnant with two toddlers underfoot and a strangely off-season case of bronchitis. Ain't life grand?