You are my luxury

Sometimes, thanks to social media, the internet feels like a very small place, a limited orbit. I shared this on the blog's Facebook page last night after seeing it posted on another site, but by morning it was everywhere.

Maybe you've read it by now, in which the "luxury" of stay at home motherhood is contrasted with the "necessities" for survival, as so deemed by society at large. 

I thought it was a well written piece that walked the fine line between values statements and judgmental proclamations handily. Not everyone agrees with that assessment, but I think that's more to do with the emotionally charged nature of the debate (mom-at-home vs. mom-at-work), and not any fault of the writer's.

My own impression? I thought it was spot on. And before that gets me in trouble with my working mama friends, hear me out.

I see you, too. I know you must struggle to leave them every day, to put on your professional face and set your primary mom identity aside from 9-5. I know because you love your kids as much as I love mine, and that while I get a thrill of freedom and relief over the occasional half day in the office every other week or so, spent in meetings or working on a special project, you have to do it every single day, and that it probably doesn't feel much like escape to you. 

Home probably feels like your escape when you pull into the driveway at night, because that's where you left your heart when you pulled the door closed behind you that morning. 

And I don't envy you for that. Because I know that no matter how much you love your job, that can't be easy, and that no amount of uninterrupted time in the restroom can make up for the pain of that separation. 

I'm not saying you shouldn't be working outside the home, by the way. You've made your choice and I've made mine, and we're both doing our very best for our children.

But when I contemplate the idea of luxury like the New York Times piece touched on, when I stop to think about what makes life sweet and satisfying and ultimately, worth living, it isn't cars or a beautiful home that come to mind, or honestly, even being able to pay my bills on time.

It's them.

My children are my luxury. 

So in that sense, yes, I have embraced the most luxurious life possible, in choosing to stay home with them, to work a job that fits mostly into nap times and late nights, and in forgoing some of the more typical decisions that might otherwise accompany one's early to mid thirties in modern America.

We're nowhere near buying a house, but that has more to do with me choosing to spend invisible money on higher education more than a decade ago than with the cost of diapers. We drive older, sort of ugly cars. But there are two of them, which sometimes causes me to catch my breath at the sheer indulgence of it. We did the one car thing and then, living overseas, the no car thing. A car is an enormous luxury.

But I'd trade my minivan for the chance to be home with them if it came to it, honestly I would. And I know couples who have made that decision, no regrets.

There's something that only another parent can understand: your child is an unstoppable and ever-changing force of nature, and childhood is fleeting. 

And every time I leave them, even if just for a weekend away with their daddy, or an hour or two at the coffee shop, I long to be with them again. Sometimes I even miss them while they're sleeping, an admission that only hormones can be responsible for. (You know you've made the late night forehead kissing pilgrimage too, don't deny it.)

And I know too, that no matter how far my eyes roll up into my head in Costco when yet another well-intenetioned stranger tells me that I'm so lucky to be able to stay home with them all day...in the end, they're right.

I am so lucky. And I need to do a better job keeping that in mind, day in and day out. Because I chose this life, and we are choosing it daily, as a couple, and there are sacrifices and sufferings and little deaths involved, as there are in any other big decision. But when we add them up nothing compares to the immeasurable luxury of time with our children. 

And I don't have to explain that to a single other person. Besides, they couldn't possibly understand what I do: that these particular kids are beyond worth it for this particular mother, and that no matter what else I could be doing in a professional capacity, it pales in comparison to what I've been asked to do within the 4 walls of my own slightly ill-kempt home. 

And that's not a judgement on anyone else's lifestyle choices. Just the recognition that my own life is, indeed, immeasurably privileged.

Bond of brothers

My boys are lying facedown and soaking wet in a patch of sun on our thawed-out deck, relishing the 79 degree Colorado sunshine after a long winter (which, in all honesty, is probably nowhere close to finished, but I don't have the heart to tell them...) and taking turns slapping each other on the back.

"What's happening?!" they trade off shouting, dissolving into giggles as they slap each other over and over again, imitating a character from one of their favorite books. They're drenched from freezing hose water and their rash guards and tiny swimsuits are plastered to their bodies. And they are supremely happy.

Just a week or two ago, down with fevers and ear infections and endless 20 degree days, these same boys were scratching each other's metaphorical eyes out in unrelenting Lego squabbles and disagreements over whose turn it was to open the garage door with the special remote. And to be fair, they'll probably be fighting again in 15 minutes.

But for now they are deeply content and completely engrossed in one another, their 19-month age difference barely a blip on their consciousness except, of course, when Joey feels the need to assert his chronological superiority with every checkout guy, barista, and random stranger in the library.
Then there will be a reckoning of birth order, a rattling off of personal information and an unbidden recitation of names.

RIP, mohawks.

Their personalities are so different, and yet they have a sameness between them that can only be explained by a shared pedigree. 

One is bossy, loud, impatient, slow to see the needs of others; the other more gentle, more reflective, more willing to console and to share. But I see the way they rub against each other's temperaments, one emboldened by the fierce desire to keep up with an adored big brother, the other occasionally gentled by a younger one's needs.

It's amazing the way they were clearly designed to be together. And I'm amazed at how very little I had to do with it. I mean yes, I produced them both, but I couldn't have planned the ways they complete each other, the ways they compete with each other, the ways they force generosity and coax cooperation and unselfishness out of day to day situations.

I have no doubt they'd learn these things eventually, be it in school or the workplace. But I'd rather they learned them here, now, sooner...so they have as much time as possible to sink deep in, becoming woven into the fabric of developing personalities.

Their baby sister is beloved by them both, but not fully of their world yet. She's been grudgingly allowed into the bathtub after dinner time, and I'm seeing increased efforts to include her in playtime (or at least throw toys in her path to prevent screaming fits), but she hasn't breached their shared imaginary world.

Maybe as she grows she'll be welcomed into the club, or maybe the next sibling, growing now beneath my beleaguered ribcage, will be her match.

But he or she will be so much more than that, too. More than just another playmate or a contrasting personality to add to the crew; a unique and wholly unknown other to enter into the intimate world my kids share only with each other. Sometimes while I watch them play my heart constricts fiercely at the thought that my time with them is limited by the difference in our ages. I might get 50 years with them if I'm lucky. Their siblings might get 80.

They'll grow old together because they're growing up together. I know it's true, because every week on  Wednesday or Thursday night I slip out of the house after bedtime duties and drive a few miles to a predetermined spot to meet two of my sisters and, occasionally, our brother who live nearby. We have drinks and sometimes dinner, too, and we laugh about stuff only people who survived life with the same crazy parents (hi, mom and dad!) under the same roof can.

And now that babies have come and jobs have demanded relocations and friends have dispersed across the globe, we've become, just as mom and dad endlessly reminded us we would, each other's best grown up friends.

I can't wait to see that for my boys. Even though I probably won't be privy to the inner workings of it. Even though I'm already being left behind, imperceptibly, day by day as they grow and change and need less of me, but arguabley more of each other.

I hope when they're sharing beers together one day 30 years from now they can forgive a whole host of my failures and shortcomings as a parent for the simple fact that I gave them each their best friend. And I hope they encourage each other to strive tirelessly to improve their aim, because their bathroom smells exactly the way you might imagine a small space shared by two masculine preschoolers would.

Love you, boys. And I love your love for each other. Don't ever let it grow cold.

Sanity hacks for the tired parent

As demonstrated so, um, eloquently? Painstakingly honestly? in my post last week, I'm tired. I'm a tired, washed up old young mom, and I need all the help I can get.

I'm guessing, based upon the overwhelming response of solidarity, that there are a few of you out there, too. 

Jen Fulwiler wrote a great piece a couple years ago that examined the fundamental difficulty we face in modern motherhood, focusing on the way the breakdown of physical community - real community - like the kind that used to be found in neighborhoods (and maybe still is in yours, if you're fortunate) has fundamentally altered our daily landscape.

It's more or less necessary for mental health for most adults to have some human interaction on a daily basis. If it must be virtual, then so be it, and hence, the explosion of social media and the mommy blog movement.

But it's so much better if it's in person.

Even I, a dyed in the wool introvert if ever there was one, will cop to the truth that staying home all day alone with little kids is hard. Part of what makes it so is the isolation. 

Another large contributing factor? Being "it" in terms of entertainment, authority, empathy, etc. for a small army.  Or even for a single kiddo - some of my toughest days of SAHMing were with my firstborn in his infancy, when I, still fresh from a dynamic office environment, found myself suddenly and deafeningly alone all day long, all week long. It was a huge adjustment.

Of course, now I look back on that time and long for uninterrupted stretches of napping potential and housekeeping prowess (though, to be fair, at the time I was probably crouched over the packnplay making sure he was breathing if ever he did sleep), but, c'est la vie, hindsight is blinding.

I'm 5 years into the game now, which isn't a lot of time, but it's long enough to get through college (ahem, just barely, in my case) and so it's long enough to pick up a few tips and tricks of the trade for surviving the eternal winter of staying at home with small children. Here are some of my favorite go-to's:

1. You are not their entertainment (but sometimes Netflix is)

I had really high hopes of being a screen free, hands on Montessori style mother when my first two were very small. I set up little activity corners for them and filled them with objects to sort and stack, and I monitored their consumption of media carefully. 

I still do this, at least as far as piles of toys in the basement corners can be considered "curated content for exploration" and I'm still very careful about what they watch. See me painstakingly select "Netflix Kids" and pull the screen up, inviting them to thoughtfully choose between the Wild Kratts and Daniel Tiger. Watch me scrutinize the clock, calculating the time between now and dinner, and then make a generous dispensation for "just one more" episode. Notice me generously donating additional siblings to the dynamic to make playtime more interesting (and giving our sports teams a deeper depth on the roster, down the road.)

Y'all, this is survival mode. And a wise old mother once told me that the advent of television was God's gift to mothers to offset the decline in childhood mortality in the industrial age. 

(Which is horrible, okay? And a joke! But definitely one that I'm still laughing at...)

Oh, and a painfully necessary addendum to the above paragraph? Nothing against screen free parenting, Montessori schools, or moms who like to craft with their kids. We're all wired a little differently on the inside, aren't we? And that's ok.

2. DVD players are in cars now

When we bought our nothing too fancy 9 year old mini van, it might as well have been a spaceship for all the upgraded features it boasted over, say, a Roman city bus. One of those prominently emphasized by our enthusiastic salesman was the drop down DVD player. I scoffed, because surely my children could enjoy car rides around town in the MIRACLE OF A SINGLE FAMILY VEHICLE and not also be expecting onboard entertainment, but wouldn't you know, the thing does come in handy at times. 

For example, during the 12th consecutive day of light snowfall and temperatures in the 8-11 degree Farenheit range. You know what those days are awesome for? Driving aimlessly around town blasting the Frozen: Sing along! edition for 50 or 60 minutes of choreographed boredom busting. And maybe hitting the drive through at the end. Boom, morning over.

3. Indoor wading pools

At our house, summer is for backyard water play. By 9 am we've got the slip n slide unrolled, the baby pool filled, and a sizable mud pit attracting diaper clad cousins fermenting in the side yard. In the winter when the mercury rises about 50, my poor native Coloradan children who were born without a sense of temperature or a knack for appropriate public attire (geographical disabilities) have been known to strip off their shirts, kick off their shoes and run hopeful into the backyard, searching for the hose. (No, kids, it's rolled up for the season. Please put your Tevas on and curb your enthusiasm till May.)

But there's always the bathtub. I know the trend this week is to breath a deep sigh of relief and admit that your child hasn't been bathed in 2 weeks or longer, but when I read the articles that starting circulating last week on the importance of building up microbes or something, I laughed until the tears came, because not only have we had the most hideous winter of illness on recent record, but my kids take 2-3 baths per day. Yeah. Can't believe they're not immune to all sorts of ailments!

And you know what? I don't care if it has destroyed their delicate immune systems (which I don't believe for a second) because of two things: first, they're just as wet all summer long because of the aforementioned wading pool fetish, and second, we don't use soap. Because it was long ago emptied down the drain in a fit of toddler creativity.

Bam, microbes intact.

4. Costco is a wonderland 

You probably recall that Target and I are on a break right now (3 months strong, and the budget to show for it!) but you'd best believe that the biggest adjustment to life outside the Bullseye was what to do with the children on those frigid days when milk and diapers and morale were all running low. Well, now we go to Costco, the magical land of free samples, giant carts, and comfortable furniture to lounge about on. And maybe a salty hot dog at the end, if everyone behaves themselves.

And you know what else? There are no dollar bins at Costco. Nobody has ever "accidentally" spent $13 dollars on crap at Costco. You know why that is? Because no single thing there costs less than $13 to begin with, so you tend to think through those purchases.

I'm never excited to go, but I'm always glad we went. Because everybody's tummies are full and 2 hours have mysteriously ticked by and I have 48 cans of crisp cold La Croix to stock my fridge for preggie happy hours.

5. Phone a friend

Some days are just beyond redemption. So why not throw reason to the wind and welcome another 2-4 dirty children into your home for some good old fashioned team parenting with a friend or sister? 3 whining kids of your own might feel overwhelming, but when there are 7 of them all clamoring for snacks and thundering through the kitchen in superhero capes, it usually feels more comical than anything else. Some of my most successful "playdates" have resulted from 3 pm phone calls to a desperate friend in a similar situation, only to find us 40 minutes later sipping wine in relative chaos while our beautiful babies trash one or the other of our basements. If you can't beat 'em, multiply 'em ... and pour yourself a drink.

6. The one-hour recharge 

For some days there is simply no other remedy than escape. And so, with dinner made (or not) and kids handed off to daddy, I flee the house at the bedtime hour. This accomplishes the twofold purpose of preserving my mental health for another sunrise, and allowing daddy some wonderful bonding time when the children are at their absolute most precious. Wink. 

Sometimes it's a hot tea at the coffee shop down the road, sometimes it's a solo trip to the grocery store, and sometimes it's a half hour in Adoration, but I swear by these little escape trips that leave me exponentially refreshed and recharged and able to kiss sweet sleeping foreheads and mean it when I return by 8 pm.

So there you have it, some of my most effective trade secrets (and admissions that would have shamed me 5 years ago. You live, you learn.)

What helps you keep your nurturing neurons firing?

The lonely mission of motherhood

If I've learned anything during my transition from mom-plus-2 to mom-with-a-double-fistfull it's this: the culture at large does not understand you, or your predicament.

You know, the one you got yourself into when you got yourself knocked up so far outside the status quo that strangers at playgrounds goggle their eyes at you and actually stutter the number "4" because it's so shocking.

And it is, by the way, fairly shocking.

The average family size in the United States of America in 2013 (the most recent year I could find reliable statistics for) was 1.9, a number that has held steady for at least half a decade. Which means by the time you get your "one boy, one girl" matched set lined up, you're already technically outpacing the national norm.

So when you roll into Costco with a trio of small people riding dirty in the double cart and then have the audacity to cut a maternal profile should you be foolish enough to leave your winter coat unzipped over the burgeoning baby bump below...you're gonna get some arched eyebrows in your general direction.

I'm grateful to be on the receiving end of mostly positive feedback when I've got my small-but-multiplying crew out in public, but make no mistake, it's not an "atta girl, good for you" warm fuzziness that usually greets us, but generally more of an incredulous "better you than me," or "you will overcome, mom" vibe.

But God help me if the day is going downhill, or if anyone has a public display of insurrection.

If there's one thing a culture which is fundamentally opposed to (or even merely apathetic to the existence of) the child is notable for, it is in not knowing in the least how to react to one when encountered in its native habitat of, say, the peanut butter aisle at King Soopers.

Nervous laughter, averted eyes, or, if we're especially unlucky, pursed lips and disapproving scowls.

And sometimes the only thing harder than being a mom to a bunch of little kids is the way the general public reacts to them - to you - when you muster the audacity to take them out of the house.

Listen, I'm not looking for some kind of medal of recognition when I hit up the grocery store at 4 pm with my wild posse, but for the love of all the generic Oreos on the shelf, don't stare at us like we're the 8th world wonder because we're there.

You might be the first adult I've laid eyes on since 7 am, and I'd love if I didn't have to pretend everything was fine fine FIIIIIINE with an unnatural glint in my eyes and a slightly manic smile fixed on my face, because otherwise you might think that I'm not enjoying myself and this little child army of mine.

God forbid you think that.

God forbid I'm allowed to demonstrate, in public, how hard this is, because after all, didn't I literally and figuratively make my bed and lie in it, and then repeat the feat 2 or 3 or 4 more times after that?

Yes, I know what causes this. I know where babies come from. I do have a tv, but it's in the basement and we generally prefer Netflix, but that's beside the point.

I'm raising children in a culture that despises them, for all intents and purposes, both in word and in deed, and indeed, by the very laws of the land itself. And it kind of feels like it despises me, too, most of the time.

Motherhood is already hard as hell, because, yes, diapers and bedtime chaos and ear infections and the crushing isolation of a post industrial society bound up by fiberoptic cables, but fractured of any physical community...but the difficulty is greatly magnified by the public disdain for and incomprehension of our children's - and to some extent, our own - existence.

So what does this mean? Well, lots of the time it means I've got to be the brave little soldier mother, the one bucking the trend and smiling and saying "yes" over and over, not because I'm oppressed or brainwashed or lacking in education or opportunity, but because I chose this of my own free will.
And for that, I have forfeited the right to complain, at least outside the 4 walls of my home or my safe  little corner of cyberspace.

I have abdicated the right to expect a sympathetic ear or an understanding spirit from a total stranger, or even my next door neighbor, because we're swimming upstream in this household and most of the other salmon we're commuting with are not only staring at us in blind incomprehension, but sometimes they're throwing their slippery bodies in our way. Because we might be idiots. And we're clearly not operating out of our right minds.

And some days it's harder than others.

Sometimes I want to not have to pretend that everything is fine while we're out and about only to come home and collapse in a sobbing mess behind the bathroom door once the groceries are put away and the snacks are dolled out.

I want to share with the other moms I encounter that it is hard, that I'm not doing it all, and that even though there are more days than not where I feel like crying by 8 pm, I wouldn't have chosen another life than this one.
Can't it be hard but also worth it?

Can't I confide in some well-intentioned stranger that it is a struggle to be this busy and pregnant again, but that some hard things are worth doing, and that pursuing a life of self-actualiztaion and leisure isn't the only thing we were put on this earth for?

Can I be unafraid of coming across as a stereotype of the tired, overwrought, and oppressed mother who hasn't yet happened upon the wonders of birth control and daycare if I let the smile slip from my face and I make honest eye contact with you while my 4 year old is lying on his back sobbing in the library because his favorite dinosaur book was checked out by somebody else, and his two other siblings are ready to leave now, and we can't spend 20 minutes hunting for an acceptable substitute?

I wonder how much of the hardness of my hardest days is because it is hard right now, and really lonely, too, and I feel compelled to put on a brave face and pretend that it isn't hard, out of fear that someone judge me accurately to be the sobbing, overworked mess of a mother that I really am.

Motherhood is always hard, and it always has been. But motherhood in a culture that shies away from self-immolation and self-denial and radical generosity in grotesque horror is especially challenging. And sure, I'm doing my little part to buck that trend, bit by bit, baby by baby. But it isn't easy.

I remind myself over and over again of Pope Benedict's words (but not often enough, obviously) "The world promises you comfort, but you were not made for comfort, you were made for greatness."

But God help me if I don't crave comfort, just the same. I just wish I could talk about it honestly sometimes without getting counseled on the latest, greatest advancement in IUD technology.

I didn't say I wanted to exterminate the little darlings, just that raising them is hard, and doing so in a culture that sees them primarily in terms of risk and cost is exhausting. Because I feel compelled more often than not to play along like everything is rosy, lest I be adding fuel to the anti-child fire.


And then, wouldn't you know it, I am myself exhausted by the effort to make this look good, make this look enjoyable and attractive and worth it.

It is all those things, and more. So much more. But I'm so tired. And sometimes I just don't have it in me to pretend otherwise, even when I know people are watching.

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.