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You know you are a confirmed scrapaholic who has been in the hospital wwwwayyyyy too many times when the doctor calls an ambulance to transport your child to the hospital, and your first thought is: Man! I don’t have the camera!

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Yes, Michael and I in the hospital…again. He took the cold we’ve been passing around and added a few degrees of drama to it. However, we are not in the ICU. And it’s a very different thing to simply be in the hospital, rather than in the ICU. For one thing, I’m expected to change my own baby’s diapers. (Boo.)

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I actually feel better now that we’re in the hospital. After the week of Sick

, in which I commented that we have entered some Bermuda Triangle that sucks up both good health and rest, I didn’t know whether to trust my skyrocketing anxiety level. Was it mother’s instinct talking or lack of sleep? Michael perked up and began eating, at least a bit, as soon as he got some oxygen in him. And this morning he’s not on oxygen at all and is doing much better. So I am reassured in my instincts.

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But I also question this crazy lack of health in our family. We are generally really healthy people. Did we really have these kids too close together? Is that why we have such a poor record of health, so ridiculously many hospital stays? Or am I overreacting? After all, most of the hospital stays have been Julianna’s. But really, we’ve had illness after illness upon illness for two full months. Looking at the state of my kitchen this week I’d blame my housekeeping for the germ breeding ground, but the fact is that the dishes didn’t get done this week because I had to hold the baby so much, and when I wasn’t holding him I was trying to make up lost sleep. Nonetheless, all you people who say “dust bunnies can wait, enjoy the kids”–our experience makes clear that cleanliness cannot be sacrificed entirely!

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Escalating the Month of Sick to hospital levels adds marital stress that we didn’t need. Nothing can make you feel quite so disconnected, and breed so much conflict, as being on call 24-7 and being forced to devote every second of couple interaction to the business of co-parenting. We had to cancel a date last weekend and reschedule for this, and now I’d say we’ve lost it this weekend, too. But at least this time we’re local, and I can actually leave for a couple hours and help get kids up (as I am doing this morning, which is why I have internet access).

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This week, as I wrangled a very sick baby and a recovering toddler, it occurred to me how creative we moms of young’uns become. For instance, how many of you, like me, use your mouths as an extra appendage?

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And last but not least: Here’s a video of an interview I gave about Bring Lent to Life. I look at myself, hugely pregnant, and I wince. It’s amazing how much the human body can stretch. Don’t forget to enter the giveaway for a signed copy!

UPDATE: Should’ve done this much earlier, but Michael came home on Friday afternoon–he just needed some oxygen & fluids to help him over the hump.

7QT is over at Hallie Lord’s today.

Then I came up with one. And another. And another. And the more I thought, the more I realized I do have them, they’re just more practical in nature, and less easily summed up in a pithy title. But they’re all aimed toward one ultimate goal: independence. I guess I’d have to call myself a middle of the road kind of free range parent.

I think I will probably address some of these in individual posts, so today I’m just going to share what I came up with. And then…then, I’d like to know what your philosophies are.

• Telling kids no.
• Letting them fight their own battles and ask their own questions.
• Being willing to admit I’m wrong.
• Moderation: in food, in toys, in TV, and related to that…
• Giving the gift of family instead of Stuff.
• Loving touch.
• Tolerance: Not stopping them from doing things that aren’t wrong, even when it’s annoying.
• Allowing them to suffer. (I have a lot to say on that subject, so as horrible as it sounds, bear with me. I’m not talking about making them suffer, just allowing it when it happens.)

What all these have in common is this: letting go. As parents, we are often urged  not to “rush” children to grow up. But at the same time, we feel anxious if we don’t have our kids in one sport every season, music lessons and speaking three languages. Most of my music students have more than one extracurricular activity every day. If that’s not pushing kids to carry an adult’s load, I don’t know what is. And I think we feel that instinctively, which is why we end up doing things for them that they should be doing for themselves–to try to offset it. And that’s how we get helicopter parenting.

I want to be the anti-helicopter parent…but still nurture and love them. My goal is for my children to leave–even Julianna, my little girl with the magic chromosome–to fly the nest, to leave me free to do all the things I’ve put off in the service of my children–but to love them so thoroughly and completely that they’re happy to return.

Most days, I think I fall far short. But every once in a while, when I’m loving them so hard my body almost can’t stand the force of it–every once in a while, I’m sure I’ll succeed.

Image via Wikipedia

When sick moves in, you don’t always know it’s happened at first. It’s just a cold, right? Okay, a long and extended cold, a toddler who needs a “tih-oo” every five minutes, but no big deal. An infant who has to have his nose suctioned periodically for a week, then two, then three.

When sick moves in, you load up the kids and go to the doctor on a Thursday to make sure the baby really is just getting virus after virus, and it’s not something that needs treatment…and then, that night, the toddler spends the entire night wailing and screaming, until your nerves are raw and you wonder what you were thinking by having children in the first place, and in the morning there’s crustiness outside his ear and you feel horrible for not recognizing that your child has an ear infection, the first ever in six years of parenthood. And then you think how lucky you are to have avoided it so long, and berate yourself for your shot nerves and hair-trigger temper. And you load up the kids and go to the doctor again…at nap time…with kids and a mommy who haven’t slept well. Nearly hysterical, you call your husband and tell him to COME HOME FROM WORK RIGHT NOW. Which he doesn’t, of course, and by the time he does–early, just not as early as you wanted–everyone’s calmed down and you feel like a total loser for calling at all.

When sick moves in, it’s the cruelest kind of face slap: just as you think you’re finally going to get a good night’s sleep, the toddler’s roommate comes down with a cough bad enough to make you waffle about sending him to school. But he wants to go, you want him to go, and he’s borderline, so you send him. Half an hour after you put the kids down for nap, the school calls and says, “Sorry, come get your kid.” So you lose yet another day’s nap for the sick children, and top it off with two days with four kids in the house and nowhere to go.

When sick moves in, you come face to face with the reality that it’s not the big stuff that gets you, but the minor ones. You tell yourself that this too shall pass, that kids need to get sick, that this will make them healthier when they get older. But the truth is, you want to murder everyone, or at least exile them, or at least find a really deep hole to dive headfirst into. Preferably one where it’s quiet and will allow you to sleep uninterrupted by coughs, screams, and wails, not to mention that cute baby you have to nurse twice a night. And you berate yourself for your poor attitude, because you know other people who really have it bad, and others still who would give up several years of their life to have medical problems so trivial as viruses to deal with, instead of the ones they’ve been given. You snip at your spouse, burn with resentment because s/he sleeps through it/doesn’t do enough/isn’t being sensitive.

And then child number two hops a plane to Ear Infection Hell. Another sleepless night, and the spouse snips at you because he didn’t sleep, and you want to scream, “THIS IS MY LIFE ALL THE TIME, AND YOU’RE ACTING THIS WAY BECAUSE OF ONE NIGHT???” A date night canceled. Doctor visit #3. (Thankfully, Daddy handles that one.) Another round of amoxicillin, and you breathe a deep sigh of relief…until Daddy starts hacking, adding yet another layer to the Reasons Why You Will Never Get A Full Night’s Sleep Again, and you feel guilty and selfish for thinking about that when those you love are suffering.

When sick moves in, the sickos breathe all over the healthy ones: the immuno-compromised child, the newborn, and the caretaker of the whole household. And you start thinking, Oh, no, when is it my turn? So you spend Saturday morning running around with a spray bottle full of vinegar and a rag, wiping down every surface you can think of that might be harboring microorganisms. You develop the worst plugged milk duct you’ve had yet this time around, and all tricks are powerless against it when you have a baby who doesn’t appear sick, but just wants to sleep and nurse back to sleep without really eating.

And then Toddler starts coughing. And wakes up the next morning with a high fever and spots all over his body. And now you know which child it was that had a sensitivity to penicillin. Only it’s Sunday, and your only medical option is a trip to the ER, which seems an overreaction considering how long it took to show up. And Baby decides he doesn’t want to nurse.

When sick moves in, you start perusing the mental calendar and realize  it’s only January. We have two full months of sick season left, and we’ve already been sick for six weeks straight.

Entering week seven, and hoping that I’m telling the end of the story. This has been a very self-indulgent run, so if you’ve made it this far, you should also know that although I’m incredibly sleepy this morning, I’m in a better emotional place simply for having vented it all out. Sometimes that’s what you need most.

I know, probably most of you are sending die, evil woman, die! looks at your computer screen right now. I’m ahead of the game, but I have a good reason. I think Lent is the great misunderstood season, and it is possible to approach it with joy–as perhaps you can tell from the image to the right. Today I’d like to share a short excerpt from my new book, Bring Lent to Life, and…I’m hosting my very first giveaway! So let me begin by asking: have you thought about “what you want to give up for Lent”? Read on!

The problem with simply giving something up is what I call the Mardi Gras syndrome: You’re sacrificing sweets for Lent, so the day before Ash Wednesday you have four bowls of ice cream. (There’s a reason it’s called “fat Tuesday.”) And on Easter Sunday you celebrate the end of the fast with two chocolate bunnies, a couple dozen handfuls of jelly beans, three slices of pie, and a cinnamon roll.

Kind of misses the point of the fast, don’t you think?

Fasting should change us in some way–move us to a place of greater holiness. It shouldn’t be something we do to torment ourselves for a while, only to revert to our former selves when it’s all over.

I believe it’s time to think beyond the ordinary Lenten penance. Why not give up a  specific sin instead?  In many ways, sin is a habit, a pattern of behavior. Selfishness, irritability, unkind words, gossip, gluttony–each of us struggles with the same sins again and again. Instead of choosing a specific item to forgo, why not choose one sin particularly troublesome to you and spend Lent focused on breaking its power over you?

This can be a great exercise for kids too, although they may need help, and that help must be given carefully. It’s important that we, the parents, not tell children what sins we think they need to address. True conversion happens from the inside out; it cannot be imposed by authority, however loving.

Penance, when heartfelt, is frequently a very private action and very difficult for people to share, even with those closest to them. Respect this. If a child is unwilling to share what he or she is giving up, that’s OK. As a parent, it’s tempting to feel that we must know everything our children are up to. But it’s also possible that a child (especially in the teen years) may want to be free of a habitual sin but is too afraid to admit it to his or her parents for fear of punishment. If your children are sincere enough to choose to work on something for Lent, rejoice, and allow them the freedom to make good choices of their own volition.

(Excerpted from Bring Lent to Life, with permission of Liguori Publications. Click here for more excerpts.)

Okay, folks, it’s time for a book giveaway! If you like what you see, leave a comment here between now and Feb. 5th and be entered to win a signed copy of Bring Lent to Life!

For extra entries, help me spread the word! Mention Bring Lent to Life on Twitter or Facebook (and mention me so I know about it!–Facebook: Kathleen M. Basi, Twitter: @kathleenmbasi). Better yet, refer people to this post. For each one you’ll get an additional entry. For every day you tweet or FB it, you get additional entries. On Feb. 6th my lovely little ones and I will do an old-fashioned, low-tech drawing and announce a winner.

Any questions? If not–go!

Last night was one of those nights when I think we really ARE as crazy as people think we are for having four children. Nicholas (AKA drama king) is sick, and you know what that means. If you don’t, let me enlighten you: it means he got up SIX TIMES between ten-thirty and six a.m. Add two nursings and one scream from Julianna, who was convinced that there was a thunderstorm outside her window, and you can imagine I am one seriously cranky mommy this morning.

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Cranky mama status is especially troublesome as I intended to focus this post on my cute kids. They’re not looking so cute to me today.

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Which means, since my attitude shapes my reality, it’s even more important today than it would have been otherwise. So why don’t I focus mostly on Nicholas, the bane of my nights light of my life, the perpetual “why”-asker and camera ham? Now, when I say camera ham, don’t think I’m overstating. In the home videos from his babyhood he couldn’t seem to do anything but pose and give silly, goofy giggles. Now he says, “Mommy, wi you take pi-euh of me?” It’s hard not to oblige when he gives me pictures like this one:

(Those eyes are murder. Murder, I’m telling you. High school girls, beware.)

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 Or this one:

The moment I snapped this picture my heart almost stopped, because I realized I was looking at a teenage Nicholas. I know now exactly how he will look.

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 He’s also the klutz of the family. Wednesday night he tripped and smacked his head on the metal base of a schoolroom desk while we were at choir practice, and now sports a knot you can see from across the street. Thursday morning he hit his head six times between getting up and breakfast time. I’ve known for a long time that he was going to be his mother’s child in that regard. I was the one in our family who had to have stitches, who broke her arm, the only one who had to have surgery…there’s gotta be one in every family, and in mine Nicholas is it. You know what? That doesn’t jive well with drama king status. Ugh.

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 You haven’t seen much of Michael lately. How about one of him? Better yet, how about one of him and his brand-new cousin?Except you can’t really see Michael’s face, can you? How about this one?

Power to the people, man!

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Julianna got her own post and pictures yesterday, so let’s leave off with a picture of Alex doing what Alex does best these days: being an awesome big brother.

Now, how can I be a cranky mom after those pictures??????

(I’m sure I’ll find a way. Just give me time.)

Photo by iloveusb, via Flickr

My life is crazy now. As I try to get back into the swing of regular life, with writing assignments to finish and errands to run, I keep having to adjust my expectations ever lower. Lower, that is, in terms of what I accomplish outside of motherhood. For the first time, I am really not multitasking during nursing times, but simply being quiet, looking out the window, looking at Michael, doing neck stretches (okay, so maybe I’m fooling myself about that whole multitasking thing).

It’s not a bad thing. We had a really nice long weekend, with a visit to family and a visit to the fire station down the street, some outside time and opening the house up (how can you argue with 70 degrees on January 16th?). But it also means that I’m spinning my wheels a lot. This week, I lost one day to a trip to St. Louis for my postpartum visit and another morning to Julianna’s kindergarten IEP meeting…a meeting whose implications I’m still pondering, processing, and, well, generally spending emotional energy.

I don’t want to overstate things, because I’m really okay, it’s just I haven’t figured out how to juggle the extra child yet, and child outranks Everything Else, which means I’m dropping a lot of balls, and every day the list of things left undone gets a little longer. Things that I was able to do without difficulty even during pregnancy suddenly feel like too much, but I don’t know how to jettison them; there isn’t anyone else to do them…or more accurately, there probably is, but it would take so much energy to find that person that it’s probably simpler to try to continue juggling myself.

One of the things I do that I don’t talk about too much is teach natural family planning. For the past year or more, I’ve been working with our diocesan office to promote the visibility and accessibility of NFP in our diocese. It’s working, which is thrilling…but as the ranking teaching couple, it also means a lot of extra work as new couples come on board. And we need to meet with half a dozen engaged couples to plan music for their weddings in the next three weekends, too. And it’s time to be working on preschool for Nicholas in the fall. To say nothing of the scores of pictures piling up, crying out to be archived in scrapbooks. I’ve always, ALWAYS stayed caught up on scrapbooking…but I’m beginning to wonder if I’m reaching the limit.

Anyway, I know I will eventually catch my stride. Frankly, it’ll probably happen when Michael settles into more of a schedule, which means I probably have several months of this unsettled-ness to get through. I have to learn to accept less of myself, and to say no. The first “no” on that list is going to come later today, when I have to respond to a “can you please…?” email that’s been bold-faced glaring out of my email inbox all weekend. But I must confess, I just said “yes” this morning to something else…I promised to drive for a field trip for Alex’s class. But I mean, if I’m going to say yes, it should be to things like that, right? I should be staying hyper-involved in my family, and setting other things at a distance.

When I put a title at the top of this document, it was meant to be about something entirely different, and much more organized. But the introductory paragraph took me spinning off into a stream-of-consciousness reflection, and I decided to go with it. I can return to my original thought tomorrow, after all.

Luke 2:19, NAB

When I went into the hospital on November 30th, I gave myself permission to take it easy for a while. I was supposed to have a whole lot more done before that happened–a proposed table of contents for a new book, a couple of columns, some music. The early delivery rearranged my plans; the NICU stay gave me time to get done more than I thought. But when I came home, I gave myself until the first of the year to rest, to recover, to adjust…in short, simply to be.

Some of it has been stressful, some of it sublime. I’ve handled it with grace, and without. But at all times, I’ve tried to stop and really be present to the moment–to feel it in my body, not just in some compartmentalized corner of my brain, or with my eyes through the screen of a digital camera. In the past month, I have sat in my nursing corner in the darkness and watched Orion trek across the night sky. I have sat there on bright mornings, with the newborn sun aglow on the walls while my other children play on my bed, reducing each other to helpless, jelly-kneed giggles while they wait their turn to hold Baby Brother. I have gotten back under the covers with my family, three, four, five people lined up across two pillows, and run my hands over each one, glorying in the distinct progression against my palms as I touch arms and faces: adulthood, age six, almost- five, almost-three, and infancy.

I have watched yet another baby work his magic on everyone around him.  I have tiptoed around an umbilical cord stump that refused to fall off, tried to soothe him through very cold baths on a towel on the bathroom floor. Changed diapers that smell cheesy and yeasty, and didn’t hold my nose, admitting softly to myself that I actually kind of like that breastmilk-diaper smell.

I have slept in, napped in the sunny (and not-so-sunny) afternoons, watched movies, done very little housework, occasionally overdone it and paid the price in my incisions. I have gone to way too many medical appointments and never bothered to take work with me, choosing instead to hold a baby and be still instead of productive while I waited in overheated waiting rooms. The last two days, I have lounged back to enjoy the solid, warm soft weight of a child against my chest, pressing my nose to his head to breathe in that scent of Heaven, the smell of chrism, while my lips press against silky eyebrows and satin skin.

And now it is January third, and time is up. The baptism and extended holiday visits from family members have gifted me with some extra days, but now reality begins to settle back in, bit by bit: cooking, cleaning, laundry, lessons, deadlines. But the experience has taught me that I need a new balance for a new year–one that achieves fewer words or notes on a page and more moments. One that involves being present when my children are filling my soul instead of keeping my brain busy in the background working on some problem to be solved at naptime.

Today is bath day, and I think when I put Michael in the tub for the first time (his recalcitrant cord finally gave up the ghost on the last night of the old year), I won’t wash his hair. Maybe not the next time, either. The smell of chrism won’t last forever–the scent of Heaven will fade along with the inner hum of stillness found this past month, as normal life settles in once more. But while it lasts, I can use it to anchor myself in the resolve for this new year.

Image via Wikipedia

We didn’t expect much of a crowd this weekend. After all, it’s our fourth child, and the only reason we got a lot of attention this go-round was the NICU drama.

I asked my cousin–my oldest, best friend, ever since she was four and I was five and we lived three thousand miles away from each other–and her husband to be godparents for Michael, and I set the baptism for New Year’s Day, thinking that travel might be less inconvenient during the holidays, and also knowing that my youngest sister, who lives a long way away too, would be able to attend. Total count, including other siblings and grandparents: fifteen. Your basic family holiday get-together.

Oh, yes, and there are local family members, too. Add three or four for uncle, aunt, and a cousin or two.

Then my cousin’s parents—my godparents—decided to come in as well. I was thrilled–it was so special to have them present. Then another of their children decided to join the party. And my 96-year-old grandmother’s sister decided to come in and visit her family, and recruited a third sister to bring her from the airport into town. And somehow it seemed wrong to exclude the rest of the uncles and aunts on my dad’s side of the family, who would otherwise have trouble finding a time to see each other over the holidays at all. And then how do you exclude their children (with families of their own) who would like to see their cousins?

And then my in-laws, who we had originally thought weren’t going to be able to come, decided after all that they would drive in for the occasion.

That is how a small affair becomes beautiful chaos, causing my mother to hyperventilate and me to stress, causing us to move the venue from our house to the church cafeteria, prompting dozens of phone calls begging for help in feeding the multitudes, and my dad to respond to my desire to keep things simple with an ironic, “We’re way beyond that, Kate.”

It was a beautiful day, a beautiful ceremony, chaos-laden, and one I will remember forever. If only I had remembered to take the picture of the whole crowd, the one I intended to use to illustrate this post. If only I could find the cable to offload the pictures from the camera this dark January morning, before I dash upstairs to get Alex out of bed for his first day of school post-Christmas. Oh well. You know. Chaos.

November 30, 2011

Christian killing time as we wait for the walk to the OR, around 8:15 p.m. The nurse accompanying us looks wide-eyed at me as I round the corners and walk like I know where I’m going…because by the fourth time, I do.

A quick glimpse, and then Michael disappears into the NICU.

December 1, 2011: Under the hood. Michael, in the NICU, under a heater and suffering from “tachypnia” (rapid breathing) and low oxygen saturations. He has an IV, a temperature probe (the heart), heart leads, and a pulsox. Soon to be added: NG tube for feeding.

On Friday, I take no pictures. Pretty much I cry all day. Just as well that nobody tries to visit. Bad enough falling to pieces in front of doctors and nurses, bad enough having complete strangers trying to hug you and make you feel better…doing it in front of family would be even worse. Because nobody can do anything to alleviate the suffering. Oh yes, and my milk starts coming in.

December 3: visit from the kids

In the morning, the staff decides that Michael has a “pneumothorax,” a partially collapsed lung. They put him on his tummy under the hood again and start pumping 100% oxygen in. It’s RSV season, so no kids are allowed in the NICU. No adults except parents and grandparents, for that matter. They wouldn’t even let great-Grandma in. Hence, almost all our visitors come to the window and view Michael through soundproof plexiglass.

Alex has control of the video camera. His finger is on the button when the curtain swishes open, and he gasps, “Oh! He’s so cute!” But of course, he doesn’t turn the camera on first.

After they leave for home, I return to the NICU and document some details: blood pressure cuff on a thigh…

…the hand recovering from a lost IV earlier that afternoon (the purple tube is the extension of the NG tube, through which he gets all his feedings by “gavage.”

…and the top of the “hood,” with the blue oxygen piping air into it.

December 5, 2011

Sunday, at last, I prevail in my pushing for nursing time. The pneumothorax has resolved, they’re weaning him off oxygen, although we’re stuck at 30% and can’t get off the last 9%. They put him on a cannula and we start nursing…some. Not all the time, though. Look at my poor baby’s heel. He’s black and blue with blood gas, blood sugar, and bilirubin sticks. I’m officially discharged from the hospital Sunday night at 11:20 p.m., and I continue on a day by day basis as a “house guest.” Hoping that sooner or later, I’ll get to nurse him around the clock.

December 7-9, 2011

Just when we think we’re on track to be going home Thursday, he drops his sats and we’re three steps back. Another crying day. But the last one. Slowly, he begins to improve, and around midday on the 9th, he’s finally wearing clothes, lying in an open crib, and un-oxygen-supported:

Now we only have to wrangle four delicate cords when nursing–the pulsox and the heart leads. After one false start, he passes his “car seat test, gets his hepatitis shot (finally). Saturday the 10th is Discharge Day. It begins with a formal permission to leave, pending circumcision…at 10 days old. I don’t remember it being so traumatic for the other two boys. Poor baby! My parents arrive late afternoon, and we make good our escape. Back at home, the kids arrive home from a show at the university and are wild with excitement. I can’t believe how big they all seem. But Michael’s asleep, so we send them to bed and they have to wait for morning for the big moment:

So there you go. That’s the story of a half-month, a half-Advent, and the beginning of life as a family of six. The drama’s not over, but at least it’s shifted to me and my health instead of his!

And so I planned our family life around a December 15^th delivery. We had all our big Advent calendar activities planned for the first two weeks; as of December 11^th, all the major commitments were done, and we planned to take it easy the rest of the month, stay close to home, do nothing stressful.

On November 29^th, when I picked Alex up from piano lesson, I said, “Um, honey, we may be having a baby this week.”

Alex threw both fists into the air. “YAY!” he said.

“Well…” I hesitated. “You need to realize something, Alex. If we have a baby this week, we’re not going to be able to do all the Advent calendar activities.”

He paused. “Why not?”

“We just won’t,” I said. “Trust me. We’ll do as much as we can, but if we have to have a baby this week, we aren’t going to be able to do it all.”

He pondered for a minute, then shrugged. “Okay.”

I missed days 1-10 of the Advent calendar altogether, and although Christian tried valiantly to make the activities happen in my absence, the reality is that Advent Reclamation this year is a poor shadow of its real self, and the little ones—pardon, the middle two—have pretty much no idea what’s going on. It’s an Alex show this year, because he’s the only one who’s made that “tradition” connection so far. But I’m not really upset about it. In the grand scheme of things, it’s only one year, and the excitement of a new baby more than makes up for the loss of the daily anticipation. I mean, let’s be honest: how can making St. Lucy buns compare with this?

Or this?

Or this?

Or this?

(I know. I saved the best for last.)