It is Saturday afternoon and I am folding baby clothes—new, soft, tiny baby clothes—and layering them lovingly into a gift box for one of our choir members. I had forgotten how much I love baby clothes. I love everything about babies. You know, I don’t even hate the diaper changes. Did I get tired of…
Read MoreAll articles filed in family
A Good Day
Some days are just really good days. Or good evenings, anyway. And they don’t always start off on the most promising foot, either. Like when you glance down at the gas gauge on the way to carpool and go, “Oh, #$%#, I’m sitting on empty!” And then you have to go 1) to school, 2)…
Read MoreMental Space (or: Why I Had Such A Hard Summer)
We didn’t go on any field trips this year. This has been bothering me all summer. For the last several years, this has been the structure of our summers, and it’s something the kids look forward to. As the summer unfolded, I couldn’t figure out why we couldn’t make it work. There was really nothing…
Read MoreExtreme Prayer With the Basi Brood
In grade school, I had a principal who had once been a sister—at least, so I was told. The main thing I remember about her is how particular she was about how we recited prayers as a school. I remember one day we all sat down in the church, and the teachers handed out cards…
Read MoreWhat A Weekend Away Does For A Marriage
We went to the Adirondacks this weekend—just the two of us. We knew it would be a good thing to take some concentrated time as a couple, but getting the bases covered was quite the logistical production. By the time we left I was not so much excited as I was just hoping and praying…
Read MoreAdventures In Sex Ed…Again
(Warning: if you are squeamish about breastfeeding and related anatomy…DO.NOT.READ.) It began with the words, “Mommy can you s-nugga me?” “Of course I can snuggle you, Julianna. C’mere.” Julianna cuddled up under my arm as we settled in for bedtime prayers. The younger boys were being pokey, as usual. Julianna rested her head against me…
Read MoreTime To Breathe
I don’t take enough time off. Which is more than a bit ironic, given how much I twit my husband about checking email and working from home. The great thing about writing from home is that I can do it anywhere, any time, in the cracks of regular life. That’s also the worst thing about…
Read MoreHandling Change With Grace
One of the things I’ve always admired about my parents is how gracefully they have passed from one stage of life, of parenthood, to the next. They moved quietly and without drama from being parents of littles to parents of school kids and then teens, and then college kids, and then finally into the empty…
Read MoreOn Any Given Sunday….
On any given Sunday, you might be sitting in the front row at Mass, trying to look like a respectable family who actually has any business giving a presentation on faithful parenting later that afternoon, when your three-year-old flings himself to the floor and wails. And when asked what’s wrong, his response might be: “I’m…
Read MoreA Tale of Two Easters, Seventeen Years Apart
The most amazing Easter of my life was the year 1998. I was in Iowa, without a car, living in an eight-room suite with a group of people I barely knew and counting myself blessed to be out of the roommate situation I’d suffered the semester before. It came on the heels of a Lent…
Read More
Kathleen M. Basi 