Consider It All Joy...

"Mama, where's my ______?" This is Bella's latest most asked question of late, and it's been driving me quite up the wall. My highly distractible daughter (Dan would call it "interested") has always had a hard time picking up after herself. Not for any lack of moral certitude or good will mind you; she knows that it is a practical, laudable, even virtuous thing to do. It's just that as she's 'picking up', she remembers how much she liked playing with that particular toy 20 minutes ago and feels that it needs a bit more playing with before it put away in what I'm sure she thinks is some sort of 'toy purgatory' (ie. her closet). She'll decide that she needs to put a bit more color on her coloring page, or that she must build one more thing out of her Duplos, or that her trains need one more turn about the tracks (or elsewhere). It is also another endearing and aggravating trait in Bella that she sometimes doesn't play with her toys with their intended purpose in mind (silly grown-ups!). I have seen her go along with stamp and ink all over a page and when I turn to sneeze, find that she's decided that stamps also look good on her shirt. I'll find rocks in her tea cups and puzzle pieces in her bike basket; and heaven preserve whatever toy or stuffed animal has merited the honor of being "put to bed". Sometimes you can't find them for days.
Anyhow, of course the natural consequence of these tendencies is to be always losing things, for two-year-olds (and their mothers) cannot possibly remember all the odd places in which their toys have ended up. Thus The Question is asked and I, depending on my mood and the number of times this question has been asked in the past hour, will say, "Well, where did you put it?" in the kindest tone possible. Bella will usually adopt a blank stare and echo, "Where?" This is usually the point at which I throw up my hands and offer the 'reprimand accusatory' wherein I declare that if she had put away her toys properly, she wouldn't find herself in this predicament. More often than not, most of my words will have fallen to the ground as she runs off to find another toy just as beloved as the one that was lost, and leave me wondering if she really loved the lost toy in the first place. I scour about the house for awhile, lose all hope of finding the thing, lament its loss more than she does, and try to move on.
Well, by God's grace, a little ray of light was shed on what I believed to be this deformative habit in my daughter...as we were getting out a box of rather neglected Duplos this morning, Bella opened the lid and discovered that Charlie, one of her favorite (and 'lost') trains, was lying right there, nestled among the blocks. She was so overjoyed at the epiphany, I didn't have the heart to give her an "I told you so" or explain why this was not the wisest spot to put her lost friend. It was as if she received a brand new train right then, and yet it still was her old friend. It dawned on me that sometimes we do have to lose a thing to find it, and that this 'deformative habit' does lend itself to a true sense of adventure and romance. For this two-year-old, the momentary sadness she feels at realizing a toy is lost is a small price to pay for the joy of its unlooked-for return. Though the toy wasn't in the 'right place', her attachment to the thing was - and that made it all the more a cause for rejoicing when, like the mercy of God, we find it in the place we thought we knew, and surprised us yet again.

My Little Banshee...

"I know my own mind."

So, I have in my possession a fourteen pound little bundle of joy, whose laughter will make your heart sing and your eyes sparkle, and whose cry will send chills down your spine and rivals the cacophony of Dante's Hell. I wish there was a more tactful way of saying it, but there isn't. My child, my little four-month-old, from the moment she sprang from the womb, has the heart-stopping ability to shriek as if five thousand Chinese torturers were upon her at once. Aside from the trauma it causes her big sister and, at times, her father, it has been the subject of some concern on the part of our neighbors, with whom we share a wall. There are even some neighbors (with whom we don't share any wall) who have stopped to comment on Perola's super-power. We go through the mortifying conversation, reiterating the fact that "No, she doesn't have colic"..."she's a bit stubborn at times"...and "Actually, she was just really ticked off". We try to laugh it off, walk away and shake the dubious stares behind us off our feet.
Our little Nazgul is also well-known at the library, where Bella and I have had to rush to the bathroom to keep the patrons from bursting into tears at the sound of her deafening screams. In the haze of the last few weeks, I seem to recall fleeing the library altogether, Baby Bjorn half-on, half-off, sweater all askew, Bella in one hand and a really angry baby in the other, Hah! hoping no one would notice. All my life, I liked to remain nondescript, quiet... a peacemaker even. Dan and I can't think where this little one got the propensity to be a volcano with little or no warning of impending eruption. God knows what we need however, and He must have decided that my pride needed to be knocked down another peg or two - or to put it more succinctly, I've got to get over myself. This false inner sense that I am ultimately in control has been obliterated by the presence of this child, and my reaction towards her spontaneous combustions has undergone a real and moral change. The deep humiliation, fear and anger that panged me, especially in public situations, has graduated to deep humiliation, love and submission. I wouldn't say the humiliation is welcome, but at least now it's received and offered back to the One who is ultimately the Author of it. With Bella I can truly say, "I'm sorry Baby cry sometimes", and mean it the way Bella means it - with Mary's "Fiat" behind the words.
I have wondered sometimes how Our Lady could possibly be a model for me in this situation. I mean, I'm pretty sure Our Lord was not subject to these fits of horrific proportions when He was a baby. How could she know how mortifying it is to be thought an unfit, unprepared, incapable mother? Then I remembered, Christ is not her only Child, in the sense that the whole WORLD consists of her children through her relationship to Him. She has literally billions of angry, impatient, tantrum-throwing banshees hanging on the hems of her skirts and deafening her ears with indignant cries. And I realized, how many times have I been one of them? Yet she has remained patient with me, and her mercy has no limit. In light of this sweet compassion I can say, with all fervor, next time Perola attempts to rend my soul..."Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy. Our Light, Our Sweetness and Our Hope....."

The Beauty of Picking Up the Mess...Again

This excerpt was taken from Mother Mary Francis, the Poor Clare Abbess who wrote The Art of Waiting, a series of meditations for Advent.A special thanks to my Mom for passing this along.
Enjoy, while I go wash Bella's hands.... :)

“A Cleaned Heart”

Is not a cleaned heart what Holy Church would have to mean for us poor little ones by a clean heart?  We look into this, as I have been looking into it in my own prayer these last days, asking, what do we mean by a a clean house?  What do we mean by a clean kitchen?  There can be something that looks like cleanness just because nothing is going on.  Let us linger for a couple of minutes on those material aspects.  There are two ways, for instance, you could have a clean kitchen.

One, is that the cook never does anything there, that no service goes on there. Everything is in its proper place and is never taken out; there is no work, there is no love, there is no energy, there is no spending.  Nothing is ever spilled because nothing is ever done.  Nothing ever burns because nothing is ever cooked.  And it’s a clean kitchen.

Then, there is the clean kitchen that is the result of loving labor after there have perhaps been some spills, some scorching, some pans boiling over-and then there is always cleaning up.  Lots of work has gone on, and wherever human work goes on, there are always going to be some spills, there are always going to be some pans boiling over and there are always going to be some things that don’t turn out as we had hoped.  But then it is all cleaned up afterward.  That is a very different kind of a clean kitchen from the first kind.

Then too, there a clean house, the kind of thing we have heard about, read about, shivered about:  women who are so tyrannical that they have a spotless house because nobody is ever really allowed to live there.  Nothing really happens, in a deeply human sense.  It’s clean, all right, but for lack of life.  And then again, there is a clean house in which a mother of many children has spent herself, every day, cleaning up the mud, sweeping the rug, washing the dishes because people have been fed.  You could have very clean dishes if you never fed anyone.  You could have a shiny stove if nothing is ever cooked on it—going back to our first image. But there can be the house that is always so beautifully clean because the mother is always cleaning up the inevitable messes that human living entails; the happy little disorders that come of living, and the messes that perhaps should not have been made but then should not be pointed at –just cleaned up.  And that is a very different kind of clean house.

In our spiritual life, the parallel is very evident;  nothing else could be meant by a clean heart but a cleaned heart. Every time we confess our faults, every time that we face the truth without the depression born of pride, we are cleaned, and we can come with a clean heart to Him.  For us to come with a clean heart to God, as the Church asks us to pray, means that I come as one cleansed.  And if I have had to be cleansed several million times, that can be transliterated very accurately as saying I have been loved by God several million times, because He has never said, “I’ve had enough.  I cleaned you for the last time.”  but every time He wants to clean us so that we can come to Him with a clean heart.

 Patience

So, I thought I was a patient person. I don't mind waiting in long lines. I usually let angry and unthinking folks cut me off in traffic. I could even bear illness with some measure of meekness. Then I had children and discovered that I have an alarming lack of patience with just about everything, and it's really only manifested itself in these few months after the birth of our second daughter.
Our oldest, Bella, who has two years to her name, does not understand the concept of being 'QUIET' when baby is sleeping. Baby usually sleeps in swing (as it is the only thing with white noise in the house at present). I also must mention that we have an old house with wood floors that creak something awful every third step. (I've become something of a ninja trying to step over the creaks, but I always seem to find a new one.) Anyhow, here's the usual scenario:
After finally putting a sleeping baby in swing..
Me: "Hey Bella, baby is sleeping. That means we have to be quiet."
Bella looks up, pretending to register what has just been said, then yells, "Hey Mama!"
Me: "Sssshhhhh! Sweet pea, we need to use a soft voice so baby can sleep."
Bella looks sheepish but keeps throwing her toys around the room. I try to show her how to put them away gently, so as not to make much noise. I think I hear baby grunt or mutter out there, but pretend it was something else.
Me (whispering so Bella takes the hint): "Bella, would you like to go potty?"
Bella: "No!" said with much enthusiasm and therefore, loudly.
As punishment for her obvious neglect of my injunction to silence, I carry her to the bathroom, intent on getting her on the pot, one way or another. Bella starts to whine.
Bella: "I don't WANT to go PEE-PEE!"
Me: "SSSSSSHHHHHHHH!!!" This time the shush gets louder, and I must check myself. Bella sees me getting angry and so whines louder. I try to deflect. "Want me to read a story while you wait?"
Bella: (sniff sniff) "I don't WANT to read a story!" -this punctuated by more heavy duty 'shushing', some mild threats to her future freedom, and me grabbing a book out of the pile. I figure if I start reading, she will have to listen, and therefore, can't talk at the same time. I start said story and tranquillity reigns..until I get to the funny part..
Bella: "HAAHAAHAAHAA! That's SILLY!"
Me: "SSSSHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! PLEASE BELLA!" Then I try some logic..."Bella, if you are loud, baby will wake up, and if she wakes up, she will cry because she'll still be cranky. And then Mama won't be able to play with you as much. Do you want that to happen?"
Bella: (with an attempt at understanding) "I'm sorry baby cry sometimes."
Me: (with affirmative sigh) "Yes, Bella. Me too. So let's be quiet please." (More rumblings from the swing)
At this point, we are done at the potty. I try to convince Bella that now is NOT the time to flush the toilet (usually there is some drama here as well) - and she marches off to make some 'ice cream tea' in the living room, stomping as she goes.
Me: "Aiiiii - Bella! Stop it!"
And I did it - I was loud. I take the short walk of shame to the swing and pick up a cranky baby, still hoping beyond hope that yes, she will sleep again. Bella hands me a tiny tea cup with rocks in it and asks me if I want pink or white ice cream tea. I sigh, smile, and pretend to drink rocks. :)