I've long felt I was born a couple generations too late. I willfully admit I do love modern conveniences especially in regards to homemaking or child delivery, but I do have such fondness for traditional customs. Introducing...Tea Time. I have loved warm tea since I can remember. I am not a coffee drinker, but could sip tea all day. I have wanted to make tea time a part of our day forever and have tried off and on, but since watching "Felicity" (an American Girl movie) the girls have become obsessed with it. The movie depicts a great scene in which Felicity is learning the proper way to drink tea at an etiquette class. Oh my. That is all the training Lillie, Rose, and Zellie needed. They practice all day. I thought how nice it would be to have our afternoon snack with tea, but I wanted John to be in on the fun so we started having tea or some other warm beverage after dinner with a little dessert. It really is too much. He had his head down laughing the whole time especially at Zellie and her properness. Here are some of the rules we are teaching the kids.
1. A gentle woman must behave perfectly at the tea table both as a hostess and as a guest.
This really has inspired me to take the time to pull out all my pretty dishes and serving apparatuses. They love all the little bowls, tiny spoons, and our new tea pot. 2. You are not drinking because you are thirsty or eating because you are hungry. Tea and biscuits are offered as a sign of your hostesses' hospitality. If you refuse them, you are refusing her generosity. 3. A polite way to show you've had enough is to turn your cup upside down and place you spoon on top. You then reply, "Thank you, I shall take no tea."
4. This is the proper way to serve others at the tea table.
me: "Miss Boever, would you care for tea?" them: "Yes, thank you, Mama or Mrs. So and So." me: "Milk or sugar, Miss Boever." them: "Milk, please, Thank you, Mama or Mrs. So and So."
Of course, we let you-know-who in on the fun.
This has been a great way to teach them manners at the table especially if they are a guest at another person's home. I would love to improve my tea accessories and manners. Thrift stores are wonderful for finding such treasures. I checked out a couple of cookbooks at the library that have provided great recipes for tea snacks.
Vianney was very sick for a week. We think she turned the corner today. She's back to reading, but we had to get her new specs. This might be the best picture I've ever taken. I love everything about it. Teeth. Binki. Hair behind eye wear. Stop it. Now.
Do you see her zipper a bit down? I was at mass this morning and John said she walked in the room and proceeded to violently unzip her jams and nurse her baby while standing and walking and jammies just slightly unzipped. I do not do that. Promise. Really. I have no idea where she got the idea.
Although, being sick takes it out of girl...back to bed she said.
I have found myself getting a lump in my throat more and more each time I look at my children. It is all going so fast. Most of the time, I want it to slow down. My mom asked how much time would be enough with them. I told her I can't have enough. I love our days together. I can honestly say I don't mind Clairvaux getting up at night. It is her year to do that. She is only a baby once in her lifetime so for now I will give her that little year of nursing in the night. I don't mind Dominic getting to have a bowl of cereal at night. Really, we only have 18 years to do that together and then he will be gone living his own life with his own family.
More and more, I am seeing how short this life is. I've watched my own father pass on. I watched John's grandfather pass on this year. I am watching before my very own eyes my children get taller, grow wiser, and mature into their own independent selves. As it should be, but it is still painful. I've always been aware of time with them probably too aware.
The lyrics of this song are really about how fast last goes and we really do only have such a short time here on earth.
"100 Years"
I'm 15 for a moment Caught in between 10 and 20 And I'm just dreaming Counting the ways to where you are I'm 22 for a moment She feels better than ever And we're on fire Making our way back from Mars 15 there's still time for you Time to buy and time to lose 15, there's never a wish better than this When you only got 100 years to live I'm 33 for a moment Still the man, but you see I'm a they A kid on the way A family on my mind I'm 45 for a moment The sea is high And I'm heading into a crisis Chasing the years of my life 15 there's still time for you Time to buy, Time to lose yourself Within a morning star 15 I'm all right with you 15, there's never a wish better than this When you only got 100 years to live Half time goes by Suddenly you’re wise Another blink of an eye 67 is gone The sun is getting high We're moving on... I'm 99 for a moment Dying for just another moment And I'm just dreaming Counting the ways to where you are 15 there's still time for you 22 I feel her too 33 you’re on your way Every day's a new day... 15 there's still time for you Time to buy and time to choose Hey 15, there's never a wish better than this When you only got 100 years to live
I am going to live in the moment. I plan to celebrate today and only today. I will not look forward or backward. I don't want to be sad or anxious anymore about their future or our future. For heaven's sake, I can't change it. As Marilla said to Anne in Anne of Green Gables, "Man cannot Change what God has determined." God already has their lives drawn put. He knows the plans he has for them.
I was once visiting with my cousin about child rearing, discipline, and homeschooling. She said the most profound thing. She said it is so easy to get caught up in all their comings and goings. Which discipline tactic to use, what activities to get them involved in, how best to parent, etc., that we have forgotten our first job is to LOVE them and show them God's love. Novel. I love it.
That is what I will do. I can do that. I can do that well. This year, my focus is LOVE. I am going to focus less on "lesson teaching" and more on just loving them and speaking their language. I must be what I want them to be.
How do I plan to implement this practically? It is so easy as a mother to get into lecture mode or teaching mode. It seems that we always have to be teaching them something from everything. I want to focus more on the individual person and reaching into their heart to open it. If they fall, I want to ask if they are okay instead of telling them to shake it off. If they are upset about something, I want to empathize with their disappointment and realize that to a three-year-old not getting to wear the purple princess crown is devastating. If I want them to have good manners, First, I must have exceptional manners. If I want them to treat each other kindly and lovingly, I must treat them kindly and lovingly.
We must be what we want them to be.
I read a quote this week that said, "I don't care how much you know until I know how much you care." I loved this. It doesn't matter much if I can spout out facts to them about any topic until they know how much I care about them and have their best interest in mind.
In my eight humble years of parenting, what New Years advice can I pass on to you? Come home. Literally. Come home. Your children will be grown and gone tomorrow and you can never get this time back. Be with them. Hold them. Read to them. Walk with them. Just sit with them. You will be a very fulfilled in your older years that you spent this time with the flesh of your flesh. Before I came across this song, my motto for this year was going to be "On my death bed..." For a month now, I would say that at the beginning of each sentence and then fill in the blank.
On my death bed, I will be glad I stayed home with my children when they were little. On my death bed, I will be glad I delighted in my baby in the middle of the night and watched her hold her feet. On my death bed, I will be glad we baked together and I didn't care if they made a huge mess. On my death bed, I will be glad we colored together at the dining room table. On my death bed, I will be glad I sat with my sick baby all day and held her. She needed me. On my death bed, I will be so glad I loved John to the extreme in every part of our marriage. What a great reward! I say to myself a lot, "I want no man loved more than this man is loved." Of course, every wife should say that and feel that about her husband. My vocation is only to this man and I want to do it to perfection. On my death bed, I will be glad I stayed up late to decorate a cake to surprise a certain child. Their face was so worth it. On my death bed, I will be glad I had that conversation until 4:30 in the morning. I will rest in heaven.
I could go on and on. I once heard that we should parent with the end in mind. That is what we plan on doing. I am going to live today with the concept of the end in mind. Does that make sense? It does to me. Meaning, in 100 years from now I will be so glad that I lived that day beautifully.
What are you going to do with your 100 years? I plan on squeezing the heck out of life. I am going to. I am not going to miss a thing. I will be 34 years old this year. That means I've lived 1/3 of my life technically. I will see the beauty in everyday life and be so fulfilled.
All our children had a wonderful Christmas, but we all had to admit Zellie had "that" special Christmas. She's an easy one to please. I've mentioned before her LOVE of Molly the American Girl. She especially loves the end scene in the movie where Molly is Miss Victory in the school play. It is a darling tap dance the girls do in the movie and our girls have it down by heart. So Zellie received her own pair of tap shoes and a red patriotic dance outfit. Oh My! As my mother said, "She has been transformed."
She also received the movie of Molly the American Girl. She is pictured below here watching her idol.
If you've not seen the movie Fiddler on the Roof, it is well worth your time to watch it. I've watched this movie since I was a child and am still watching it. It is one of the movies that the characters change as you get older.
One of my favorite lines in the movie is regarding traditions. Tevye says, "Traditions and it is because of our traditions everyone of us knows who he is and what God expects him to be."
Traditions define us. Our Catholic faith is so rich in traditions and all of them are very purposeful. From all the bells and whistles, to the priest's cassock, to the Twelve days of Christmas, to the stain glass windows, to the colors used in paintings, and many, many more. I love them. I crave them. It makes our faith so rich, so meaningful.
How was our Christmas? It was good. Our kids were home, my family was here, all was good, but to be honest it felt out of order. I felt a huge disconnect from our domestic church to the proper liturgical way to celebrate the coming of Christ. I vow next year to change that. I want to implement as many of the churches traditions in our home next year.
This year, we put the tree and all other decorations up the First Sunday of Advent. It felt backwards. I felt like I decorated for the party way to early. Christmas music was playing a lot of the time, but something inside me felt wrong. We are to be preparing our hearts and minds for His coming. For me, I want to save the decorating, the eating, the cheer for AFTER Christmas. I love the order that it creates.
The Jesse Tree. I want to put only this tree up on the first Sunday of Advent along with our Advent wreath. A couple years ago, I spent in inordinate amount of time organizing a beautiful Jesse Tree. I bought real ornaments to go with each reading from Scripture. They are beautiful. I want our children to focus on the lineage that came before and led up to the birth of Christ. It is so crazy that we literally have Christ's blood within us.
The Advent Wreath. I love our advent wreath. I bought this our first year of marriage and love it every year. They remind me of the ones used in Church. I love that our children see the connection. The advent wreath is made of evergreens signifying continuous life. The prickly leaves remind us of the crown of thorns. The circle of the wreath, which has no beginning or end, symbolizes the eternity of God, the immortality of the soul, and the everlasting life found in Christ. We then put five red berries throughout the wreath to remind us of the five wounds of Christ. We have three purple and one pink candle. "The four candles represent the four weeks of Advent. A tradition is that each week represents one thousand years, to sum to the 4,000 years from Adam and Eve until the Birth of the Savior. Three candles are purple and one is rose. The purple candles in particular symbolize the prayer, penance, and preparatory sacrifices and goods works undertaken at this time. The rose candle is lit on the third Sunday, Gaudete Sunday, when the priest also wears rose vestments at Mass; Gaudete Sunday is the Sunday of rejoicing, because the faithful have arrived at the midpoint of Advent, when their preparation is now half over and they are close to Christmas. The progressive lighting of the candles symbolizes the expectation and hope surrounding our Lord’s first coming into the world and the anticipation of His second coming to judge the living and the dead. "
The Feast of St. Nicholas Dec. 6th The concept of stockings came from St. Nicholas so it seems fitting that this is the day their stockings are filled. I need to do a little more thinking about what I wish to fill their stockings with so it becomes a traditional thing like a new book or slippers. We have brunch afterwards. I plan on baking speculaas cookies next year and delivering them to our neighbors.
Our Lady of Guadalupe Party. December 12 We hosted our first annual party this year and it was wonderful. What a celebration of life! There were children everywhere and great Mexican food. I love that Our Lady of Guadalupe came and such a critical time to the people in defense of human life and we are celebrating the birth of Our Lord a few weeks later. She came to defend babies and we are celebrating babies. I love it.
The Feast of St. Lucy and the day my father passed into eternal life December 13th I love this day for so many reasons. I love the girls excitement to dress up and serve John and Dominic breakfast in bed. Since John is an Optometrist, St. Lucy is the patron of the eyes so that is meaningful for his work.
John and I planned on taking the kids caroling or wassailing this year, but we had several come down with the flu so that will be top on our list for next year so WATCH OUT! We will be singing our little lungs out outside your window. I love these lost traditions and what a beautiful way to pass on the faith.
We go to confession as a family the week before Christmas so our souls are clean.
We also have several personal traditions that I love. They each received a set of Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve. Next year, I think I will get John and I each a pair. I know this is small, but I love the family unity it creates. I love the celebrating and delighting in each other. I think these are the things that bring children home when they are grown or wayward.
John had read several blogs about attending all the masses on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Typically, that would be three masses in all. I hope so much to do this next year. Ideally, I would love to present the kids with their new Christmas outfit to attend the masses in. We will then go to Christmas mass at 5:00 PM and come home and have a appetizer feast. I hope to make several appetizers and then we can all put up and decorate the Christmas tree before or after we go to mass. We would then like to take them back to midnight mass. Before we go, I would like to give them their pajamas and exchange the gifts of our family name draw.
In the morning, we plan on opening the gifts from Santa and from John and I. We will then attend morning mass together and then home for a great brunch. I plan on having our Christmas meal late evening.
I would love to celebrate the Twelve Days of Christmas in some form. I haven't come up with any ideas yet so would love any suggestions on this great Catholic tradition.
The Feast of Epiphany January 6 This is the day the three kings arrived to visit our Lord. I plan this year to have an Epiphany party in which the kids will get their ornament for the year. I've started buying them each an ornament since I was pregnant with Dominic. I usually pick something that reminds me of something they did or loved that year. It is really fun to look through the ornaments and remember when Dominic loved Bob the Builder. He doesn't remember loving that show, but the ornament reminds us of it every year. We plan on attending the Nutcracker Ballet every year as a family. I also get a Nutcracker every year also to remind us of something about our family. Our Nutcracker collection is getting pretty good. The kids love pulling these out every year and usually remember why we bought each one. I buy the ornaments and Nutcrackers after Christmas because of the great sales. This year, I found an Irish Nutcracker and a German Nutcracker. I couldn't believe it! Our two lineages! We also fell in love with a great movie series on Netflix called Sissi. It is in German with English subtitles, but the kids loved it! So, our German Nutcracker will remind us of our introduction to Sissi. A beautiful tale of romance, being a lady, babies, and ball gowns. I especially loved the first two movies in the collection.
So, here is to a renewed attempt to celebrate the Church year in our home.
I love starting puzzles and watching the kids all day walk by and work on them here and there. At times, we would look over to see all of them around the puzzle and other times just one person over at the table working alone for a while. John would do the same thing. I would see him stop periodically and put a piece in and then continue on. Next up, a 3,000 piece puzzle of the Sistine Chapel. Who wants to stop by to help?
Dear Uncle Dom, You said I never write about you so now I will. I was so thrilled you came home for Christmas. You are wonderful. You are thee funniest person I know hands down. God created you I think for the sole purpose of making people laugh. It is a gift. Thank you for surprising us and walking in the door. You made my year. I do not like when people are missing for the Holidays. Thank you for being my brother. One of my favorite gifts you have is your natural and phenomenal way with babies and children. You are as confident with babies as any woman would be. You know how to play with young children and that is a gift. I laughed so hard the night you were begging me to talk to you because you said that all day you were a jungle gym, piggy backers, baby burper, lego builder, prince for the princesses. You melt my heart. Some girl won't believe what she has found when she finds you. I am so proud of you. You live way too far away, but Florida has been good for you. Your football coach is right. You are a leader. You have way too many gifts, but you are using them wisely.
Uncle Dominic and Dominic
One of my best memories of you is you playing outside this summer with the kids in the old refrigerator box. You were out there forever and when I went out to see what you were doing with them you said, "I want to be little again." You were all squished in the box with four or five bouncing bodies all over you.
I love our tradition of you coming to see me in the hospital after I have a baby. I love our talks. You always love to "talk deep with Dom." I love that you bring me a shake. I love that I cry to you every time and you sit there smiling and tell me I am a good mother. It reminds me of dad. I love cooking for you because YOU LOVE FOOD.
I'll never forget the $100.00 you sent me for the birthday a long time ago. You were just a little kid so that had to equal $1,000,000 in little kid money. I promise I won't forget it. I am so proud of you. I love you so much.
Christmas is 100% for the parents. I LOVE every bit of it. I love preparing for it, shopping for it, decorating for it, talking about it, the dresses, the masses, Advent preparation, food, family, hot chocolate. I love taking my time picking out just the right thing for each child. I love watching their faces.
This year, we began the pajama tradition. To say that they squealed with delight would be an understatement. They kept hugging us and thanking us. Awesome.
I want to make Christmas wonderful for them. I want them to be generous with others, to think of others at Christmas, but I also want their Christmas to be wonderful in a childlike way. It should be. We are celebrating THE most important birthday in History.
I remember the excitement the night before. I could hardly fathom how large Santa must be. The mystery was oh so mysterious. I remember thinking about him in our home. I remember looking back at the Christmas tree and thinking when I wake up it will be different. I remember seeing the tree first thing in the morning with thousands of presents scattered everywhere. My mother was also so good at "stocking filling." I remember seeing them bulging with goodness. All the world was so right on Christmas day. Dear Santa, I left you cookies and "Rienndeer" carrots. I love lego's and Star Wars so much. Thank you and God Bless You. Love Dominic and the girls.
Zellie hugging John after the opening her pajamas.
How do you spell cute? Look what Aunt Hilary sent her goddaughter for Christmas. You always find the perfect gift. I felt the love when I opened the package. Thank you.
We miss you more than you know. I still think you are coming home to surprise us. You are, aren't you?
Christmas won't be the same without you. WE love you. Dominic wore his Star Wars shirt to bed.
I came across this little diddy a couple days ago.
To Bring Up Children without Comparison
One is everlastingly comparing oneself with another, with what one is, with what one should be, with someone who is more fortunate. This comparison really kills. Comparison is degrading, it perverts one's outlook. And on comparison one is brought up. All our education is based on it and so is our culture. So there is everlasting struggle to be something other than what one is. The understanding of what one is uncovers creativeness, but comparison breeds competitiveness, ruthlessness, ambition, which we think brings about progress. Progress has only led so far to more ruthless wars and misery than the world has ever known. To bring up children without comparison is true education.
by Krishnamurti Foundation of American
I found this beautiful when I contemplate each of my children and their gifts and struggles. Because Our Lord would have just died for me or any one person for that matter, EACH person has such a definitive plan. From a child's very beginnings, we are comparing them to a chart and how other babies their age are doing. We then do this little method the rest of their lives. How beautiful it would be to take each child as EACH child and focus on them, their gifts, their talents, and what God intended them to bring to the table. That is my goal. I want to travel down the little road not looking left or right and just be. I want to find contentment that God is developing them and will bring to them what they need. God is forming them perfectly.
Dominic wrapped up his last session of Boy-O-Rama with constructing his first gingerbread house. He has always wanted to build one so I'm glad he had this opportunity. Some year, I will get with it and make it a yearly tradition.
He was disappointed his didn't look like the White House or had "many stories", but none the less he had a wonderful time.
Mrs. Little giving the kids some great ideas! Thank you, Trish, for all your hard work!
