Q&A - Part 2

Dreaming ahead...if your kids go to FUS which current household and/or dorm do you see them being in based on their present personalities?  

Who even knows what households are still around?

John: Disciples of the Word

Lily: Love of the Lamb (hands down - she has spunk, but such a sweet nature)

Thomas: Knights of the Holy Queen 

Andrew: AMDG

And what’s one thing you wished someone told you being home with the kids all day? 

How lonely the early years would be. How, even though I am introverted, I would become so desperate for an adult conversation.  Those early years are hard.  If I wasn’t dealing with my current set of issues, I would be looking at my job very differently.  

I loved the rhythm I was in before we heard the cancer was back.  I had some down time when all the kids were in school, some one-on-one time with the older two, and with the younger two, I was able to do a music class with the younger two, bake one day a week, visit with a friend or two on the phone or in person, and clean house (not as much as I wanted, of course). 

To sum up - how lonely it is in the beginning, but when some are school age, how that changes in a neat dynamic.

Have you been able to stabilize your weight and even start gaining again? And if not, why do you let David Garcia hog all the delicious food that I hear people are bringing you? 

No, weight is not stabilized.  I wish. I go down during chemo days, and try really hard to get it back up again after.  This new diet/ileostomy is really challenging to get used to.  I wish I could eat everything people brought over, but the diet is limited in strange ways that I haven’t taken the time to explain to everyone what that new diet looks like. 

Any special tips on preparing a firstborn for a newborn? Particularly when it comes to wanting to be carried...not thinking of anyone in particular. 

Ummmm….Survive.   Get your hands on my favorite book (which is pretty much my discipline post): Discipline for Life: Getting it Right with Children by Madelyn Swift.  This book was a life changing experience in my parenting and I have never stopped telling other parents about it because it is that amazing.  I mean it.  I will be saying it still on my death bed.  That’s how much I believe in this book.

Edited to add: I read A Mother's Rule of Life by Holly Pierlot.  From that book, I started a spreadsheet that has multiple tabs that saved my life.  The tabs included our daily schedule, our weekly schedule, clip art charts of the kids routines, yearly goals, cleaning routine, dinner ideas, lunch ideas, food schedule, etc.  This was my life-saver.  It helped me plug everything in to spaces of my life.  I would look at it again before a life change - school starting, second semester, etc.  This is what enabled me to really get in a good routine when we started school.  This is what enabled me to bake about once a week!  I wanted to share that with you all.

Oh! What are your tips for keeping a marriage strong during such hardships as you have faced over the past year.

Marriage advice.  That’s always fun.  It’s the same when a marriage is healthy.  Thank you to Julie and Kirk Broom, our sponsor couple over 9 years ago taught us so much about what the challenges of marriage look like and how to face those challenges.  The one piece of information that I have carried with me over the years is actually two pieces that work together: vulnerability and communication.

Fight hard to learn HOW to communicate with your spouse.  I credit David for this one.  He worked tirelessly our early years of marriage to not only get me to say what was bugging me, but why it was bugging me.  Now because we have those skills in place, in these times of trial we can talk with each other clearly.

Vulnerability fits right inside of communication - like a diamond in your hand.   You can’t communicate with each other unless you are willing to be vulnerable with the other.  It doesn’t work.  If you let your guard down, and the other person RESPECTS that, you have mastered the greatest challenge of marriage.  Give yourself a pat on the back.
Edited to add: You must keep God at the center of EVERYTHING.  If not, why are you living?  Why are you even married?  He is the reason, and if you take him out of your marriage, you lose the core of it all.  

What spiritual discipline or prayer took your faith to the next level?

The Magnificat magazine.  Reading through the Church’s Liturgical year never disappoints.  I like the daily reflections, too.  David’s answer would be the Liturgy of the Hours.  He has such a love for the Psalms.

How have you developed your prayer life with David? Have you guys always prayed together or did it develop over the course of your marriage?

Honestly, we’re different.  We have different styles of praying, so in a lot of ways it’s never meshed together.  Lately, our prayer together is the Fr. Margil prayer, and anything else we add to it.  Sometimes we pray the chaplet together.  Sometimes the Rosary.  It varies.  It is never the same.  It just depend on the season of our life.  At the beginning of our marriage, I wanted that.  I wanted to be happily engaged in different types of prayer, but always together.  It never happened.  And over time, we learned, and we figured out what works for us and it’s different, and sometimes the same.

What's your favourite book to date? And why? 

I’m keeping Diana’s British spelling of the word because I like it.  My favorite book of all time.  Thank you Mrs. Lusby for introducing me to this book.  I have read it throughout different seasons of my life and I always walk away with a richer understanding of what life on this earth has to offer us.  It has taught me invaluable lessons regarding marriage and friendship as I watch this couple make choices I totally agree with or vehemently oppose.  It’s Wallace Stegner’s “Crossing to Safety”  It is the simple story of two couples and their friendship.  So plain, but so so rich.

What would you write a book about?  

I sat on this one for a while:

Stop Beating Yourself Up

Universal Mortification: The virtue most needed in our society today

Favorite obscure saint (if you have one)?

She’s not a saint yet, but one that I think of often.  She’s a Blessed.  Here’s a link to her story.  Google her and look at images.  Do you see her smile?  This woman was facing in some ways what I am facing.  Look at her unabashed joy.  What a witness of love and life.  Oh yes, her name: Blessed Chiara Corbella Petrillo

All the photos today are picked from me to show you how life looks with 4 kids.  It's crazy, and messy, and worth every moment.  The two on top are from Christmas this year.  The rest are entirely random.