All Good is from God

This week I’ve been thinking a lot about a woman I met one stormy night this winter. This winter my husband spent some time in the hospital. Our family struggles with health issues so I’m used to prolonged hospital stays out of town.

I usually just sleep in the chair at the hospital during my husband’s stay, but the patients and staff members on the cardiology floor don’t favor a newborn spending the night. Our newest little one was 3 weeks old at the time so I kept her with me and at night as we slept on the couches of friends. Having a hubby in the hospital, caring for a newborn and tip-toeing around friend’s homes in the night becomes really stressful after week. I was living out of a stroller, and hopped up on postpartum hormones to boot. I’m a writer and I had a huge deadline and needed to pull an all-nighter to catch up on work. I was stressed, and tired and frankly, just in a really bad place. Did I mention the hormones?

My family members stepped in and told me I had lost all rational thought and needed to leave the hospital. I decided I couldn’t handle another night of tip-toeing around someone’s house with an infant so I treated myself to a hotel room. I began driving to my hotel and sure enough, a sleet storm made my drive the worst ending to the worst day. And then I went down the rabbit hole. You know, whatever that breaking point is where you toss your hands up and curse God, asking Him what the heck you ever did to him to treat you this way. Or maybe that’s just me? I through a 3-year-old style fit about how everyone else in my life has good things happen to them and for me it is just one emergency after the next.

I checked into the hotel with a tear streaked face, and a screaming infant. The lady at the front desk took one look at me and said, “I’m not allowed to do this, but you look like you need a break. I’m putting you in our best room, a suite with a desk and whirlpool – you just look like you need something good to happen to you.”

I had asked for God, and there he was. One prayer-filled soak in my in-room hot tub and I was ready to face life again. When bad things happen to us our first response is Why me? Or, Why do bad things happen to good people?

The question doesn’t have an answer, because it’s the wrong question. Instead, we should only ask why God allows good things to happen to us, fallen people. Why would God care so much about my hurting to place a beautiful and intuitive woman in my path just at the right time? What an act of love!

Everything good is from God. The rest is part of life, consequence of free-will and a call to become better people, so we may live in the absence of suffering some day in heaven.

But for now, in our earthly lives, our little, random, acts of kindness can make the biggest difference to someone in need of support, encouragement or faith. I think about this hotel worker every now and again and wonder if she knows how big of an impact she had on a hurting women one cold, storming night this winter.

Who has God sent to you at just the right time?

Copyright 2013 Holly Rutchik

A Mother’s Fiat – Elizabeth’s Birth Story

It wasn’t the birth experience I was hoping for. In fact, it was downright disappointing.

I blame the hospital tour where I saw a re-designed postpartum unit, complete with its color light therapy over the large Jacuzzi bathtub and a full-sized memory foam bed. It somehow convinced me I was going on a spa vacation. I actually started looking forward to my hospital stay. Sure, I had to actually go through the whole labor, delivery and pushing out the baby part before my husband and I got our “spa” vacation. But, I’ve done that three times before; it wouldn’t be my first rodeo.

Looking back on it now, I’m going to go out on a limb and say anytime you’ve looking forward to a hospital stay because it’s the closest you’ll get to a vacation – you’ll be disappointed.

A nasty flu outbreak and the especially frozen tundra-like conditions of another Wisconsin winter filled our local hospitals and gave this mother-to-be a serious case of paranoia. Worried one member of this family or another would catch the “death flu,” I put everyone on lockdown. It was almost a war crime, really. I forced those I love to stay in the house for days on end with my nine-month pregnant self and I was in the worst mood of my life.

I ended up being induced. That involved an IV of what is basically poison trying to convince my brain to go into labor. Yes, it can be a good thing when mama and baby need an induction for medical reasons, which this mama and baby did. Overall, the stuff is evil. With the first contractions I knew this labor wasn’t going to go well. One medical intervention lead to another, and then another. My body doesn’t do well with drugs and I had one negative reaction after another – all while being stuck at 4cm for hours and hours. Some of my veins boycotted and decided to walk off the job by collapsing. I spent the day feeling like a pincushion – and wondering why this baby hated me.

My doctor’s opinion was that a fourth baby should come quickly. His readiness to wheal me into the OR for a section like I was a car going through the carwash stole the last bit of sanity I was clinging to. My husband is as supportive and sensitive as they come, but I could see the worry start to wash over his face. We begged for one more chance and I spent those painful minutes praying a silent rosary and mentally solidifying that this little girl’s name would be Elizabeth. I then invoked her patron saint.

The baby cooperated by moving down ever so slightly and convincing my doctor that she too was just a seven pounder with a normal size head that would indeed fit where it needed to fit, just as those who came before her had. I progressed rapidly and within the hour our fourth daughter came. A sigh of relief did not come with her.

Her arrival was a silent one. When she was placed on my chest I didn’t have time to look at her face or smell her in before she was snatched away and the NICU nurse was called. I spent well over an hour unable to see her or know what was going on in the corner of our hospital room. I was paralyzed from the cocktail of drugs that came with my labor experience. The poor little love had somehow almost drowned herself on the way out. Her little lungs and tummy were full of fluid. When the fluid came out an hour later, so did her first cry.

By the time we checked into the postpartum room my delusions of a restful vacation snuggling a baby had all but vanished. Little Miss Elizabeth had come on the very day of my monthly work deadline. I had planned on working after I delivered. She had other plans. When the pediatrician came to give Elizabeth a once-over she began choking on more fluid and my husband and I agreed it was best she be taken for the night. My restful recuperation in a spa turned into stress-filled, sleepless nights.

A few days after we returned home with our new little lady my initial fear was realized; I had caught the flu in the hospital. My fever spiked at 103.5, the highest fever I’ve had in my adult life. As I tossed and turned in my bed I cried and cried. There were tears of disappointment for the birth and initial bonding experience that had been lost. There were tears of fear and feelings of being overwhelmed with having four daughters five years old and under. Here I was, not even a week in and I was unable to care for my children. With no family around and no live-in nanny, how would I ever do this when I can’t even get past day three without dropping the ball?

I wish I could recall the time leading up to welcoming our Elizabeth as exciting. A time filled with joy, hope and anticipation for the new life that was being gifted to our family. But that’s not my truth. I longed for those feelings I felt as a first time mom, but they never came.

What did come was our daughter.
The first of four to look just like me.
A baby sister that will sanctify and bless our “big” girls.
Another little soul entrusted to our care.

A challenge I say “yes” to, just as Mary did with her fiat.

How fitting for my feelings of disappointment and fear that Mary sought counsel and went in haste to Elizabeth, whose excitement and support blessed her with strength. My Elizabeth too will bless my “yes” each and every day- starting with day one.

Day one of any journey begins with a “yes.”

That yes may be all I have, so it’s a good thing life happens one day at a time.

Copyright 2013 Holly Rutchik

No One Understands Me

It was amid the chaos of the bedtime routine here last week that I heard the words every mother of a daughter will here at some point in her parenting journey:

“Mama, nobody listens to me, understands me or believes me! Ever!”

The “nobody understands me” line took me off guard. It came from the mouth of my almost five-year-old and to be honest, I thought I had a few more years.

New bedtime stalling tactic – or the true sign of an emotionally intelligent woman in the making? I knew not, but I wasn’t going to take the opportunity to emotionally scare my daughter with a poor response. Not this time anyway. As a melancholic myself, I’ll never risk it.

“Well, why don’t you try mama,” I said. “You can always tell mama.”

“I’m sick of sharing a room with Anna right now, I just can’t sleep with someone in the same room as me tonight,” she said. “I need alone time to rest my thoughts.”

My smile was too big to hide. I wanted to laugh at her, cry for her, and scoop her up and kiss every inch of her. I don’t think I’ve been more proud as a mother. There was no crying, no fits, no hysterical fighting for an unknown reason. Just a simple “I need.”

How many bad moods, unkind words and nights of drowning my emotional sorrows in wasted hours of bad reality TV could I save myself if I was able to say, “I need,” as my almost five-year-old had just done?

There’s been a lot on my plate this fall. Too much. With pregnancy and another health issue showing its head – most of my loved ones have demanded I re-evaluate. I’ve ignored them, and similar suggestions from healthcare professionals. All because I can’t re-evaluate, I have to do everything I do.

I’m not the first women to feel as though she can’t empty her plate. “I can’t do this,” and “I must do that,” always find a way to outweigh “I need.”

On this night I gave my daughter a book, some space on mama and daddy’s bed and an extra half hour past bedtime for her to do with as she pleased – all by herself.

While she enjoyed her alone time and a book, I closed the computer and allowed myself to need what was always the best medicine for me as a child; a book of my own.

I still read as much now as I did as a young bookworm, but I’ve found a way to turn my escape into work – I’ve reached the point of only reading research for one project or another. On this night, I opened my first piece of fiction in months. I needed it, and it was lovely.

Nobody understands me. It’s a thought that crosses my mind often. There is some truth there. But maybe I too just need a little time to “rest my thoughts” and see that nobody understands me really means that I’m not listening to myself.

Maybe my daughter didn’t want to go to bed and she pulled the wool over my eyes. I care not. If she got me, she got me. 

There’s one thing I do know, I will always encourage and support my daughters in saying, “I need.” And all four of them will know they can always tell mama.

Copyright 2o12 Holly Rutchik

There’s always room for one more in our family.

Anyone with young ones at home knows it can, at times, be like living with instant play-back. Got a nugget of wisdom or lesson they need to learn? Chances are they’ll throw it right back at you with an innocent face and a big ZING.

Children tend to remember these life gems at the most inconvenient times such as in front of the in-laws, the parish priest or when I’m already teetering on the very edge of sanity – which these days is pretty much any day of the week ending in Y.

“We don’t say that word in our family, mama!”

“That’s not very loving to our family or to JESUS!”

“Dishes go in the sink RIGHT after we’re done eating.”

“Mama, is your shirt modest?”

I’ve been caught talking out of both sides of my month more than once by a four-year-old girl with what I consider to be a super-human memory. It wasn’t until the latest Rutchik family phrase was thrown back at me that I actually saw the mirror being held up to my face. I’m usually too busy wanting to stick a piece of tape over the family parrot/eldest daughter’s mouth to bother looking in the mirror to correct physical or hypocritical aspects of my reflection.

“We get what we get and we don’t complain, right mama?”

The phrase entered our parental play-book when we found ourselves breaking up one too many fights over who gets to drink out of/play with/wear what under the reasoning of it being one little girl or another’s favorite color.

Not-so-secretly holding onto hope that baby number four could be our first son; I had slapped down a $50 bill and marched myself into an elective ultrasound room.

It took me all of three seconds to identify the sex of the little one we’ve all grown to call “baby bubo.”

Girl.

All girl.

I’m surprised her eldest sister didn’t barge in the room and reprimand her for her lack of modesty.

A good mom would lie and say that seeing the life within in her wiggle around on the screen was an experience she’ll never forget or some other sappy, lame and cheesy thing like that. But this mom already has three girls waiting in an embarrassingly messy mini-van with their father. One’s sippy cup of milk lay forgotten on the kitchen counter at home and another’s shoes buried in the sand-box, left intentionally due to laziness on said mother’s part.

I was disappointed. Not surprised, but disappointed.

“I hate to tell you this, but its girl number four,” The technician said. “Sorry to break it to you, that’s too bad.”

I abandoned my pity party and scowled at him.

“Hey, that’s my baby,” I said. “Don’t talk like that about my daughter!”

With a scowl on my face and annoyed eyes I became little girl number four’s mother.

I thought of the phrase I’d been barking at little lady number four’s older sisters all week:

“We get what we get and we don’t complain!”

Our children aren’t the only ones who throw fits, whine and complain about the stupidest things.

(shhh! We don’t say the word stupid in our house!).

Most of the time, we’re upset because we can’t have things we don’t really even want or need and we defiantly shouldn’t care about.

So, I was wrong and I’m embarrassed.  Big shocker, like that’s never happened before around here.  I don’t know what is best for us – or even what I want. Yes, I shed a few tears that night as I let go of my life-long dream of being a mom to boys.

Funny how dreams can change.  It hasn’t even been a week and I’m already excited that we don’t have to buy anything, that our girls can all share rooms, and that I can give my children the one thing I didn’t have and always longed for – sisters.

Most of all, I’m giddy that we will continue to be “that family with all the girls.”

It’s special.

It’s odd.

It’s so very us.

“We get what we get and we don’t complain.”

We’ve having a FOURTH baby girl!

Copyright 2012 Holly Rutchik

Remember the good old days? You know, back when the stress of dating was due to wondering if a boy would ever ask you out on one? I remember those days. They really did stress me out. But, like most women over the age of motherhood now know; I didn’t know what stress was. 

Date night comes around about every other blue moon in our home.

Yes, we know the importance of date night and are deeply in love and committed to our marriage, but an “official” date night out can seem more difficult than climbing Mount Everest.

We live hours away from any family members and consider ourselves creative folks. Therefore, we do a lot of at-home dates.

I’m ashamed to say at-home dates they tend to involve me being at my last rope with the children, feeding them a box of macaroni for dinner and sending them to bed. My husband and I then cook the “real” dinner and eat together alone in front of the TV, without the children. Say what you will, but it is awfully romantic.

We’re word nerds, my hubby and I. To watch a show without noise and eat a meal without cutting someone’s food or reminding someone to “eat like a lady” is a mini vacation. We eat, watch and then pick apart the script of the show.

Are we the only ones who like to save the “good food” for mama and daddy every once in a while? Please don’t judge if we are.

Still, isn’t there something to be said about being with your husband without the buzz of a baby monitor in the background?

I’m just going to say it; this family life stuff is hard. Sometimes my husband and I long for the days before there were three children in as many years. I’m in love with being a work at home mama, I’m in love with my kids and this life, but sometimes I just don’t like it very much.

Family life is so, so hard.

Last week we needed a real date night. Not because we needed to reconnect, remind ourselves why we feel in love or any of those things. My husband are more in love and connect now than we’ve ever been. But the kids? Well, that’s another story. We needed a date because frankly, they wouldn’t be there.

A real date night out tends to get stressful. Firstly, because we don’t have any family around and childcare isn’t a part of our normal lives. Finding a babysitter is usually a problem. Once said babysitter is in place, date night can get costly and that hasn’t always been an option for us.

Lastly, date night can be stressful because we have to clean our house (at least beyond the “mortified if someone sees this” state) for the babysitter to come over. My husband and I have a shared OCD issue with having our home appear to be one where things aren’t peed on daily and food isn’t thrown or spat out at every meal. We’re classy like that.

This weekend was different. The babysitter locked down in less than five minutes – it must have been a miracle. My husband was also ok with just cleaning up and not actually cleaning for the babysitter. We may or may not have just locked the door to our messiest bathroom and asked the sitter to use the kids’ bathroom.

We left the house without a plan, and landed at a restaurant where we dined at the beginning of our relationship. It took us back to that place, when things were excited with possibility. We had a drink at the bar while watching the dozens of prom groups come and go. As we witnessed the embryonic stage of life-long dating we thanked God and each other that we’re beyond that place in life and now have each other. We then shared our meals with each other, not with little girls who lick forks. 

After dinner we popped into adoration. While dating we began every date with adoration. It was lovely to sit with the Lord, thank him for this date and this man, and pray we’ll have more dates to come.

We stopped at a gas station to pick up snacks and smuggled them into the movie theatre, because no matter how my husband advances in his career, he still won’t buy himself an over-priced box of Junior Mints at the theatre. We then stopped at the concession stand, because he knows I can’t go to the movies without popcorn and he is willing to buy me a tub. That’s real love folks.

After the movie we discussed the characters, the writing and the plot, and made suggestions to each other about things we would have done as writers to make the movie even better. I guess whether we’re at home for free or dropping a $100 out on the town, some things about our date nights will never change. And to me, that’s true romance.

One drink each, dinner, a movie, popcorn and a babysitter for three is what 100 bucks looks like these days. It was, by far, the best $100 bucks we’ve spent in a long time.

You can’t put a price on smooching in the car.  Still, $100 bucks – that’s a lot of diapers and wipes.

Copyright 2012 Holly Rutchik 

I live, write and mother from “God’s County.”

Yes, I’m a cheese eating, Packers and Brewers cheering, God-fearing Wisconsin girl through and through.

While I’ll likely never leave the great Badger state, here’s the thing: February in Wisconsin is the table by the kitchen in the darkest corner hell.

February and I are not friends. It’s been cold for too many consecutive weeks and people haven’t seen hide nor hair of a human being not covered in marshmallow shaped coats or fur skinned hoods since Christmas. The icing on top of that lovely cake is the fact that there’s only light for about 2 minutes a day in February.

This February my four-year-old assigned animals that have the same likeness to each of our family members. I was given bear.

“Why bear?” I asked.

“There are mama bears in stories that get mad when others bother their family. Plus, you like to sleep.” She said.

There’s a burn, four-year-old style.

My overly-observant daughter has a point. In fact, if I’m going to survive a Wisconsin winter it would ideally be spend hibernating with my bear cubs. Unfortunately, people don’t take well to shut-ins and society expects me to change the children out of their pajamas for Mass and company.

Therefore, until I’m rich and famous and can snow bird on out of here for 8 weeks every winter – February is about surviving.

I can’t imagine life without the four seasons. Plus, having the cold tundra of winter keeps many creepy-crawling bugs out of our state by a deep freeze that kills them all off once a year.

However, the pros just don’t outweigh the cons when it comes to a Wisconsin winter. By the time Lent rolls around every year I often feel like if there’s another doom and gloom day in my soul I just may roll over and play dead until spring. Things are always the worst at the darkest hour of the night (or in this case, year). Thankfully, hope rises with the March sun. There may be snow/sleet/rain and hail, but there’s hope.

Last weekend my husband and I took a late-winter trip to Door County, sans kids. We hiked through the freshly fallen snow and bare trees to a violent and spitting Lake Michigan.

The trees were heavy and bent with the wet, sticking snow of a late-season storm.

They were my peers, the bent trees. Hunched over, naked and frail from a winter of coldness and little light.

A tree doesn’t turn from its source of light as we humans do. Trees search for the light and chose to grow toward what they know sustains them. They grow heavenward. In the cold bitterness of the darkest times they may bend downward but they survive because spring will come and they will bloom again.

With gratitude, I too know the story doesn’t end in February. Just when so many of my branches are on the brink of snapping, Lent comes and the pain is reigned in and re-focused heavenward. This carries me until the bloom of spring – when we are all resurrected.

It’s March and I’m ready to do just that, march forth. God willing, beauty will bloom in the chaos. At least it will be spring, and there will be light.

Copyright 2012 Holly Rutchik 

The budget tends to burst at the seams comes January. December can bring, “It’s little much, but it’s such a perfect gift for —-,” and, “We can’t stick to the grocery budget, it’s the holidays and we’ve got things to bake/cook and memories to make.”

Every January we sit down with the budget and cut the fat. It’s not that difficult of a job. We know what we’ve comfortable spending in each category and it’s easy to see where we are falling short. We look at the numbers and plan out the next year for our family. We think about each month and what our needs will be and everything runs smoothly, until we get to the summer months and one budget category jumps out.

That category: Vacation. Should we take a family vacation?

No matter how much (or little) money there is, we’re frugal. It’s just how we live. What we have we save because we know there’ll be a time of need. There are student loans that could be paid or a home that could be saved for. Do we spend a large chunk of money over the course of one week in the summer?

The answer for this family is a resounding YES! For us, a vacation is a necessity and something that needs to be budgeted into our lives.

A few years ago my husband, who struggles with a chronic health issue, had a complication after a surgery and I had to rush him to the hospital. There was serious question as to if he would live or die. I called a few friends to sit and pray with me as the doctors worked and I waited. During that time I didn’t think of our budget, the student loans or if I’d gone over on cell phone minutes. Instead, I was I was haunted by something my husband had recently shared with me,

“My favorite thing in this world is when we’re traveling and you all fall asleep in the van. I love to drive my sleeping family.”

This memory was interrupted when the doctors came to tell me they had found the problem and that my husband would make it. My friends smiled and looked at me for tears or leaps of joy.

There were tears, but the only thing I could think of to say was, “I want to go on vacation for our anniversary.”

Our favorite things are important, especially if they help bond us as a family unit. For us, they are the thoughts that haunt us when we are reminded that this life is temporary and they are the first memories of our very young children.

There is something to be said about cramming five people into a mini-van and living out of a cooler for five days every summer – if it’s done together.

We’re not millionaires over here, so it vacations mean other sacrifices throughout the year. We can do vacation on a dime. My husband and I even play “fun games and challenges” to help ensure vacation is possible for our family. You can make dinner for five out of a cooler for consecutive nights and those “free weekend if you take our timeshare tour” trips are actually really fun – and they serve lunch.

Taking his three daughters to Disney World is my husband’s dream. Old age isn’t likely for him, so I’m determined to make it happen sooner rather than later. We even have a code phrase for the dream in our home. “Someday, when we go to the Mouse’s House” we say as we dream while attempting to not tip off the children. It’s a bit early to share our dream with them. We’ll wait until the vacation category in the budget can grow. Until that time, vacation will always have a place in our budget, even if it is a small one.

Does your family have a “Mouse’s House” dream vacation? Does your family have a favorite vacation spot you want to recommend?

Copyright 2012 Holly Rutchik

We’re a “Santa” family. I understand the reasons behind some families choice to keep Santa out of their Christmas celebrations, but for us, it’s important to include him.

There is beauty in the “magic” of Santa. In the innocence in the heart of a child that can believe a man can make it around the world in just one night, solely to bless the lives of children everywhere. The story is appreciated and loved because of its wonder, sans the syndical and bitter questioning that sneaks its way into our hearts with age.

We use the Santa story to teach our children about the unconditional love that can be found in a gift that is given out of love, not earned like a sticker on a responsibility chart. Once a year, for just a few years, they will wake with the type of anticipation that only lives within a child. They’ll know that awaiting them under the Christmas tree decorated with holy cards will be humble presents, right next to the manger that’s present all through Advent. The gifts won’t be there because they have earned them or they deserve them, just because they are loved – similar to the baby Jesus who will be placed in the manger that sits under that Christmas tree.

Accepting unconditional love and unearned reward may be difficult later in their lives depending on their temperament. The “Santa years” are great practice for them to accept that they are loved just because. They are loved by us, by each other and ultimately, by Christ. They did nothing to earn this love, can do nothing to lose the love and need only accept it – like a gift on Christmas morning.

There is no “naughty” or “nice” list and Santa works in his workshop year-round making toys for boys and girls because St. Nicholas inspired him to be loving and kind to children out of the goodness of his heart.

There is no danger of our children learning one day about Santa and drawing a parallel to Christ –  thus dismissing the resurrection as a fable, myth or moral story. We talk about Santa from December 7th to December 25th every year. We talk about the baby Jesus everyday.

My biggest concern that comes along with being a “Santa family” is not a spiritual one. We’ve got three daughters in this home. Teaching them to sit on an old man’s lap, tell him their secret desires and then take candy from him doesn’t really coincide with what we generally teach our daughters about strange, odd looking older men! Then, on Christmas Eve, we’ll celebrate Jesus’ birthday and while we are sleeping he’ll sneak into our home and we’ll leave him a snack?

It is rather amusing when you think about the details.

Copyright 2011 Holly Rutchik

Taking up the majority of discerning real estate on my heart’s shelf this past year has been the subject of the education of our children. Our eldest recently turned 4, and a decision will have to be made soon. Not a permanent one, but a decision nonetheless.

The subject of education is a tough one. I’m the definition of an untraditional learner. An “independent scholar” as I have been called. Traditional school, for me, was deadening. I beat a truancy court call by the hair of my chiny chin chin by turning 18.  Much to the dismay of my parents I couldn’t wrap my head around BELLS telling me I had to be a certain place for a certain amount of time every day and then file into a hallway between said bells to be moved like cattle. I wasn’t defiant. I just didn’t get it, and it wasn’t the best way to educate me.

My husband is the textbook perfect student. He has a photographic memory and for many years found his worth in following rules. A life-long straight A student, he feels he earned grades and degrees, not an education. He now makes a living as an English professor.

So, what to do about the education of our children has been the topic of many discussions and prayers. It’s a blessing that as a couple we are on the same page – and unfortunate that we don’t know what page that is. Through prayer, we found ourselves asking these questions:

What is our ultimate goal for these children?

How are we being called to lead them?

What potential roadblocks to this goal are presented in each educational option?

What are our fears?

That last one is what is blinding me. Fear. We’re not one for “camps.” We’re kind of black sheep type folks. My fear is that schooling choices have the potential to bring with them “camps.” You become a home school, public school or Catholic school family.

We’re still praying. Some days it feels like all of the prayers, discussions and discernment has only led to more confusion. For now we have decided to stop praying about schooling and just pray for God’s will and the courage to recognize it and the trust to carry it out.

The schooling of our children is an important choice, but it isn’t a moral one, or a permanent one. The “right” answer may change. I’ll just save the corner of the shelf below my heart for education to sit from time to time. It’s the big things in life we don’t file away one time forever. They are what our heart swells with in our daily prayers.

“Let the children come to me; do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Amen, I say to you, whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it.”  Mark 10:14b-15

Copyright 2011 Holly Rutchik 

With the e-mail inbox full of assignments and “to-do” items for this work-at-home writer mama; a personal, “fun” e-mail is often a welcome surprise.

Last week I received a much needed e-mail from a close friend. It was one of solidarity and understanding. This friend is in the same place in life as I am. A young mom with young children, a home to tend to and many callings and responsibilities outside of the home that contributes to the family.

As I sifted through the fifty unread messages in my inbox from that day her name jumped out at me. I quickly forgot the other numerous, more pressing e-mails and opened her message. Upon first glace I noticed this message would be a special treat. It was several paragraphs long, a rarity for our back and forth weekly support and venting messages.

I decided to put the baby in her exersauser and set my bigger gals up at the kitchen table with a snack. I knew doing so would buy me a good 10 minutes to focus on the e-mail and give it my undivided attention. As I cut up an apple and changed the baby’s diaper I did so with joy and anticipation. I had been waiting on hearing about a particular challenge my friend is going through and had spent some time in prayer for her intention. I had also invited her to join me for an upcoming concert and was hoping she would be able to make it. Did she resolve her problem? Would she be free the night of the concert? Were we really going to have the rare, unheard of opportunity for a girls’ night out? I was so looking forward to getting back to my computer and reading her message.

The message was a good one. I was filled in on her situation, a few housekeeping items were taken care of for a project we are working on together and she offered great advice for some concerns that have been on my heart. The message blessed me in several ways and lifted my spirits for the remainder of the day.

The business of the week took over and I forgot about the message from my friend. Then, this weekend I was given the rare opportunity to attend mass alone. I will be assisting with a retreat this week and was invited to attend an evening mass at the college for the kick-off of retreat week.

With 3 children aged 3 and under, it’s been a while since I’ve actually heard the majority of a mass that wasn’t on EWTN. The sights of mass are usually set to the soundtrack of screaming and crying in my ear as I pray for God’s mercy just to get through without a complete family meltdown.

As I sat last night in the dark, candle-lit mass, I gave the silence room in my heart and prayed as I haven’t in a while.

And then I mentally checked “mass” and “prayer” off my to-do list for the evening and re-organized the list in my head for when I returned home:

If I stop at the store for milk and the paper on my way home I should get there by 9:30pm. The kids would hopefully all be sleeping. If I eat dinner and find the pieces for tomorrow’s trick-or-treat costumes I’ll be able to write the article that is due tomorrow, send it off to the editor and then write my blog posts. If I can just pay the few bills that are due I can put the rest off until the end of the week when I have time to do the finances. I can send a few e-mails to those who are waiting on me and just tell them I’ll get back to them this week. If I do that and the baby doesn’t wake up, I should be able to get to sleep by 3am. If Joseph can feed the baby before he goes to work, I should be able to sleep until 7:30am when Anna will wake up…

Just as I was calculating how many hours of sleep I would get I looked up and noticed the lector was reading the second reading. I was disappointed my mind had wondered off the one time I actually get the opportunity to listen to and fully participate in the mass. I then remembered the e-mail from my friend and began to ask myself some over-due questions.

Why is an e-mail from a friend worthy of re-arranging so that I may give it my undivided attention but when it comes to God’s words, His letters to me, I can’t focus? Where is my excitement in the Lord? Do I open the gospel with more anticipation than I do an e-mail?

“I wish” was the only answer I had.

I spent the rest of the mass praying on how to make my wishes a reality and could only conclude that if there is no room on the to-do list for the Lord, it’s time to reflect on priorities and what actually needs to be done.

If we really believe in the real presence of the Eucharist shouldn’t we be lined up around the block with excitement and anticipation?

Do you have excitement in the Lord?

Copyright 2011 Holly Rutchik 

Although fall is by far my favorite season, a tiny bit of my autumn joy has been stolen since I got married and had kids. My fall to-do list has multiplied since becoming a mom. “Check out new fall TV line-ups” has now been replaced with less “fun” chores.

These tasks are dreaded all year by most moms I know. They include:

The “whose family are we going to for what holiday so everyone we’re related to can be happy and we can be miserable” traditional seasonal fight with your husband: 

To be fair, we’ve got the cutest daughters in the world. Unfortunately, they are the only grandchildren in both mine and my husband’s family. So, we’re in high demand. And, of course, by ‘we’ I clearly mean the children. It’s very common for my husband and I to stay up all night packing everything we own so we can crisscross the state through a snow storm in the middle of the night with screaming children. We do this only to arrive at our destination and have our children snatched from our hands and swooned over while we collapse onto the couch without so much as a hello. Once we’re acknowledged it is with a well-meaning “You look awful. You really need to take better care of yourselves. You should get more rest.”

All this is done, of course, so that we can spend the night (if five hours counts as a night), wake up to share a meal with said family and then pack it all up, stuff it back into the mini-van and head out to a dinner hosted by the other side of the family—four hours away.

I have a friend who, in negotiations with her husband, traded every single major holiday of the year just so that Christmas could be spent in her hometown and she and her husband would never have to have this fight again. She should take that poker face to Vegas. I would’ve folded.

In order to please everyone and ensure you’ll still be married by Christmas, negotiations really need to start in the fall. Recently, our discussions on the matter took an interesting turn as we found we were each advocating for the other’s family to ‘get us.”

Shopping:

If there is ever a test of faith, it’s preparing for Christ’s birth in your heart while trying to find a parking spot at the mall. This is done to the soundtrack of car horns honking and people swearing at each other. Once in the mall, you can’t make a purchase without giving out your e-mail, phone number and zip code to the sales person, so you can be harassed and reminded of this experience all year long with ill-timed phone calls.

And there’s always those super uplifting human interest stories about humanity at its finest on TV. The one where people are willing to stampede each other for a $40 toy. Let’s not forget our favorite holiday dance: stretching that family budget to include buying gifts for people because they bought one for you/your kid last year and you were mortified they were not on your list and you were empty-handed.

The Christmas Card Picture:

Please tell me I’m not the only mother who turns into an insane beast of a woman when it comes time to take the photo for the family Christmas card. If I had to pick the worst four hours of my year, it would be taking the Christmas card picture. And, yes, it does take four hours. It is also the hardest workout I do all year, and for what? To capture the fact that my kids refuse to smile for a picture, someone is shoving their finger up their nose, the baby is crying and my make-up is dripping down my face with beads of sweat?

Between takes I scream, “Everyone shut their mouths, stop crying and smile or I’m canceling Christmas!” All of this just so we look like a big happy family in the photo card that has “Christmas blessings” scrolled across it. Last year, I attempted running this marathon while pregnant, and the whole thing actually put me into contractions. We’d already received cards form more successful friends who got their cards out the first week of December. Card after card made me wonder if all of our friends’ children had become catalog models or the face of dental offices.

If you look closely at our card from last year you can see me digging my fingernails into my husband’s leg because we were going on photo shoot hour three, and I was realizing that our photo wasn’t going to have the same fate as every other family we’d ever met. I was going off the edge. Nothing says “Merry Christmas” like a nervous breakdown over a photo card.

Enjoy the Season

This year I’m putting this on my list. Amid all of the stresses the holiday season brings to motherhood, our Church gifts us with the season of Advent. When everything around us defines Christmas by slapping a manufacturer’s label and price tag on it, our liturgical year builds in time for us to prepare our hearts for the real gift of Christmas, Jesus.  We’re asked to quite our hearts and our mouths and prayerfully reflect on what this gift means to us.

We’ve decided that this year, no one is going to “get us” for Christmas Eve. You don’t have to travel to meet Baby Jesus. We’ll celebrate in our home and invite others to join us here. They can drive.

We’re not above bribes. We’ll use the kids to lure our families to our side of the state. We won’t tell them they’ll be sleeping on pink and purple twin sized beds in little girl rooms. They’ll also have to get up in the middle of the night to go out in the cold and create reindeer tracks in the snow to enhance the Christmas morning experience for our daughters.

Our daughters will receive three gifts from us. Because if it’s good enough for the baby Jesus, it’s good enough for us.

As for the Christmas card, maybe if I attempt to do a funny ‘out takes” type card we’ll finally get that Norman Rockwell family Christmas photo. It is baby Jesus’ birthday. If our Blessed Mother can ride a camel across her country while nine months pregnant, I think I can pack my kids into a mini-van and drive across the state to see family over the holiday season. I believe in Christmas miracles.

Now Thanksgiving, that’s another story. We’re still trying to work that one out……

Copyright 2011 Holly Rutchik

Our baby’s baptism brought with it the culmination of several manageable, but timely, stresses in our lives. Since Easter we’ve had a baby, moved to another city, joined a new parish and my husband wrote and defended his graduate thesis, received his master’s degree and started a new job. Also in that time we did some genetic testing on our newest family member and learned she shares the same genetic condition as her daddy.

Although thriving, it is necessary for our little “Laney Bug” to have some testing this week at the Children’s Hospital involving putting her under. For us, this meant she must be baptized before her testing and the clock began ticking on getting a baptism on the books.

We were met with some opposition and questions about why she had to receive the sacrament before her tests.

At first, I was extremely bothered.  In fact we were outright angry someone dare question our wishes for our child. We are the parents of this beautiful child and thus all spiritual intentions for her are our responsibility, which we accept with joy.

Ironically, that’s a big part of baptizing an infant – renewing our own baptismal promises and committing to our community, and our Lord, that we will do our very best for our child to carry the light of Christ in her heart and be a faithful member of the body of Christ. It’s why I cry like a baby whenever I witness a baptism.

I expressed these views and was asked to just admit that this was an “emotional issue” for my husband and I, not a sacramental issue. In the end, it boiled down to me being asked this question:

“Do you, in your heart of hearts, really believe that your beautiful, innocent baby girl would not be welcomed into God’s kingdom if she were not yet baptized upon her death?”

I skirted past the question and we gave our reasoning for our intentions. We shared Church teachings and decided to disregard the opinions of others and set up the baptism. However, just because something is right doesn’t make it easy.

We struggled with the disappointment in how our third daughter would not have the same baptism experience as our first two. There was no party. In fact, there was no family. We were given an 8am mass baptism a week in advance and both of our families live over 3 hours away. We decided not to invite anyone or throw together a party. The whole thing had already been too stressful.

Amid this disappointment it was difficult to look forward to our daughter’s baptism this week. That question I had been asked was haunting me. It had struck a chord deep in my heart.

The truth is, I don’t really know what I believe would happen to my daughter were she to die before she were baptized. I know what my Church teaches me, but I also know I am a mother and my love for my daughters goes to ends of the earth. Doesn’t God’s fatherly love for us goes even further?

One may be baptized by blood, water or even intent is some cases. And, as long as someone is baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, they’ve been claimed for Christ.

I however, feel as if I’ve just been baptized by fire. I’ve been baptized into a renewal of my own faith and baptismal vows. My mama bear instinct kicked in. In protecting my young I was forced to question my Father. Would He protect me as a mother and offer me comfort by welcoming my child?

Through much prayer and discussion with my husband I came to this:

I don’t know what would happen to my daughter should she die before she was baptized. Just as I don’t know what happens to anyone who does not live their earthly life as a member of the body of Christ.

But, I DO KNOW what WILL happen to her if she is baptized into the faith. Our daughter will be re-claimed for Christ and welcomed into Christ’s kingdom.

Because, even when she’s not with me, I need to know where she is. I am a mother.

Copyright 2011 Holly Rutchik

“I think you can do it, babe,” he said. “You don’t have to know everything right away.”

“I don’t even know my name right now,” I said.

I had just returned from the 2^nd of a 5-day extensive course in Natural Family Planning. This “NFP boot camp” (as I have come to call it) is designed as the first step in being certified to teach NFP to other women and couples. It consists of 5 days of training, 3 of which are 9am-5pm marathon sessions of anatomy, physiology, cervical mucus and alarming statistics about contraceptives and how they are killing the next generation, giving us cancer and stealing our dignity as women.

I agree wholeheartedly with everything being taught. NFP has been a blessing to our marriage and I believe women deserve to know their bodies where designed perfectly by God. Women don’t need to poison their bodies with drugs for them to work.

But, my brain is mush.

I consider myself to be a fairly intelligent person. I figured out a way to get a master’s degree and I do amazing things with a $300 monthly food budget for a family of 5.

But, science and math? Let’s just say if anyone’s life depends on my ability to learn anything scientific or mathematical – then we best all be saying our final prayers.

I’m just not a science person. When it comes to grasping literal things like number and “black and white” concepts, all I see are spots.

I know myself, and I knew I couldn’t do it.

My husband really believes in me. So off I went to NFP boot camp.

The class has been a wonderful blessing. I’m so thankful for the courageous work of our instructors and the confidence my husband has in me.

I’m enjoying learning about how to empower women, marriages and families with the truth. I’m also on information over-load. The “nuts and bolts” in life are hard for me. I’m flighty, and I’m worried. After all the hours of class and reading there is a TEST.

“I have to get 100% on this test,” I shared with my husband. “I’m pretty sure I threw a party in college when I passed chemistry with a 70%.”

“Well, I’ll just have to help you study this week. I can quiz you,” my husband said. “I’m great at science.”

“I don’t think you understand,” I said. “That means that when it comes to science I have to be a whole 30% better than my very best.”

“We’ll gettcha there, babe,” he said. “I promise. We can do it.”

All week I’ve been wondering why I feel called to be doing something I know I can’t do. It was in this conversation with my husband I found my answer.

I do know myself. I know I can’t do this by myself.

But, I can do almost anything with my husband and I can do ANYTHING with my husband and God.

This feeling is what I want for all couples. I believe I’m called to work with women and with couples in achieving this type of teamwork in their lives. NFP and faith are the best team-building tools a marriage has.

I know I am limited, but I forgot I’m part of a great three-fold team.

I’ve got my husband and God and together we can pass any test, especially when the answers are from God.

(But since I’ll be the member of the team actually taking the test, I may need a few tries.)

Copyright 2011 Holly Rutchik

Mr. Rodger’s loving singing voice and being raised in a small town went hand-in-hand in teaching me how wonderful a local community can be.

In the five years since my husband and I said “yes” to the Lord and began this family we’ve been apartment dwellers. We don’t like to maintain, or pay, for more than we need and the lifestyle suited us just fine – until the babies came.

Having children is an apartment these days makes you public enemy number one. Children are to be seen and not heard, or so our culture promotes.

We’ve had upstairs neighbors who play NASCAR races on repeat in surround sound, neighbors who push their cats in strollers onto our patio, neighbors who walk in circles around the stop-light at 3am and neighbors with obsessively loud extra-curricular activities, shall we shay.

Our first two babies were “lulled” to sleep by unintelligible heavy metal music that my husband and I swore was a playlist created by the devil himself.

It wasn’t until an upstairs neighbor lost his mind and went on a stomping, screaming, swearing rampage and threatened the life of our colicky baby that enough was enough.

“Neighbor” became a swear word in our home.

The apartment living with babies experience made me want to pack up my family, make a pit stop at a mega bulk foods store and disappear into the country. We could live in a cave where we could parent as we wish without neighborly interference. I’d never have to speak to a “friendly” neighbor again. Too bad that if this family had to “live off the land” such as this lifestyle calls for, we’d parish. I have a black thumb, after all.

This spring we had our third daughter in as many years. At the time we were living in a two bedroom, 800 square foot condo type apartment. We brought our buddle of joy home, took one look around and decided it was time for this family to upgrade.

Not being ready or having the time to purchase a home made us leery of what we could find to accommodate our always growing family (in number and decibel level).

We landed in a beautiful, two story duplex. The home is on the end of a quiet cul-de-sac and the proximity to the highway is perfect for my husband’s commute. With only 1 shared wall and a garage between us, we thought we’d be safe from neighbor issues. We packed the moving truck and prayed for good neighbors.

The Lord provided, tenfold. We now call a beautiful Greek Orthodox family neighbor.

They are gracious to our girls, who often wander into their yard and may or may not swipe things off their patio.

Last week I caught the mother outside to share with her that one of our daughters had come down with the chicken pox. With three boys in their home I thought they should know.

A few days later I found her teenage boy mowing our neglected lawn. Sadly, I was confused by the kind, neighborly gesture.

I went over to speak with his mother, who was on her patio.

“What’s he doing,” I asked.

“Teenage boy help,” she said in broken English.

“Well thank you so much,” I responded. “I’ll have my husband stop over and pay him when he gets home from work.”

“No,” she said. “To help good for a teenage boy.”

I was awe-struck. What an amazing mother, to instill service and generosity into her sons and teach them to share of themselves because it is good, not because they expect something in return.

The next afternoon found me in the kitchen with my girls. With the baby in the Bumbo and the toddlers’ dirty feet crossed-legged on my counter we baked cookies for our new neighbors and talked about the importance of gratitude.

We walked over to our neighbor’s shoeless and as is, with mama in sweat pants wearing a baby and a 2-year-old dressed solely in a diaper.

A 3-year-old little girl with curls in her face handed the young boy and his mother a batch of cookies that may have been made with licked fingers.

“You didn’t have to do that,” they said.

“Yes we did,” I said. “Recognizing generosity and being appreciative is good for little girls.”

She smiled, thanked me and said we were welcome in her home any time.

This beautiful new neighbor was a witness of mothering with faith. Although she speaks two languages, her witness came without words. Instead, I identified their family as faithful by the crucifixes hidden under their collars and the way they define “neighbor” in their family’s actions.

A neighbor is not simply someone living in close proximity. It’s someone who walks not only next to us, but with us. And hopefully, we’ll help each other on our journeys to the same final destination.

Share with Me: Are you blessed with neighbors? How are you a neighbor in this world?

Copyright 2011 Holly Rutchik

Editor’s Note: Today, we welcome new contributor Holly Rutchik to the CatholicMom.com family of writers. Holly’s blog at http://fallingupwardholly.blogspot.com/ is full of her wonderful brand of inspirational writing and I’m thrilled that she’ll be joining us here regularly to share her words and her family with us. Welcome Holly! LMH

No Extraordinary Anniversary

This past weekend marked our fifth wedding anniversary.

Five years ago we married, and then canceled our honeymoon to Rome. Instead, our “honeymoon” was spent in the hospital. My husband had his first heart surgery a week into our marriage.

I wasn’t too fazed by the canceled honeymoon. There were bigger issues at hand, clearly. Plus, we’re dreamers. It’s how the Holy Spirit drew us together to begin with.

So, as young love goes, naive promises were made as we held hands in an ICU and glanced into our future to get through our rough present.

On our fifth anniversary there’d be a vacation, a ring upgrade, a new dress. Maybe even a little one to shuffle off to grandma and grandpa’s house before heading off to somewhere luxurious.

And here we are. Five years, a job loss, four moves, another heart surgery, three kids, a miscarriage, a graduate degree, a broken leg and two broken mini-vans later.

You may be surprised, but I’m not writing this from an island resort.

I woke up this morning to find two toddlers had crawled into our bed, and my husband had crawled out. He had stayed up late working, gotten up in the middle of the night with the baby, and was zonked out on the couch.

That’s romance, friends.

There’s defiantly not a vacation anywhere in our near future and I’m fairly certain my wedding ring is chipped. We’ll have to put that on the list of things to look into.

The real life version of our ocean-view five year anniversary was an afternoon in the backyard. The kids were in swimsuits and daddy was playing with the settings on the hose sprayer. Our daughters shrieked in delight and scurried back and forth between daddy and the fence. Chubby toddler toes on wet grass is close to perfection – until it’s time to come in the house.

I watched this weekend from the lawn chair as I fed the baby. I certainly wasn’t wearing a new dress. The shorts and tank top I had on were on their third day of wear, and covered in baby-spit up.

Thoughts of vacations were pushed from my mind as I returned to reality and added “make sure rug is out before letting the girls back inside” to my mental “to –do” list. I returned to my daydream and began fanaticizing about purchasing a washer and dryer. We’ll have to put that on the list of things to look into.

Anniversary gifts haven’t been exchanged yet – mostly because the checkbook hasn’t been balanced for the month and we don’t like to make extra purchases until we’ve got the month figured out. We’ll have to add the banking and budget to the list of things to do before Monday.

Once the little ones were hosed off, we headed in-doors to make heart cupcakes. Fingers were dipped, an egg shell was dug out of the garbage and licked and pink sprinkles tumbled across my newly-cleaned kitchen floors. The big girls decorated cupcakes and sang “happy birthday” to mama and daddy’s marriage.

The weekend was nothing extraordinary.

There are big decisions being made over here this weekend. There are career opportunities to be weighed, new schedules to be sorted out.

At first, the dreamer in me was slightly disappointed. But then I followed the dripping sound coming from the bathroom to find three pint sized ruffled swimsuits hanging from the showerhead to dry.

I recalled my dream of married life and motherhood is much older than my dream of a fancy five year anniversary trip.

I adjusted the bathmat to catch the wet droplets of a simple, joy-filled afternoon and returned to the sun-kissed cheeks of my “Irish twins” who were sitting cross-legged on my kitchen counter.

They both wore frosting-covered grins because to them, playing in the backyard with mama and daddy and eating cupcakes in the same day is living in a fantasy.

We canceled the babysitter we had lined up for an anniversary dinner out. We got news of a fire we’ll have to put out and my husband has too much work to do. An evening out this particular weekend would have led to no sleep for him and too much stress on the both of us this week. It was hard to do, and not ideal. There is far too much “working” around here. Something we’ll have to look into in the next five years.

I dreamt of going on a cruise for our ten-year as my husband and I spent the evening talking about a big problem that we’ll have to face this week.

I remind myself the only cruise I’d be going on in the near future is bound to have Mickey Mouse captioning the ship.

I guess we’ll bring that dream back to reality during the romantic budget meeting we’ll have tonight.

Everyone is peacefully sleeping now as I reflect on the anniversary weekend. My husband will get up early to work and the baby will wake to take her medicine soon. I’ll have to add refilling her prescriptions to the list of things to look into this week.

For the first time today the only sound in my home is the ticking of the clock. It reminds me although I’m slightly disappointed that time, finances and a full plate didn’t allow for the anniversary celebration I had planned, I’ll never wish these hard days away. In fact, I desperately grasp every stress-filled minute for fear they’re too quickly slipping away.

Maybe by our ten year anniversary we’ll be vacationing. Just because we didn’t get there in these five years doesn’t mean we won’t in the next. We’re dreamers after all.

Happy five-year anniversary, Joseph.

You are (in jest) “the love and demise of my life.” You truly do sanctify me.

“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” –Robert Brault

Copyright 2011 Holly Rutchik