1. I have the worst memory. My kids are saying some really hilarious things and I need to write them down somewhere so I can share them with them when they are old and embarrass them in front of their significant others. Also, I have a bunch of family that lives far away who would love to be around more. This is the next best thing.
2. Being home all day with the three kids under five means I can go several hours without speaking to another adult. Typically, I have been okay with this, because I'm that introverted. BUT...When you realize the most conversation you've had all day is whether or not Minions and giants live on the moon, and you haven't been able to get out of the house for a week because your kids broke out in some weird rash...it is just not healthy anymore guys. In times like these, it is okay to turn to the internet to make friends.
After I got pregnant with our first baby (which was a surprise baby by the way, I'm talking super-dooper surprise baby), I had this re-conversion experience that brought me back to my childhood faith of Catholicism. I kind of took the long way. (There are so many of us out there who did!) As it turns out, the activities I was most consummed with during this time in my life were not recommended during pregnancy by the American Academy of Pediatrics, and most of the people I was spending time with were just. not. able to relate. when I stopped our common activities to ask big questions like, "maybe there is a reason this baby is here, oh man, what should I do? How should this child be raised?" While my older friends are still all very awesome individuals, at that time, I needed some mom friends to help me look through life through this new and unexpected perspective of motherhood. I grew strong in my relationship with my own mother at this time, and for the first time, started to have a devotion to the Blessed Mother. I didn't know it at the time, but I started this blog (and started reading others) as a way to open up that window to finding mom fellowship at a time when I really, really needed it (and was too socially awkward and caught of guard by my new role to pursue it in my real life.) In a world where our sense of community is shrinking, who says we can't make the best of the internet, despite all the problems it's created, and have some Catholic mom fellowship over blogs and Instagram while the kids watch Netflix in their pajamas? I know it's not a novel idea; you guys have been around for awhile but I'm ready to take the plunge and get bloggin' once more.
One thing I've grown to appreciate in the four years and two babies since I've blogged here, is that when you're blogging, your stories cannot be interrupted as they are in real life or on the phone, by little people who are pulling each others shirts and screaming (or, pulling on my shirt and screaming, like my weaning thirteen month old while I type).
PS - I myself super blessed to have an amazing mother's fellowship group at our home parish. People whom I never met cooked meals for me after our third baby was born and we had just moved here and knew no one - that kind of amazing! As someone who is always the awkward wallflower at groups like this, I was surprised that this is a thing I didn't just need, but enjoyed. (Back when we were looking to move out of NE Baltimore City and I really felt myself needing Catholic mom friends, I said the Mary of Knots novena, asking God to help me be receptive to people in my life who can be faith-sharing friends!) Since Natural Family Planning is the teaching of the Catholic Church, and if you're a Catholic woman who is also new to NFP, or is also super fertile and similarly terrible at it like I am, you're pretty much guarenteed to find yourself also going crazy from having back to back to back children, these kind of groups should be a thing everywhere, at every parish in every country. But sometimes there are no groups at any parish. That's where the internet (and books!) can help. And because this is messy and this is difficult and instead of competing and comparing, we need to lift one another up, even if it just means listen to one another complain on our mommy blogs ;) while the kids watch Netflix in their pajamas (this is a theme here).
3. Doing something on computer will make me feel sleek, professional, and generally important/One thing I've grown to appreciate in the four years and two babies since I've blogged here, is that when you're blogging, your stories cannot be interrupted as they are in real life or on the phone, by little people who are pulling each others shirts and screaming (or, pulling on my shirt and screaming, like my weaning thirteen month old while I type).
PS - I myself super blessed to have an amazing mother's fellowship group at our home parish. People whom I never met cooked meals for me after our third baby was born and we had just moved here and knew no one - that kind of amazing! As someone who is always the awkward wallflower at groups like this, I was surprised that this is a thing I didn't just need, but enjoyed. (Back when we were looking to move out of NE Baltimore City and I really felt myself needing Catholic mom friends, I said the Mary of Knots novena, asking God to help me be receptive to people in my life who can be faith-sharing friends!) Since Natural Family Planning is the teaching of the Catholic Church, and if you're a Catholic woman who is also new to NFP, or is also super fertile and similarly terrible at it like I am, you're pretty much guarenteed to find yourself also going crazy from having back to back to back children, these kind of groups should be a thing everywhere, at every parish in every country. But sometimes there are no groups at any parish. That's where the internet (and books!) can help. And because this is messy and this is difficult and instead of competing and comparing, we need to lift one another up, even if it just means listen to one another complain on our mommy blogs ;) while the kids watch Netflix in their pajamas (this is a theme here).
I have been completely not working for a year. Before that, I was working part-time for an environmental non-profit's internet presence, and even teaching high schoolers rhetoric at a classical homeschool academy where my oldest attended preschool. I had a reason to check my email a few times a week. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time "off" from not the workplace, but right now, I have my cup of coffee, my Pandora going at my dining room table, and I have no one to listen to but the sound of my own voice, typing. It feels like work, but it isn't because....
4. Writing is my passion.
What feels like a long time ago, before I had a chaotic cloud of small children following me around everywhere, I would be somewhere, with other people my age, and someone would ask me what my passion was, and I would always respond, unequivocally, "writing." That was back when people used to have conversations about what their passions were. (Did other people spend approximately all of their young adulthood deliberating this topic? I mean, I did attend a liberal arts college where we spent freshman year doing trust falls and searching for activities that put us in "flo" and joined the AmeriCorps volunteer corps afterwards where we talked how to change the world and helped to craft personal mission statements....) All of that disappeared, and with three kids in five years, three moves, and just adulting in general, I think I'm not the only one who has put something I'm passionate about up on the shelf, to get to it later, when the bills are all paid, dishes done, laundry, folded, and my kids are sleeping through the night and in school. It took a great book (it's always books for me) to knock me over the head and say, just do what you love. One Beautiful Dream by Jennifer Fulwiler, Catholic mom blog mastermind. She is also the original founder of 7 quick takes, which I used to do on this blog. (I tried to make this into 7 short reasons why I'm blogging, but instead I'm making it four long reasons because I guess I don't have that many reasons, just a few good reasons....) I'm sures she's inspired a hundred or more mom blogs, giving so many people courage to follow their passion and use their voices. Buy her book now.
So here I am, back in "flo", writing because it is one of the things I LOVE, and I've learned to simplify my life and only do the things I love with the few hours of free time I make for myself each day. These are the things that give me the energy to get through the rest of the day. These things do not include "crafting, cooking, or working", which I believe are in the subtitle of this blog since I made it four years ago? Whaaa? I'm not sure who I was trying to impress, but these activities are not energy-giving to me. Every craft I've ever done looks like a preschooler did it, and the only reason I typically take anything on is because I pridefully say "I can make that myself for less money." I've always been a bit of a cheap-o :) but whenever I'm done, I wish I just paid for the thing at homegoods or Target instead of trying to recreate it with all the random art supplies in our basement. Unless I'm painting (I still LOVE painting) or refinishing a piece of furniture, I am usually not enjoying myself while crafting, but just getting more and more frustrated that I cannot make it look like whatever I saw on Pinterest. Cooking is something I do because I believe it is necessary to provide a nutrient-rich diet to young kids, however, I put it on my CHORE list not on my THINGS TO DO DURING NAPTIME or TV TIME list. Working in the traditional sense was also never something I enjoyed (said almost every person ever) but don't get me wrong, I'm still working. Don't believe me? Subscribe today.
So, since I don't really want this blog to be about things that make me want to pull my hair out when I try to do them, I guess it's time for some... rebranding?
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Thanks for reading! It's great to hear your thoughts. Peace!