I let my kid pick up trash. Other people's trash. In public places. It's our own weird little apostolate. I didn't always, of course. I was a first time mom once, too, trailing after my kid at the park, saying, "No, no, honey. Don't touch that. That's yucky." But I've...
Starting Baby on Solid Foods for Moms Who Don’t Have Time For That Sort of Thing
With my first baby, I carefully followed the little table in the book they gave me in the hospital that tells you exactly which food to start with, and in which order to introduce other foods. I sat Jack in his highchair and watched as he tongued back out the little...
There’s Not a Rule Book for This Job
I'm going to let you in on a little secret. A secret known only to everyone who knows me in real life and all the people who like Catholic All Year on Facebook but no one else. Sometimes I put the Bumbo on the table. Okay, maybe it would be more shocking coming from...
#2: In Which Gus Receives his First Communion and We All Receive a Valid but Illicit Blessing From a “Bishop”
If you read Part 1, you'll know we arrived in Lourdes one day late. So, instead of the two days I had planned for, we had one full day in Lourdes in which to Do All the Things! And we did. Really, we did. We met up with my parents, who had already been in Lourdes...
Encouraging Independence in Children: How We Roll
My Day in the Life post inspired a lot of comments, and a lot of questions. So, I'm starting an occasional series called How We Roll to answer them. I would say that my children are very independent, compared with the general population of two to...
Little Kids and Death: How Taking My Kids to a Traditional Funeral Didn’t Freak Them Out
On Thursday, the husband's Aunt Maureen passed away after a battle with lung cancer. On Sunday afternoon we were all in Chicago at the wake. A real, no kidding, Chicago Irish wake. The whole family and close friends, kids included, spent the afternoon and...
How I Got My Family to Eat More Vegetables
Salad. Tastes good. Good for you. Huge pain in the neck to make. Even when it was just the husband and I eating dinner, I would mean to make us a salad, but end up running out of time or motivation and just steam some broccoli again. Now with a houseful of kids to...
How to Love Your Kids and Like Them Too
Discipline. It's a scary word that conjures up images of switches behind the shed and nuns with rulers in hand. But I'm here to tell you that it's the thing that makes me not only love my children, but genuinely enjoy being around them. We live in a Chicken Little...
Creating a Family Culture
When my eldest son was in preschool, I made the mistake of handing the buck to the Pope when it came to some of our parenting practices. When Jack would ask why he couldn't watch a particular show that his friends were watching, I'd say, "Well, we're Catholic and...
In Which My Groove is Temporarily Thrown Off
First things first, can you spare a moment to say a prayer for Bonnie's son and Micaela's friend? And now for the quick takes . . . --- 1 --- Heather sent me a link to an article that claims that the eldest children in big families are exploited by their...
Reasons I Don’t Like Babywearing, but Do It Anyway
Here's why I don't like babywearing: 1. I can't physically do everything I'd be able to if I had a baby who slept in a swing or bassinet: like sew, or exercise, or bathe, or unload the dishwasher, or not be touching someone. 2. It can get a little achy. 3. They...
The “It’s All YOUR Fault” Method of Divide and Conquer Parenting
I mentioned this technique in a post in which I used it on Miley Cyrus, Robin Thicke, and MTV, and I can't remember hearing much about any of them since, so I'm going to assume it was a big success and they've all decided to turn their lives around. In which case,...
Pushing Past the Nap Strike
It's pick on three-year-olds week here at Catholic All Year, which is odd since I don't even have a three-year-old right now. But I have had five three-year-olds previously, so I can say with some level of expertise, that those guys are generally up to something....
Why I Love the Terrible Twos
Guys? I need everyone to promise not to tell Grace about this post. She pretty much explicitly forbade its writing. But I wrote it anyway. INTJ and all that. Here's the thing: I really DO think twos are better than ones, and better than threes as well. I have written...
I Do Not Cook Two Dinners: how we avoid mealtime battles
Kaitlin from More Like Mary wrote me asking about how we deal with toddlers' picky eating habits. I fired off a quick email back to her before I remembered the super-frustrating food allergy issues her family is dealing with. Our family does not have any allergies or...
You’re Welcome: 7 Quick Takes XXX
I'm pretty sure you're going to want to thank me for these awesome links, so: --- 1 --- I wasn't surprised when my Open Letter to Breaking Bad and Flannery O'Connor inspired other posts, but now I'm going to go ahead and take credit for the existence of a whole new...
Scary Stories: Empowering Kids Since 1812
Well, since at least 1812. That's when the Grimm brothers set out to scare the dickens out of generations of children. But clearly these stories, and the concept that scary stuff is good for kids, existed well before they started gathering the stories up. What we...
Kids’ Sports and Activities: Enough is Enough
Here's another installment in my occasional series of answering Caitlin's questions! It's our goal to allow our kids, even though there are a lot of them, to have enough access to extra-curricular activities to experience the fun and exercise and enrichment and...
How to be the Boss of a One Year Old
I'm going to start this by saying that plenty of people do not discipline as early as I do. Which is fine. I am a firm believer in doing what works for your family. I also believe that the level of discipline in your home is up to you and can be changed at any time,...
Have a Baby They Said . . . It Will Sleep Like a Baby They Said
So, in the comments of Sunday's post about vacuuming, Sarah and Elizabeth and Sarah Marie asked for my two cents on getting babies to sleep. As you wish . . . "Sleep like a baby." Seriously? Who started that saying? Have they met babies? I don't know who Leo Burke...
That’s Mrs. Tierney to You, Squirt (here’s why)
When it comes to being addressed by children, I prefer "Mrs. Tierney" to "Kendra." I also prefer "Mrs. Tierney" to "Miss Kendra," on account of me having all these kids and preferring to give off more of a married vibe (although I do secretly like the Austen-ness of...
Touchy Subjects and Kids: how we talk about the stuff we’d rather not talk about
This is not going to be one of those posts where I tell you what to do, because so much of this is going to depend on your particular kids and their particular environment. But I know it's something that young moms struggle with, that I struggled with, that I continue...
An Introvert’s Guide to Stay at Home Mothering
Perhaps this will be surprising in light of all my posts about traveling the world and throwing parties big and small, but I am an introvert. Totally. (Or maybe you saw this, so you already knew.) I'm not shy and I do enjoy interacting with people, but I don't find it...
The One Secret of Championship Mothering
Just a couple of weeks ago, in my seventh quick take, I mentioned that I'm not a believer in that oft-spouted mantra: "Hey kids! You can be anything you want to be!" Well, I still believe that (or I still don't believe it, I guess), but I recently read something that...
It’s Summer 2013 and Everything on the Radio is the Worst: 7 Quick Takes XXIII
I feel like I need to preface this with a warning: A Rant is Coming. I'm not big on rants, as a rule. Reading them OR writing them. Because I really do mostly think even this fallen world is pretty wonderful. But this started as the first of my seven takes and was...
We DO In Fact Have Our Hands Full, Do We Not? (A Summer Re-run)
After last week's post about not judging other moms, I figured it might be good to re-run this post about how other moms really aren't judging us anyway! Back a few years when we lived in Chicago, and I only had three kids, something horrifying happened to me. ...
In Which I am Asked Not to Come to Mass . . . by a Priest
The husband knows an awesome priest who likes to say, "You should remember that when you pray for humility . . . God just might humiliate you." I think he said it in reference to having tripped up on the altar, which I would do every day and twice on Sundays, rather...
On Cross-Dressing Cartoon Characters: 7 Quick Takes XXI
--- 1 --- I was so sorry to read Dwija's sad news that they lost baby Nicholas at 21 weeks along. I have felt so identified with her struggles since I am also 21 weeks pregnant. It's been such a joy to witness how she dealt with the challenges of this pregnancy with...
So You Guys Are DONE, Right? How having the right friends changed my answer.
It's a question I have heard many times. Not as much anymore, though. I think people figure that with six kids already, I must be a lost cause. But I used to hear it a lot when I had three and four kids, and even when I had two (since I got my boy and my girl right...
To Moms of Only Little Kids: psst, the magic number is ten
Dear Mom With Two or Three or More Small Children, Your life is hard right now. I know, I've been there. You wanted these children, or maybe you didn't at first (oops) but you do now, and you love them like you never imagined you could love anything, but also they...