Meditation on marriage part #3 - Love is a choice.

Before I married Michael, I had a half a dozen friends or so really make a point of telling me that marriage was work, that is was not always happy feelings, that sometimes it would be hard, but that part of marriage was making the effort to work through that time, etc. I thought nothing of it at the time. I feel like that was something that I knew. I mean, who here has NOT heard the phrase, "don't go to bed angry."


It seems like the first three years of our marriage contained a lot of arguments, discussions, debates...whatever you want to call them. (I'm pretty sure that most of them were about the cat, but my memory may be fuzzy.) I remember that no matter how upset we got, I was only emotionally drained, but never fearful for our marriage. I always knew that we would be married the next day. Michael, I think, had a initial reaction to flee. I'm not sure if he had to just leave the room, or if he really thought he was walking away from me. I think he just knew that he needed "out," whatever that meant.

One day, about  a  month before our little "retreat" (from meditation #2) he had returned from a conference with an epiphany and could not wait to share it with me. "Love is a CHOICE!" he said excitedly. He had listened to a bunch of homilies on CD on the way home from his trip and one in particular really stuck out with this message. "Love is a CHOICE. Sometimes I do not FEEL like loving you, but I can CHOOSE to show love!"
   To which I responded, "Yes." amazed that he had never thought of this before. I had to ask, "didn't people give you thousands of warnings that marriage was not always lovey-dovey cuddly warm feelings followed by random advise on how to stick through the rough time?"
    "No," he replied.
    "No one? I had a bunch of people tell me this! Maybe they knew women fall into the trap of following their emotions more than the men... maybe they knew who I married and could predict some rough patches... but I had LOTS of people tell me that."
   "Nobody"

That day, the urge to "flee" left Michael. If in conflict, he will look at me and say, "I still love you." I went back and listened to all the homilies that he listened to. I am not sure where  he pulled that message out of the CD, but it was clearly what God had laid on his heart. It has certainly made a difference in our lives.

Love is a choice. Even if you don't feel like loving someone, you can go outside of your feelings and CHOOSE to love them. 

Cecilia's Birthday

For some reason this year I am out of the birthday Spirit. Maybe I felt like it was a challenge to put on a great party for my kids last year. Maybe I don't want to set a precedence and ALWAYS have to throw an elaborate party. possibly my life is just busy and my heart is not it it. Whatever the reason, Cecilia's first birthday rolled around and I had no plans, no gift, no cake baked.

We had discussed going to our hometown to celebrate with family. This is great for 1st birthdays because all the family wants to see the cute babies and the babies are not at an age where they will miss it if they do not have friends their age at the party. However, we had gone out of town the past, I don't know... SIX weeks, and I was tired of packing! So, I resolved to have a nice, quaint family dinner and cupcakes with ice cream.

I went to the store and got the cake and ice cream. I stopped by and got a birthday balloon. (this was something that we never did growing up, but my kids love the balloons). I picked out something nice to fix for dinner and got the groceries. I even stopped by a department store to get a gift.
Toys? ... nope, we have too many.
Baby gear? ... nope, by the 4th girl, we have all we need.
Clothes? ... didn't I just take a bag full of clothes to Goodwill?
Books? ...
UGH! I can't do it! She is ONE. She can't even open the gift wrap. She won't remember. Here sisters will steal it before she gets a chance to use it. I go home with no gift.

Upon arriving home, my husband tells me that his family was driving up for dinner that evening. Great. They got to join in the cupcake eating and I did not have to pack. My husband has the realization that his dad's birthday is the same week and starts brainstorming ways to incorporate celebrating that into the evening. What better way to celebrate your dad's birthday, than with America's favorite pastime: Baseball. Cardinal's tickets were very inexpensive, so we got some bleacher seats for the 7:15 game.

My inlaw's arrived just before dinner, we had some fabulous chicken kabobs served with a warm spinach salad that we copied from Applebee's and I made Cecilia her favorite meal, crockpot mac and cheese. She ate 3 small servings plus her cupcake and ice cream cone. She was not able to blow out the candle, or even open her gift from grandma/pa but she at least gave that one a shot before her sisters helped her out. We checked the time and realized we had about 15 min to get the dishes in order, kids dressed, and be out the door for the game.

It was a rush, but we made it in time to be in our seat a few minutes before the opening pitch. This was actually Charity's first game. Cecilia had been to 2 before and the other girls each to one. We knew it would be a challenge when the game started near bedtime, but we had a 1:1 ration of adult:child, so we were up for it. WE took a few breaks to go play, got our picture with Fredbird, and they still got squirmy about 10:00, but it was a close game and the Cardinals came out ahead, so it was a good night! (and the kids did not argue about bedtime at 11 PM!)

So close, yet so far.

I kept holding off on printing Cecilia's birthday album because I figured as soon as I did, she would start walking and I would not be able to include it. Well, she still hasn't got brave enough to even try one step, but she is close. Cruising and standing from a sitting position. I snagged this little bit of footage in our living room. I should have dug up the video of Trinity doing the exact same thing in our living room in California. Enjoy!

Trinity's birthday

Trinity is at a really good age to have a really fun party. I of course can't bring myself to coordinate anything "princess." Michael suggested that we have a "dress" themed party since she is very particular about her fashion. He also contacted a magician that he knew from the youth group and arranged for him to come. So, that was easy enough. I make cake, cook some dinner, and we are done!

We found a frilly dress in Trinity's closet had never been worn before by Trinity, or any of our kids (although Emma might recognize it). I decided that would be great for the party and began plans to make a cake to match it. It was perfect because I had never tried to make a buttercream rose before and this dress had just one flower at the waistband. I got to learn a new skill and be excited about making the cake. The other great thing about it was that it was white, which meant that I did not have to mess with food coloring! I think the cake turned out great.

We figured out right away from our experience at Annie's party that if the magician was going to come at 7, then we were going to be crunched for time to get all the people there and have dinner served. Michael actually called him and told him to come closer to 7:30, which was a good call. The guests began to arrive. My mom even made the drive from our hometown. Each woman and girl wore a fancy dress. The men all dressed up too, one of them even wore a tuxedo! It was great! We served hamburgers on the grill for the adults and I made crockpot mac and cheese for the kids. The mac and cheese was a HIT! All the adults raved about it. I did not even expect them to touch it (although I had plenty).

Just as we were finishing up dinner, the magician came in - perfect timing! He did a great job. There were a couple of times where he could have gotten flustered, but he regrouped and made it work. It was about a 30 min show, which was just about when the kids started to squirm. Unfortunately, about 4 of the children that were invited to the party had to arrive late and missed it, but we could not have pushed it back any further.  We barely had enough time to eat cake, ice cream, and open gifts before it was already 9 PM and most people had to head out to put the kids to bed.

It was a great memory and I by chance got probably my favorite picture of Trinity blowing out the candles on her cake.

The Honda Elite Video

This video is classic! For those of you who are not familiar with it, here is the backstory:
For almost 3 years, we lived in California, which was GREAT, but it was a little over 2,000 miles from all of our family. We moved when our second daughter was less than 2 weeks old. Since we lived on a very limited income, we were only able to visit home about once a year. In the meantime, we taped little videos to send home to our parents so they could see how we were doing and kind of watch the grandkids grow up. It worked great in the beginning, but then the kids became little divas and I was not able to get any good footage of them.

Anyway, this is Michael's portion of the video from Dec. 2005. We had just purchased this scooter for him to drive to and from work. He had a 10 mile commute that took between 20-30 minutes depending on traffic. We had only one vehicle. The drive, surprisingly did not involve any highways, so the highest the speed limit ever reached was 50 mph. We calculated how much this scooter would save us in gas and decided it would pay for itself very quickly and give us the flexibility of being a 2 vehicle family. We made the purchase. (on craigslist, of course). It was so small that it did not require a motorcycle license and it got 80 mpg. It was ridiculously funny, but Michael had a blast driving it.It actually saved us a couple of times, like when our transmission went out in our car and the scooter became our primary vehicle for a couple of weeks.

This video is a prime example of Michael's self-deprecating humor. 

The second thing to mention about the video is Michael's weight.  People saw it and said, "Michelle lost her baby weight!" He saw this and immediately went on a diet and dropped 60 pounds!

A last minute trip to Virginia

So, we got word that Michael's sister and her husband, Natalie and Steve, would be returning from Africa THIS Fall instead of next year around this time. This is exciting news for our end. I am sure that it was stressful for them to make the decision to cut their tour short, but we were be more than happy to see them. Originally they said that their goal was to be home about the middle of Sept, sometime after their one year anniversary with with Peace Corps. Everyone was stoked! Steve's brother booked flights to come home and see them. Everyone who had plans to travel to Africa halted them. Bob and Stacy used that money to book a all-inclusive trip to Jamaica. We all make plans to drop everything as soon as we get their flight schedule and drop everything to go to Washington, D.C. for a couple of days after meeting them at the airport. Steve's parents even invited us to stay at their house.

   Then... they  called to say, "we're coming home sooner!" Great, we think. All they were waiting on was a cat carrier to arrive so they could bring their cat home with them. they estimated their date and we knew right away we might have some scheduling conflicts. They book their flight. Yep. Bob and Stacy will be in Jamaica, Nicole has a training at work, it is a MONTH before Steve's brother has already booked tickets. Michael and I thought about the 10 hour drive with 4 small kids, the gas money, the fact that our van just got out of the shop, the fact that no other Mette could go, and the uncertainity if our invitation to stay at the Bory's house was still open... then we decided that it just might be best to wait the 2 weeks when we could ALL be together in the midwest. The Bory's did extend the invitation, but we had already decided. We would wait patiently for Natalie and Steve to come to us.

   Days passed, until it was the day that we would have to leave to get to the airport to greet the couple. Michael got a little impatient. After all, his schedule was pretty clear for next couple of days. He proposed the idea of going anyway. I was 50/50 but he was convinced. He called Nicole and she got excited at the idea. She got brave enough to ask to be excused from her training and was successful. We packed and loaded in the car.

  Now, we had already declined the invitation to the Bory's and they had made plans to pick up the couple from the airport, get them settled in a nice condo, and give them a couple of days to get back into our timezone and used to indoor plumbing. I advised Michael to call and let them know that we were crashing the party. They were dumbfounded. First of all, they could not fathom driving that far with all the kids only to turn around and drive home. Secondly, they were just dumbfounded that we would make plans and then change them for no reason on no notice. They had to call us back. Upon the second call, they filled us in on what their plans had been and let us know that they had not prepared their house for guests or even planned on Natalie and Steve staying there, so they could not extend their offer on such short notice. I really think they thought if they threw up a stumbling block we'd abandon plan. NO WAY... they obviously did not know Michael James Mette.

We started the drive the second that Michael got off work and had Nicole meet us in our hometown so we would not lose anytime driving to her college. The girls slept like a rock. Cecilia did cry a bit, but overall, a great trip. About 5 AM we get a call from Steve's parents demanding that we come and stay with them at their house and that we were NOT to turn around and drive home after the airport. However, that would require another 90 min - 2 hour drive after the airport to get to Colonial Beach. Great! More time to visit, a shower, what more can you ask for? We only stopped for gas, except one 30 min stop at a McDonalds to get some food, change clothes, let the girls play, etc. It became obvious that we were going to be an hour late coming into the airport.

We chugged through, minimizing stops and ALMOST running out of gas in the mountains when the gas all went to the back of the tank. Literally, we only made it because we managed to poke along to the crest of the hill that had a 6% downhill grade for the next 2 miles where we could exit, only to have our van die on the off-ramp. Luckily it started again and we filled up.  We called to tell the Bory's that we were late and prayed that it took a long time to get the cat through customs. We arrived just as Natalie and Steve were loading their luggage into the Bory's vehicle.

We were able to stay a day and a half at the Bory's who were GREAT. Steve's sister was inspired to skip out of work and see her brother. She called her boyfriend and Steve's grandma who both came and joined the festivities.  We had to order Chinese food that first night, since there was not enough food in the house for 14 people (of course) but that was a great plan! Less cooking, more talking. The Bory's  loved our kids and served us wine and food. Their house was on the water, so we got to boat, kayak, and just plain visit. Everyone was sad to leave, but eventually we always have to go back to real life. The ride home was a bit rougher with the kids, but not as rushed, so we made it. Overall, a great memory!

Excerpts from Steve's Birthday video - May 2009

Annie's piano practice

This is older, but great.

The blessings of YOUTUBE

If you are a parent, you know that there are some things that you wish you could just skip past in the parenting process. You know, like... potty training! Alright, it might be kind of exciting, if not fun the FIRST time. But, as you know, I have FOUR kids. Things can kind of get overwhelming if you sit and think about what you have to do, which is precisely why I try to NEVER sit and think.

However, that does not stop the fact, that Annie had to learn how to ride a bike without training wheels, Charity WILL have to be potty trained, I must eventually trust my baby to crawl up and down our hardwood stairs, etc. Right now, I need to teach Annie to tie her shoes.

Yes, it is true, that they do make velcro shoes in her size. Yes, she does have a pair. In fact, she does NOT have a pair of tie shoes that fit her, BUT it is a skill that she needs to learn. Afterall, she is in school now and people will notice eventually, right?

I thought to myself, "There has got to be a better way!" Let me think... will grandma, teach her? Maybe, but that is a 100 mile drive. Can dad do it? possibly, but he is a full-time student AND a full-time employee AND is already in charge of teaching the kids to read. WAIT! I know, YOU TUBE! That is how I learned to decorate cakes. My cousins learned to hang a deer from youtube. SURELY they have a lesson on how to tie your shoe.


The first thing that looked interesting was a spongebob song about shoe tying. However, it did not go through the actual steps. I found a nice old grandma style lady who used 2 different colored shoelaces and went through the steps clearly and precisely in 1 minute and 48 seconds. Next, I got out a crayola marker and colored one end of the shoelace yellow. I sat down my 5 year old and said. "you are going to learn how to tie your shoe." Then I proceeded to press play and leave the room. I continued with various mommy tasks and returned 5-10 min later to find said 5 year old watching spongebob videos on youtube. She managed to click on the "related videos" to the spongebob show tying song and then to regular episodes. Life is so much harder now that she can read and navigate a computer!

So... we'll try again later.

The next day she comes in and tells me, "Mom! I tied a PERFECT shoe!" and shoes me her shoe with the one yellow lace. PERFECT!

Thank you youtube!

Closing our "homeschool" before it opens

It's official. We just enrolled Annie in "St. Louis Language Immersion School" So, August 17th she will start Kindergarten. We had completely decided to homeschool her and were debating curriculums when Michael came across a flyer for this school. It is new this year. It is a part of the St. Louis public school system, so it is free, but it is a Charter school. All of the classes are taught in SPANISH. The teachers only speak SPANISH. They teach Spanish grammar and do not even introduce English until 3rd grade.

We decided to test out this opportunity for a couple of reasons:
1 - It is a rare opportunity to have a FREE Immersion school. This is something that is only available to us because of the city that we live in. I think there are only 20 immersion schools in the country. Most of them have very high tuitions.
2 - It is something that Annie has expressed interest in. She has actively tried to learn Spanish words, asked for Spanish videos and started naming her animals words that she made up to have spanish sounding names like her doll is named  "Jasmino" (a variation of princess Jasmine) and her horse is named "ponito" (from the word pony). It is something that is not easy for us to offer her at home. We could teach Spanish vocab, but not offer the immersion learning style.
3 - She already knows almost all of the Kindergarten standards (she can read, count, write, etc.) so if it does not work out, I do not feel like her education is at risk.
4  - She is really outgoing and wants to GO to school with other kids.
5 - Michael was going to do the bulk of the homeschooling but has the potential to be gone a lot of this school year
6 - Many of the teachers are not from the US, so we feel like they will not push an agenda that we would normally fear from the St. Louis Public schools.

We visited the school tonight. Half of it is under construction still. It is all new and pretty. The teachers are all motivated and bending over backwards to make sure it is a success. There are some things that it will be lacking (like an outdoor play structure) because there is just not enough time between now and August, but they are working toward all of it. It is less than 4 miles from our house.

Anyway, we are very much going into this as a test.  There are several things that could cause us to re-consider homeschool. The #1 right now is the schedule. If Michael is gone most weekends and evenings and she never sees him, we would re-evaluate. It will be a process of working out schedules and routines for a while, but we are excited. I'm shopping for uniforms and school supplies now.

Here is the website. http://sllis.org/

Bag Lady

Charity has found this shopping cart given to us by Miss Emily F. She Absolutely has to have it everywhere she walks. She goes around and hoards toys in it. When she wants to go up or down stairs she stands at the top/bottom and cries and yells "Elp ME!" which of course, means "help me". If anyone touches it or any toys in it she screams. If it gets stuck and cannot roll past an item she gets upset and cries and yells "Duck", which means "stuck". We have to pry it out of her hands if we want to leave the house. This has been going on for about 2 days, now. 

 

I just kept watching her today and thinking how much she resembled a bag lady. If the other girls start playing, she goes over there and starts picking through their toys and adding them to her cart. I just found it really funny.

Evidently you need to practice sleeping in a cardboard box as well. Not just any cardboard box, but the one that has already been duct tape reinforced. 

I died laughing. 

You know what they say, a cardboard box is the best gift you can give your kids. This particular box is in a set of boxes that the girls use as doll beds. They line them with pillows and blankets and put the dolls to sleep. I had to give them their own set of boxes because they kept dumping out the boxes that were holding stuff in their closet to use those as beds.

ER Anyone???

Annie was watching a movie. She was sitting on the bar stool, with her feet on a chair, tipping the chair with her feet. I was upstairs taking care of Cecilia, Charity, and talking on the phone to Michael. I heard her crying and assumed they were fighting over which show to watch. Usually it would be Trinity crying in this instance, so I went downstairs to find that Annie had hurt her arm. She was tipping the chair with her feet. It fell back and knocked her over, which happened to be on the only 3X3 patch of hard wood floor that we have in our house. Right away I can see a bump and a bruise. I called Michael back to say that I thought we would need to have an x-ray. Michael of course said that I was over-reacting and that Annie was just pretending because she wanted a cast like Trinity had. However, Annie was "saying" she was fine because she was scared she was in trouble and hurt. Which she was, on both accounts. She gets in trouble daily for tipping chairs.

Charity had been sick the whole week. We thought is was teething, but the teeth came through and she had a fever and a bad cough all week. If you recall, Charity only has 2 moods. Happy and throwing a fit. This meant she has been throwing a fit for about a week straight. We made her take frequent naps! However, she had just woken up and Michael was in Effingham. She wanted me to hold her, climbed down, cried to be held, climbed down, repeat, repeat, drop to the ground and cry. I thought, "I am NOT taking THAT to the ER. I look at Annie's arm and it was swollen very large. She says she is fine, but was still weepy. I called 6 or 7 people and was unable to get anyone on a saturday afternoon, so I waited. Michael was due to be home in less than 3 hours. I knew from Trinity's experience that they would not give a cast right away, due to swelling. I wrapped a scarf around her as a sling and gave her some pain meds. Finally a friend called back and came over about 30 min before Michael came in.

We went to the ER, which was actually a nice break. Annie sat and colored, Cecilia was good. There were tons of babies 5 months - 2 years. I of course assume all of them have RSV and start to feel bad for Charity, who is at home sick. I also start to worry about Cecilia, who is sitting with me. I later saw the baby sitting next to us in the Xray and his mom had slipped on the ice while holding him, so he was NOT in for RSV at all... it was just my active imagination. Annie was a trooper. she never cried or complained. We were in and out in less than 3 hours. She had a non-displaced break, which they called the orthopedic specialist about. The way the doctor talked it seemed like it was very close to a full break and that I should not be surprised if they want to pin it on Tuesday - although the words that came out of his mouth were "you have this other kind of break and normally they do not require this" in a questioning tone. But call on Monday and tell them you have to be seen on Tuesday to be sure you get an early enough appointment.

It was as I suspected and the doctor's were very concerned about the type of fracture that she has. We had to have a 2nd x-ray, a cast, a 3rd x-ray after the cast, and go back in a week for another x-ray. They said right NOW everything is lined up fine, If it slips then they will have to pin it into place. If they catch it early after a slip, then it is much easier. However there are 3-4 types of fractures that give them trouble and this is one. The fracture looks s-shaped. Anyway they said it could be 6 weeks for this to heal properly. I'm glad it is not swimming season!

They come home and pick out some movies from the basement. The one they watch has a character pretend to have an injury, just so he can get a bandage. At the end of the movie, they figure out that he just wants a bandage and give him one. So... all morning yesterday Trinity was limping and crying. Michael told me that he thought she was really hurt and we should take her seriously. (He clearly does not have a good read on the girls - but Trinity does have a really pathetic sad face) Of course, we went to the Nature center with JR, Emma, and Celeste, where she was able to run, jump, and dance. This morning she had a limp for about 5 min again. That has been the adventure of the week.

Annie's birthday

We came from the Mette family Christmas late Saturday night. Sunday we tried to pull the house together and had the core team come after dinner. Monday was clean up from that, taking down Christmas decorations, grocery shopping, making horchata, baking Annie's cake, and printing out Annie's 5 year photobook. Monday as we go to bed, it is clear Annie has pink eye. Tuesday was Annie's birthday. I look online and of course it is highly contagious and requires antibiotics. I was worried we would have to cancel her party, nevermind the fact that we had been working on projects for it all day. I happened to have a tube of prescription cream left over from when Cecilia has a bacterial eye infection from a clogged tear duct. Immediately I wrestle Annie to the floor and apply the vaseline-like ointment to her eye. This requires re-application every three hours and then she should be not contagious in 24 hours... which was about her party time. We were expecting over 20-30 guests.

We had decided over a month ago that Annie would have a fiesta birthday party and ordered some decorations from oriental trading. I had felt guilty that Annie never got a nice party since her birthday is sandwiched between the Christmas and New Year. I had looked on-line at party idea and had decided on these:

- a pull-string pinata. Where strings are hung from the bottom and one is attached to a trap door so toddlers just pick a string instead of swinging a bat around.

- making horchata (mexican rice milk) and quesadillas, burritos, rice, and beans

- having everyone learn a new spanish phrase and see how frequently or how originally they can work it into conversation

- giving the adults a spanish vocab quiz

- learning the mexican hat dance

- making flowers out of tissue paper for a centerpiece or girls' hair.

- Michael also added a photo contest using our party mascots, juan and juanita, cardboard flaminco dancers

I had tried endlessly to convince Annie to request a fiesta themed cake. I scoured pictures on the internet. I showed her hat shaped cakes, cactus shaped cakes, cakes shaped like little mexican men, cakes with maracas on them, etc. However, when showing her those cakes, one of the pages had a cake in her favorite colors, pink and purple, with little disney princess dolls on top. She insisted that was the one that she wanted. It looked simple enough to make, so I just had to convince Michael that is was her birthday and the point was to give her something special that she would enjoy. I had baked the cake and put the initial layer of pink frosting. All I had to do that day was to make a little rolled fondant top like a table skirt and add the princesses to the top. I did not have the right ingredients for the fondant, so that took a trip to the store. Then it did not get to the right consistency, so it cracked and was overall hard to work with and frustrating.

Michael had to work most of the day and did not get off work until the time the party was supposed to start, so he offered to help for an hour or so. he helped hang the mexican banner decoration and then left. I filled the pinata and did the cake. By the time the cake was done I was pretty frustrated and tired.

As the babies are waking up from their nap, Annie came to inform me that she was trying to untangle the strings from the pinata, and that 3 of them had fallen off, but no candy fell out. She brings me downstairs to show me and repeats, "see here is where they were, but no candy fell out." At that point she looks down and sees 3 pieces of candy on the floor and changes her statement to, "oh... 3 pieces of candy fell out" I look and sure enough she had broken the once string that was linked to the trap door. I had to empty the pinata and tape the broken pieces and re-fill it. I just crossed my fingers that the packing tape would hold the candy in without making it impossible to break.

I had to wrestle Annie every three hours to apply eye cream. The girls were restless. I decided that the point of the party was to have fun and not to make me frustrated and yell at my kids, so it was not big deal if I did not get the games finished up - we could just visit, etc. It was a beautiful 50 degree day, so I let the girls play outside. At that point there was a little disagreement about whose turn it was to use our one working bicycle. We had actually bought Annie a new bike for her birthday, so since it was such a nice day we all went up to Michael's work to pick it up and give it to her before the party.

Then I had to clean the house up. It was still a near disaster from traveling back and forth from Effingham 2 times in the previous week. Bob, Stacy, and Nicole showed up at 5:00, which was just enough time to help me tidy up and finish the quesadillas, which I wanted to be hot by 6:00. I had not gotten the quiz or the spanish phrases printed out, but oh well. Michael came home from work and tried to help finalize plans. He recommends scrapping the vocab games, i say that is fine. I feed the baby and put make up on.

What I neglected to account for was the fact that, although this party fell between the holidays, it was a weekday party. That means everyone shows up late and has to leave early. So, about 7 PM we started the party.

Annie had recently watched a movie about a surprise birthday party. She had told me all week that when her guest arrive she would be playing in her room and when they were all there she would walk down and we would all yell "surprise!" Well, grandma and grandpa arriving early messed up the whole playing in her room thing. However, she remembered as soon as we were ready to serve dinner, so we sent her to her room and called her downstairs, where we were all waiting (in the same spots where she just saw us, of course) to tell "surprise!"

Then we ate dinner and explained the photo contest. We served cake and ice cream (At this point all the other girls and myself has crusty stuff forming in the corners of our eyes). We broke the pinata. It worked marvelously, broken by the last kid on the second-last string. By that time it was 8:30, which was after all the kids' bedtimes. Michael was pushing to judge the contest and open presents so people could head out. So, during present opening, some of the kids were getting changed into pajamas for their drive home. We judged the contest, where we were hoping to get rid of a coffee cup shaped planter that we had received as a gift (which we believe was already a re-gift), but alas I won the contest, so we got to keep the planter. We had nearly run out of time for the hat dance, but I had asked a friend to come teach it, so she taught it very quickly. All the kids were too inattentive by that time, so the circle consisted of Annie and 6 other adults. We learned just one verse and we were done. The party was over.

Overall it was a success. The cake turned out OK. The food was raved about. The kids all played together and had fun. The adults took silly photos with Juan and Juanita. Annie got some great gifts. After everyone left, we let Annie stay up until midnight playing with Trinity (aren't sisters great) and finally watching a movie. We all slept soundly and woke up the next day, new year's eve, with pink eye (with the exception of Michael).

meditation for marriage #2

I remember going to a youth 2000 retreat where the opening speaker (Fr. Avram) asked what the word "retreat" meant to us. The definition of "retreat" that came to mind was 3 days of sleeping on a cot and eating red pasta while hearing talks about God and re-focusing our lives as needed. Well, evidently I had been working in youth ministry for too long, because he went on to describe a "Braveheart" like military scene with one army charging forward and the other running, screaming, back to their bunker to re-group.

Another "defining" memory in my marriage was very much the "military" definition of retreat. You see, my husband is a planner and a dreamer. He likes to get EVERYONE's input on things. We were going through life. Life was beating us down from all angles. He was getting input. I was getting input. All the "helpful" input was creating more division between us. We were not focused together to conquer all the obstacles that life threw at us. We were not focused on God's will for us. Then, we heard the scream, "RETREAT!!!!"

This was not a "Oh, 'let's take a little 3-day mini-vacation and listen to God's word and re-focus our lives whenever it fits into our schedule" This was a STOP! LEAVE THIS BEHIND! GO RE-GROUP!

At the time it may have seemed like we had our priorities out of whack. It may have seemed as if we were running away form the world, and in a sense we were. It was not an easy choice to make. I quit my job. We had no money, but we left town with no destination. We knew we wanted to drive toward places that were spiritually healthy for us - and we did. We talked and prayed on the drive. I had my opinions and goals, He had his opinions and goals, but what we were lacking was the third party in out marriage. We found Him. We both conceded. We came home united and ready to conquer the world, together.

It was probably the MOST defining moment in our marriage (thus far).

If you retreat you may lose a battle, but not the war.

Meditation on marriage - for the young and in love (or those who remember the days) part #1

So, It's near Valentine's day. It's the year of our 10th anniversary. Many of my friends are getting married, having kids, and even a few are getting divorced. For some reason I am reflecting on defining moments in my marriage and thought I would share with the world.

Defining Moment #1 - We were meant to be together.

So... the summer after Michael and I got married we filled our house with a bunch of random roommates. One was a older lady (well... that is a relative term, as we were 20. She was in her 30s-40s, I think). She had 2 girls that were 9 and 11. She lived 80 miles away and commuted to my college 3 days a week during the regular school year. She signed up for summer school the month that her kids were supposed to spend with their dad. Since summer school was 4 consecutive days a week, she arrange to stay at our house 3 nights a week.

Well, she evidently was not too good with her calendar, because the month that she signed up for summer school was NOT the month her kids were at their dad's so we got 2 MORE roommates, putting the grand total up to 7 people and 1 cat in our 900 sq ft. house. It was cool with us, her daughters were cool.
Something struck me as interesting about their interactions. Every time she mentioned her ex-husband it was in a POSITIVE way. She would tell her girls that their dad loved them. She would talk to him on the phone in a polite way. She never said why they got divorced. She never sighed or rolled her eyes, even. All this was so foreign to every thing that I had experienced with people who I knew who were divorced. However, I know she was also engaged to be re-married - so it was not that she was hoping that they would get back together, either.

One day we were sitting on our front step. I don't even remember what we were talking about, but I said, "I don't know why you got divorced and maybe you don't want me to know because you never mention it..." And she said "I'll tell you. It's not a secret. I'll tell you"

deep breath. (and I remember this conversation almost word for word)

"It's a shame, Michelle. It's really a shame. We can go today and both sit in counseling and say, 'It is a shame, We were meant to be together.' I remember thinking,'If I could curl up inside of him, I would not be close enough'. We were totally and absolutely in love.
But...
we both made mistakes. He was an alcoholic. For 9 years I took care of everything. I did not know anything about alcoholism. I took care of the kids, I paid the bills, I gave him an allowance, that was basically beer money. If it was not enough he knew he could come and ask for more and I would give it to him... and I lived that way for 9 years. Then, I met (her new fiance) and I had an affair. And that is what happened."

(and this part is a little less vivid, but I get the main points)
"Since then he has sobered up, I have learned about alcoholism, we've been through counseling. But, he is remarried and I am engaged and we have moved on with our lives."

I also think I remember her saying that she will never love her new husband as much as she loved him. That your first love is so memorable and special that you just can't match that.

The whole conversation just struck me. There I am, a newlywed. Totally in love with Michael. The divorce rate is skyrocketing, and I want to say... it is just people who made a rash choice and did not know what they were getting into and they were not meant to be together and that is why they are divorced. But, I am sitting in front of someone who is telling me totally DIFFERENT.

No one would blame her for divorcing a guy who was an alcoholic for 9 years.
No one would blame him for divorcing a wife who cheated on him.

But they can sit in counseling and say "what a shame. we were meant to be together" There is something wrong.

And so I made a mental note: don't let this happen to me. Giant obstacles do NOT mean that we cannot make it through. Struggle does not mean that we were not meant to be together. Don't give up too soon. We were meant to be together.

While writing this, I found myself asking, "When was the defining moment is this situation?" and "Would I have recognized it if it were happening to me?" I think it's easy to say, "Don't let this happen to me!" and harder to recognize that it is and what you need to do to fix it. SOMETIMES you can point it out after the fact... sometimes it is all all a blur.