Monthly Archives: October 2011

Seven Quick Takes Friday (Vol. 12)

7.

I attended my first Pasadena MOPS meeting this past Tuesday. It’s weird going to a *new* group, but I think it going to be a great group of ladies. The group is HUGE… I’d say about 125 women over 2 days, plus there is a Teen MOPS and a MOMSNext group. Whew! The one thing that does bum me out is that… they don’t do crafts! I am sure that is from a cost analysis perspective, as trying to do crafts for that many women could get expensive, and would take a chunk of time from the meeting. But I love my crafts! Hmm… maybe that’s a niche for me?

6.

I will say one of the most amazing parts of the meeting flies in the face of my quasi-feminist sensibilities… Cinderella came to our meeting! One of the MOPS fundraisers is a Fall Ball and with us being so close to DisneyLand, some of the Disney Princesses will be there. Now, I know that some people are going to hate on Disney Princesses but this is not the space to do it, because I will admit that I- a grown, 31 year old wife and mother- actually got a little lump in my throat when Cinderella came into the room. So sue me.

5. Earlier this week, I surprised my girls by pulling out my flute. I haven’t played since The Bear was maybe 1 and I was pleasently surprised that I didn’t sound horrid. That then inspired me to look into taking some lessons again. I was able to find a teacher, a performance flautist with a DFA and her rates are pretty amazing ($30/ 30 min.) I mean, come on- you can’t get a chair massage for that price! We’ve been thinking about getting the Bear started on Violin lessons and surprisingly, the rates for those aren’t half bad either!

4.
I’ve been hanging out on Pinterest for about 2 weeks now and I can see why it’s so addicting. Before we left Missouri my BFF, Kim, had my girls for one of the mornings which allowed me to clean my house and run some errands. (Coincidentally, it was the same day we ended up receiving an offer on our house, so the cleaning was SO worth it.) Anyway, while the girls were there, they made “Foot Ghosts” by tracing their socked feet. So what does that have to do with Pinterest? Thanks to Kim and Pinterest, I was inspired to make this super cute Halloween decoration yesterday with help from the girls… and their feet!

(How do you like the Coffee Press in the background!)

3.
We’ve been in Pasadena for 2 weeks or so and I can easily say that this is where I would love to stay here in California.

2.
We’ve had the inspection done on our house in MO and we got dinged on not having a tip-over bracket on our stove. Now, DH is a Regional Underwriting Manager and so whenever we see stuff like that we jokingly curse the underwriters. (for example: we bought a new chimney starter for our grill. For those not in the know, it’s a cylinder of metal that you stack charcoal in and you can light the coal without lighter fluid. Now, it’s a cylinder of metal! And there was a sticker on it saying that the metal gets hot when on the grill.) But seriously, a tip over bracket on the stove? Do you have one? I mean, who lets their loved ones hang on the stove or stand on the open oven door?? I don’t know if our stove here has a tip over bracket and there are earthquakes here.

1.
Part of me thinks that I should be worried that when I ask the girls what they want to do today, my 2 year old responds with “Go to Starbucks?” Does that make her a Caffeinated Catholic Toddler? Kidding of course… the girls get Chocolate Milk or Vanilla Steamers (100 degree.) But they are already indoctrinated, mwahahahahaha!

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ETA: If you could keep my friend’s little boy, Chase, in your prayers it would be much appreciated. Chase became sick with an e.coli infection at the end of summer which developed into Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome. Very, very bad. The doctors have done all they can and this week, Chase’s family moved him to a “hospice-like” setting. He has to remain sedated to be without pain. The family may have days or weeks left with their little 4 year old warrior.

Be sure to head over to Conversion Diary to read more Seven Quick Takes!

And… I’m on Pinterest now!


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Thursday’s Tasty Treat: Baked Acorn Squash

We are huge squash eaters here in the CCM household… butternut, spaghetti, yellow, pumpkin… you name it, we eat it! This recipe is one that my mom made when we were younger. It is such an easy recipe and it is a definitely a kid pleaser.

Baked Acorn Squash

Ingredients:

1 acorn squash
1/2 cup brown sugar, divided
1/4 cup butter, divided
pepper

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. With a sharp knife, cut off the bottom of the acorn squash, creating a base.
3. With the same knife, cut the squash in half, length-wise.
4. Scoop out the seeds and fibery strings from each half. (optional: keep the seeds and roast them. yum.)
5. to each half add: 1/8 cup butter, 1/4 cup brown sugar and sprinkle pepper over the top
6. Place on a baking sheet at bake until squash pierces easily with a fork… 35-40 minutes.

To serve:

Scrape the flesh of the squash into the butter/ sugar/ pepper mixture in the cavity and eat!

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Manners Monday: Parenting with Grace under Pressure

A Facebook friend recently shared this on her Wall:

What would you do? Could you do anything? I’m curious what others do or think. I felt nothing I could do would help, and I was too overwhelmed caring for my babies. But I saw a scandalizing example of why many people develop a dislike for Christians. A mother w/ a 2ish year old and 4ish year old shared the “cry room” with us for a random church session. And proceeded to hiss, yell, slap, pinch and otherwise verbally attack her kids throughout the whole thing. It was very disturbing and I ended up leaving the room to stand in the back w/ my kids.

At the end, she literally physically dragged them into the main church and told them they had to do stations of the cross for being bad while on their tippy toes. She kept twisting the older child’s arm b/c he wouldn’t stop sobbing. I feel bad b/c my reaction was so strong I could not think clearly or think of any helpful way to intervene/redirect/de-escalate. My kids were freaking out and I didn’t want them to see what was happening, too. Mostly I was shocked that she had no filters whatsoever…she didn’t seem to care at all that others saw her and heard her. Ok so there’s my current stomach-turning issue.

Comments ranged from total compassion for the mother (‘you don’t know what kind of day she was having’) to complete and total derision toward her (‘you should have called CPS right away.’) Parenting is full of Monday Morning Quarterbacking moments and this is for sure one of them.

I think that we have all been in that sort of situation to some degree. We have been the mom at our wits’ end with our children and we have been the passive bystander asking herself “What should I do? Should I ask her if I can help? Oh, those poor children!” None of us are parenting experts, even those with a whole alphabet’s worth of letters after their name. We all have great parenting days and we all have craptastic parenting days, but the mark of a Parent with Grace is how you handle those craptastic moments.

I will say that I take issue with how this mother handled her craptastic moment in general and specifically at Mass. Pinching, Twisting, and Bopping your kid only teaches this that it’s acceptable to pinch, twist and bop those weaker than you if they don’t do as you say. Mass is supposed to be a celebration and Church should a happy place to be… not a punishment for anyone. If nothing else, this mother has planted the seeds for extreme religious hatred for her children. Instead of seeing the Stations of the Cross as a monument of Christ’s love for us, they will see it as a punishment, something that they had to to when they pissed mom off at church.

Discipline is proactive. Punishment is reactive. There are days that I would love to get to daily Mass, but it doesn’t happen if I know that my children are not prepared for the Mass. That means: well-rested, fed, dressed and briefed as far as my expectations go for them. If I am choosing to take them to Mass and I know they are hungry and tired, I have no one to blame but myself for setting THEM up for failure. We, as parents, need to also drop this facade of perfection that we carry around. We all have bad days and accepting help from a stranger, or asking for help is not a sign of weakness. If someone offers you a hand, do not take it as a personal affront to your parenting skills, as it is only when we accept help from others that we allow them to become Christ to us.

So what would I have done if faced with this dilemma? Honestly, I have no clue. I’d like to think that I would have said something to her but I really don’t know…

What would you do? Should you do anything?
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