The Cousins!

We had SUCH a delightful visit from the cousins--August, Sienna and Baby Leo!  What an Easter blessing it was to be with them!!

Latin

     As I sit here in my study, reading Descartes' Mediations, I am hearing Jacob and Mary grill each other over Latin: "That's third declension nominative plural!"
     "No, that's third declension nominative singular!"
     It is such a joy to me that they are well on their way.  I can remember teaching them their letter sounds.  I can remember teaching them to read.  I can remember crying on the floor when Jacob could not sound out the word "circus."
     And now they are vying for the higher grade in Latin.  Praise be to God that their educations have worked!
   

Why Christianity

     Perhaps the single summation of why we ought to be Christians is: Christ became like us so that we might become like God.  We are not fully ourselves until we are higher than, better than our natural selves.  We are meant to be like God.  But we cannot until we embrace and follow the one who genuinely reveals how a human can be so much more than human--or be fully human.
     I have had a powerful celebration of Easter.  I am staring in the face many ways in which I have left everything and am following Him.  I have followed to the breaking point.  The Catholic teachings on family life, including openness to life and the sacredness of marital love, have absorbed my whole life--I would never have six children nor would my day to day life be so infused with maternal chores and opportunities.  It has been a laying down of my life for Christ.  But in it, I find the resurrection.  So much new life!  Catholic motherhood really is a way of transcending our natural selves and living in the pattern of Christ's sacrificial love.

Servants

     I was bowled over this Holy Thursday as we celebrated Jesus washing the feet of the disciples.  The disciples had been clamoring--who is the greatest among us?  Jesus answered their question that night: whomever is the servant, the maid, the butler, the handyman, the janitor, to everyone else.
     He really did tell us that the greatest are the ones at the bottom, who serve.  He really did tell us to become servants.  He really did tell us to see the loftiness of those who serve.
     What I love about this message is that all people are of infinite worth: those serving, those served. Jesus told us to become servants.  But He also showed great homage to those whose feet He washed.  Everyone on His paradigm is incredibly important.  No one falls through the cracks on His schemata. He shows us all how to find value: to see Him and those whom He loves in all people.
      Mothers--don't you see yourself in that picture?  Don't you wash the feet--and diapers and clothes and washcloths and towels and napkins and placemats and so forth--of others every day?
      Jesus loves mothers.  He exalts our vocation!

Motherhood as Christological

"Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Philippians 2:5-11)

Isn't this just like motherhood?  Who among us has not emptied herself, stepped aside from who she could have become, pour out all she might have done, and given herself up for another?  Aren't we slaves of a sort, until our children are on their feet?

Yet it is not self-immolation.  It is not self-degradation.  It is not poor judgment.  No, it is Christological.  It is being like Christ. And in becoming like Him in His death, we hope to become like Him in His resurrection.

Saint Drinking Game

     This Monday, Annie got her tonsils out. :(  Very sad.  Very painful.  Very hard recovery.  She has to drink 58 ounces a day (adults only need 64!) or else her temperature rises.  But she keeps throwing it up!  That is a vicious cycle, I dare say!
   She is now liquid-phobic: whenever we approach her with a milkshake in our hands, she cries, "Noooooo!"  She is sick of beverages.
    So I finally came up with a way to get the 58 ounces down the hatch.  It takes a lot of work, but we are getting it done.
    I got our a shot glass.  I poured gatorade in the glass and plopped a straw in it.  I happened to have some saint stickers in a drawer.  So I pulled them out and said, "Let's play a game.  For every shot of liquid, you get a saint sticker!"  She liked the idea.  She scrutinized the stickers, and found St. Therese.  "Therese! I love her!" Annie cried.  So I said, "Let's do this one for St. Therese!  On your mark, get set, GO!"  She drank down the ounce.  We all cheered and I gave her the sticker.  She placed it on a piece of paper.
    Next she found St. Alphonus.  I said, "He was so smart!  He taught us to to say, 'Blessed be the name of the Lord!' every time we are having a hard time.  So let's say that while you drink your next ounce!"  Annie loved that, and said it and then drank it down.
     After her first 19 ounces, she was on her last one for that sitting.  She found the sticker of St. Anne.  "Oh, that's St. Anne!  That's me, technically!  Saint Me!"
     Oh, precious.
     One day in college, I wonder if she'll subconsciously gravitate to drinking games!  I can only hope that she thinks of saints every time she takes a shot!!!!

Visiting Aunt Kim and Uncle Ken

     What a joy to be with Kim and Ken in the prelapsarian home with their prelapsarian garden in their prelapsarian town of Claremont, CA.  Oh, paradise!
     They took us to Disneyland on Mary's birthday, where all we Rombses in general and Annie in particular had the time of her life.  She has been wearing her princess shoes and tiara and singing "Its a Small World" ever since.

Ron Turns 44

   Happy Birthday, Ron!  He flew home from 8 days in Greece on his birthday.  The best present was Annie's huge stack of paintings, all wrapped by the artist herself, with the print of the wrapping paper facing inward.  So adorable!

Aunt Kimmy to the Rescue

   My awesome sis, Kim, came to stay with us for 2 days because Ron was out of the country for over a week.  She pitched in and made the time so much more manageable.
    The high point?
    Sebastian giving her pebbles--literally, pebbles--from his diaper! (Grosssssss!)