Frankie's first acting role

Frankie played Baby Jesus in last night's Nativity play at Elena and Sam's school. I thought he might be a challenge as he is not always the calmest baby in the evenings. He was starting to arch his back and fuss right before it was time to go on, and then he calmed down and looked adorable for his whole "performance." Elena and Sam also did a great job singing their songs with much enthusiasm. We have yet to witness one of our children who does not love being on stage, but I guess that's appropriate considering that is where Seth and I met.

As you can see, Frankie was pretty popular with his fellow cast members:



Seeing our own baby up there made me appreciate in a new way the sacrifice that God made by sending his Son to us in the form of a precious and innocent baby, knowing the price he would pay for our sins. At the end of the play, one of the angels talked about how this baby would go on to undergo great suffering for our sake. At that moment, I felt like I had a teeny-tiny glimpse of the immensity of God's love for us when I contemplated how extremely difficult it would be to offer up my baby - my baby! - to endure a future horrific death for the salvation of others. It was paralyzing for me to even imagine it, and God actually went through with it.

Sam is 7!

In honor of his birthday, here's a throwback picture of a time when he got a hold of a marker in the car:

...and a video of him falling asleep in a parrot hat.

Wake Up, Charlie!

For the last 6 months or so, Charlie has been in that weaning from naps stage.  He's been our toughest case yet as he simply doesn't need that much sleep compared to the others, which has its pluses and minuses.  The difficulty is that if he does nap, he stays up until about 11:00. If he skips his nap, he will go down by 9:00 about 1/4 of the time. The rest of the time, he either falls asleep around suppertime and then stays up until midnight, or he just gets overtired/cranky and then stays up until 11:00ish.

We have tried:
- waking him up early so he will nap by noon
- letting him sleep in late to encourage skipping a nap
- keeping his naps short (we've tried varying lengths: 15 min, 30 min, 1 hour)
- just putting him to bed when he falls asleep at suppertime
- moving his bedtime up to 7:00 or 8:00

All of the above methods have backfired the vast majority of the time. The nap length or time doesn't seem to make a difference at all. Even when we can get him to lie down at a decent time, he will sing/talk (very loudly) in bed for 2 hours easily. And putting him down at 7:30 just results in him waking up very well-rested at 9:00 and staying up until 1:00 am.

One day when we were in the "don't-let-Charlie-nap-too-long" phase of our experimentation, we were having a hard time waking him up. When he is napping, waking him up can be extremely difficult. We have tried taking him outside, letting him watch a favorite show, ringing our very loud doorbell, and giving him some sort of treat (he once sat up, ate a Popsicle, and then went right back to sleep). So on this particular day, Elena had some Pop Rocks and suggested we give some to Charlie to wake him up. And I let her (so maybe I'm not Mother-of-the-Year material) because I was pregnant and tired and desperate for an evening free of dealing with a wide-awake toddler destroying the house. And because I'm such a loving and compassionate mother, I video-taped it so we could all laugh at it later.

I will say, however, that things have actually improved greatly since the time change. Now that it is dark at 5:30, it's not so hard to get him asleep by 9:00 or so most nights. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the worst is behind us. Now that I think of it, that's actually the reason I've been able to keep up on the blog better: I usually try to save computer time for after the kids go to bed, and it has been a long time since I've had any "after the kids go to bed" time at all.

How Frankie got his name

When I was 8 weeks pregnant with Frankie, Seth and I went on our trip to Portugal and Spain. As I was smack dab in the middle of morning sickness, I went prepared to feel like total crap for much of the trip and armed with as many protein-rich snacks as I could fit into my carry-on bag (protein bars, hard boiled eggs, nuts, pumpkin seeds, etc).

During the first trimester of each pregnancy, my symptoms have been as follows:

1. If I get 8-9 hours of sleep at night, I'm really tired most of the day. If I get any less than 8 hours, I'm practically narcoleptic. The rest of the symptoms listed below tend to worsen as well when I am short on sleep. 

2. I have to eat something, preferably high in protein, every hour or so in order to remain more or less functional. Two hours is the absolute maximum amount of time I can go without feeling extremely nauseous. At three hours without eating, I am generally ready to vomit and/or pass out. 

3. If I stay up past 9:00 or so, I'm pretty much guaranteed to be "calling the dinosaurs" (as we like to call "puking our guts out" around here). 

4. Strong smells make me want to keel over, especially if it's a gross smell like garbage or fish.

5. Alcohol has no appeal at all. Even the smell of a drink is repulsive to me. 

Through all my pregnancies, I had good days and bad, but never any days with no symptoms at all until 12-13 weeks. The only pregnancy that was different was the one I miscarried: around 8-9 weeks, all my pregnancy symptoms pretty much disappeared, which turned out to be because I had lost the baby.

On the trip over to Portugal, I wasn't really bothered by morning sickness at all, which surprised me because I hardly slept on the flight but didn't have me too worried. By the 4th day of feeling great, however, I was convinced that I had miscarried again. I was staying up until 11 or 12 o'clock, averaging 6 hours of sleep a night, eating only at meal times (sometimes going as much as 6 hours without food), and I felt just fine.  I wasn't getting tired; I didn't feel nauseous at all; I wasn't hungry in between meals; I could eat whatever I wanted; and the smell at the meat section of the grocery store didn't bother me (and grocery stores smell a lot stronger in other countries than they do in the US). I even tasted a port wine in Portugal and I liked it.  Basically, I didn't feel pregnant at all for 4 days. 

During this time, we went to Mass in Lisbon, Portugal. After Mass, the priest encouraged us all to go to the birth place of St. Anthony of Padua, which was not far. He said it was an especially great place for any pregnant women to go as St. Anthony is not only the patron saint of lost items (I knew that) but also expectant mothers (I had not known that). So of course, we went and prayed there, asking St. Anthony to keep our baby in his prayers as well.

The next day, we went to Fatima, the site where Our Lady appeared to 3 young children: Lucia, Jacintha and Francisco. It is also the site of the "miracle of the sun," witnessed by 70,000 people - believers and skeptics alike. We brought with us the prayers of many of our family and friends. We, of course, prayed especially for our baby - hoping, if the life of our baby was indeed in danger, to bear witness to one of the many miracles that have occurred in Fatima.

One of the messages that the children in Fatima received was to recite the rosary daily. So the next day Seth and I decided to pray the rosary together. We prayed for our baby and for my morning sickness to return so we could have some peace of mind. I never in my life thought I would be praying to get sick, but that's basically what we did. When we finished the rosary,  I immediately ran to the bathroom and threw up. Then we high-fived. And for the rest of the trip (and the rest of the trimester), my morning sickness gradually returned...and we were thrilled every time I started to feel miserable from there on out.

I know some might think that it was all just a coincidence, but the experience truly felt like a miraculous event. My guess is that one of two things happened. Either we lost (or almost lost) Francis and were blessed to have him given back, or I was blessed with a complete reprieve from morning sickness on our trip until I asked to have it back. I had, after all, prayed before the trip that my morning sickness would not be too bad on our vacation so that I wouldn't be a wet blanket the whole time.

 If it was the latter, I think it's a classic example of the importance to "be careful what you ask/pray for." So often we think we know what we need rather than just trusting God to give us what he knows is best for us. And sometimes we get exactly what we ask for only to realize that maybe it wasn't all we thought it would be.

At any rate, when we were at Fatima, thinking that there was little to no chance our baby was alive, we decided that we would name the baby either Francis or Lucia in thanksgiving for our answered prayers. 

And that is the story behind Francis Anthony's name.

Halloween 2015

Getting ready (a few weeks early)

Elena designed this one - Seth did the carving

Seth may have switched to selling insurance, but that architectural drafting degree still gets put to good use (around the house and in jack-o-lantern design)

We had 11 trick-or-treaters stationed at our place (and 3 babies). Here they are dumping, sorting and trading their goodies after they got back.

In all the chaos, we failed to notice until it was too late that Charlie had dumped a box of Nerds into the carpet and was licking them out.

"Father Charlie"

Charlie has been playing Mass on a daily basis for the last few months. I finally had a friend sew him some vestments, and have been working to put together a little "Mass kit" for him, although he plays just fine with whatever he finds lying around.  It's fun to see the things that he notices and imitates. He will even do a little reading out of a Bible and then follow it up by sitting in his chair and "meditating" for a few moments before moving onto the next thing. I do remember the first time in Mass that he really noticed our priest doing that; he turned to me and said, "Look. Father is sleeping!"

A few weeks ago, we were at a Lutheran church, and Charlie started to "play church" on a little altar-like area they had in the basement.  Someone saw him and said to me, "It looks like you might have a future pastor there." After about 10 seconds he started genuflecting, and she said, "Oh...maybe a priest."

All Saints Day

Our kids' school started the tradition of having an Saints Costume contest every year to celebrate All Saints Day. There are prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in each class as well as two grand prizes picked from all the 1st placers (one for the older kids and one for the younger).

It's been really fun every year reading through the stories of various saints and Biblical characters in the weeks leading up to the contest.  It's humbling to hear how truly heroic some of these men and women were.  

We learned about many of the early saints like Felicity, who died for her faith just days after giving birth to her first child, as well as more modern saints like Maximilian Kolbe, a priest who volunteered to take the place of a husband and father sentenced to die by starvation in a concentration camp during WWII.

In the end, Elena chose St. Brigid of Ireland and Sam chose St. Anthony.  They put a lot of work into learning about their saints this year, and both won 1st place for their class!

As the day of the contest drew near, we were trying to convince Sam to shave his head like a monk for his costume. We told him that if he did a really good job, he might win the grand prize. Sam asked, "But what if I don't?" Seth, thinking Sam would never agree to cutting his hair, offered to pay him the same amount at the grand prize (which in the past has been $100). Sam, of course, jumped at that offer and let us shave his head.

He was a little self-conscious at first, keeping it covered with a hat on his way to school; but by the end of the day when we wanted to shave it all off, Sam said he wanted to just leave it until it had all grown out. Fortunately, we were able to talk him out of that and he now has a super short head of hair.

In the end, Elena won the grand prize for the lower grades so Seth had to pay up, and both kids were very happy. Fortunately, they lowered the grand prize amount to $45 this year so we didn't have to fork over quite as much as we had thought.

St. Brigid, St. Anthony and "Father Charlie"

Brotherly Love

150-200. That's approximately how many kisses I would guess Frankie gets from Charlie in a day. And that's not an exaggeration. I tried counting one day, knowing I would never keep up. We hit 25 before 8:00 a.m. And we woke up at 7:45. And there is no shortage of kisses from the rest of the family, either.

Poor Charlie unfortunately hears "No " a lot more with the new baby, especially since his 2-year-old body isn't really capable of moving with the grace and care required to gently lean over a sleeping baby for a kiss. In turn, we have also been hearing "No" a lot more from Charlie, but overall we have been adjusting well. All three older kids are completely in love with their new brother, as it should be.

They say newborns can't smile...

I don't buy it.

Introducing Francis Anthony

We are pleased to announce the arrival of our little boy, Francis Anthony (Frankie), who was born Oct 17, weighing in at 7 lbs 4 oz and measuring 20 inches. He came much more quickly than the other three, which I've got to say, I did not mind.

I had been having contractions all morning, but they were pretty irregular, and given my history of 12+ hour labors, we didn't think it would be an issue for Seth to go help out on the farm for the afternoon. Of course, they sped up as soon as Seth left. I held off for a couple of hours before calling Seth, but by the time he got here we all hopped in the car and headed straight for Marshall (forgetting the camera so we don't have many first day pics). He was born a little over an hour after our arrival to the hospital; a big improvement from walking the hospital halls for hour after hour.

Although my doctor was gone for the weekend, I was happy to learn that the doctor on call was my previous (now semi-retired) OB. When the nurse went in to tell her that I had checked in, the doctor warned her that I "deliver like a steam engine." And that's probably a fairly accurate way to describe the experience, I guess. I'm very grateful that the pushing portion of deliver has always been quick for me: 4 minutes this time. And that was long enough. Kudos to those ladies out there who push for hours - you are amazing.

He has been a wonderful baby so far and has lots of sets of arms eager to hold him all the time. We are all adjusting to being a family of 6. As Jim Gaffigan describes going from 3 to 4 children (or maybe it was 2 to 3): "Imagine you're drowning, then someone hands you a baby." While there are moments like that, it's so wonderful to have this new little life with us and so worth all the chaos. 

Speaking of chaos, though, if you have a minute and are so inclined, pray for us when Seth goes back to being gone in the evenings next week. So far Seth has been home during the "getting kids ready for bed" portion of the nights. I had a taste of trying to do it on my own tonight when Seth was gone until 8:00 and yikes! Often Charlie hits "sleepy/disagreeable/I want Mommy" time at the same time that I'm trying to read the older two stories which don't hold the interest of Charlie who is either trying to get on my lap, jump on us, talk/sing so loudly no one can hear, get me to read his books instead, or creating a huge mess somewhere. If I deal with Charlie and get him down before I read to the older ones, they end up staying up too late and we all pay for it the next day. If I make Charlie wait, he hits "overtired" and can't sleep for another hour or two or three. So throw a nursing baby on my lap in the middle of all of that and it's a bit overwhelming. 

Thanks again for all the prayers and well wishes throughout the pregnancy. There's nothing better than welcoming a new life into the world.