Chasing Puppies Through Quicksand

On the Parenting of Little Ones

Happy Friday, friends. I’m going to do the newsletter in reverse order this week, so, first:

Five Fast Things

1. Following up on my newsletter from last week: a new Visitation Sessions podcast on discernment.

2. If you’re looking for a last-minute Father’s Day Gift, my pick is one of the curated bundles from Catholic Balm Co. Their all natural balms, lotions, soaps, and colognes smell great, work great, and are safe from harmful toxic ingredient, which also great. Best of all, with the code Visitation15, you can save 15 percent (and you get a free lip balm).

3. I’m loving the gorgeous writing and creative storytelling in Past Watchful Dragons by R.J. Sheffler (new from Votive and Word on Fire). It’s middle grade fantasy, but great for read alouds with children 5+.

4. I have no idea if the new movie Jane Austen Wrecked My Life is any good or not, but the trailer has convinced me I must see it. Although … that probably won’t happen for months, until it’s streaming on my TV. But if you can see it sooner, please report back!

5. If you’re in the Dayton/Columbus/Cincinnati area, pencil in July 19 on your calendar. Chris and I will be speaking in Russia, Ohio that night from 6:30 to 8:30 in the Russia School Local Gym (100 School Street). Admission is free. Reach out to Kathryn Francis with questions.

Now, for this week’s musings.

I am, as most everyone reading this knows, a writer, both by habit and by trade. Writing for a living is what I have been doing for two solid decades now. But that doesn’t mean words come easily for me. No matter how natural and readable my prose might seem, getting that prose out of my head and onto a page has always required a tremendous amount of work. The words rarely tumble out. More often, I must coax and pray them out, then rearrange everything for days on end. Nathanial Hawthorne once wrote, “Easy reading is damned hard writing.” Those words are as true as Scripture for me.

While I’ve always found writing to be hard work, though, these days it’s exponentially harder. I’m no longer just coaxing words on to the page; I’m wringing them out, like water from a barely wet dish rag. The effort to simply sit down and write feels enormous. Not because I’m tired (although I am). Not because I am stressed (although I am that, too). And not because I have so little time these days to sit and read and think (also certainly true).

Nope, the real reason my work has become such a battle is because, more often than not, I feel like I have nothing important to say. My interior dialogue is all questions, no answers.

Note: I said “feel.” I feel this way. I know this isn’t actually true. I do know some things. I do have some answers.

But what I don’t have are answers to the questions and concerns which, in this present moment, most occupy my thoughts. And those questions and concerns all involve my children.

Unplanned

In God’s good plan, I am living my life out of the normal order. This fall, most of my old classmates will send their kids back to college. I’ll send mine back to pre-school. That’s what happens when you welcome your first child at 43 and your next two at forty-five. It was all a miracle and one for which I’ll never be able to thank God enough. But it wasn’t my plan.

My plan was a half-dozen redheaded babies at minimum, beginning in my twenties and ending sometime in my early forties. That’s the life for which I had spent nearly my whole life praying. And while I waited for it—or some semblance of it—I continued planning. I planned for how I would parent my children, how I would educate my children, how I would dress my children, and even how I would design my home for children.

As I did that, I read. I observed. And I came alongside friends to help them as their babies arrived. I also invited those same friends and their children into my home. I bought highchairs, sippy cups, and dress up clothes, so parents of little ones could visit me with ease. I may have been the only single woman on the planet who owned three pack-n-plays at one time (and didn’t run a daycare).

All of which is to say, that by the time a real live child of my own was placed in my arms, I felt like quite the expert. I was confident in my ability to mother him and any other children God might send us. I thought I knew what I was doing.

I thought wrong.

For the past seven years, every single day of my life has upended me. All my confidence and firmly settled plans have crumbled to bits in the face of the exhausting complexity of raising actual human beings, real people, who are not avatars for my own desires, but rather their own persons—singular, particular, both wonderful and terrible all at the same time.

It turns out that no amount of caring for other people’s children could prepare me for the weight of caring for my own. I thought I understood the effort, the exhaustion, the worry, and also the love, the joy, and the laughter, but I understood it only from the outside (and with a full night’s sleep). On the inside, I discovered, everything is more beautiful. But it’s also muddier, heavier, and harder. I used to consider myself competent and efficient. Now, I feel like I’m chasing puppies through quicksand on the daily.