Olivia Publishes Her first Book

The title of Olivia's new book is Sophia and Joseph Get a Whole Can, but Olivia Gets a Half Cup by Olivia Drapeau.

I think it's brilliant.

The Saintmakers

The kids at Boola and Pepere's house. Thanksgiving 2008.

Smithlings

My two college roommates and I meet once a month for a group we call the Innocence Smiths (named after a Chesterton character, Innocent Smith, from Manalive, which you are commanded to read).

Last Sunday, we got our families together. We thought we'd call it a Smithlings meeting.

Here are some pictures from that event.

Help Me Write a Song

I started writing a song this morning when Sophia was complaining about a stain on her pants. Basically, I told her that nobody really cares about her pants--the world is too narsissistic to notice your pimple. Anyway, I ad libbed something great and, unfortunately, unrepeatable. So, I'm enlisting your help. I'll give you the verses I remember and the chorus (which can be modified) and you go at it.

The main thing I want to capture is that the world is upside down. Right now I'm approaching it as a song that gives advice on how to live in our world from different people's perspectives. But there's also the voice of reason. Help me figure it out.

FYI, the song is no longer for Sophia ( it's playing out too mature for her). At some point I want to work in a line about humanity entering an insanity plea at the Last Judgment.

Welcome to the World You Live In
Chorus:
Welcome to the world you live in
it's broken, but at least it's spinning
we're stuck with it, there are no trade-ins
so we make due, with what we've got

The Workaholic
You've got to wake in the morning
When the neighborhood is still snoring
If you want to get ahead,
get started while your friends are in bed

The secret to increase your pay,
is only to work half a day:
12 hours and then you can play
with the toys from the sweat of your face

CHORUS

The Voice
Look at the folks in all these homes-es
They're trying to keep up with the Jones-es
they're (jokes/living dead), and they'll soon be bones-es
That's not the life for you

CHORUS

The Sexual Revolutioniary
My advice? If it feels good do it.
Don't think twice, if you want to, screw it
Hey, I don't think that Eve blew it,
She was bold. She made a choice.

Who says there's a master plan
that requires me to keep a man?
I'm happy just the way I am
go to hell if you think that I'm sad

CHORUS

The Voice
We give the Pill to all our women,
They're equal now, but who we kiddin?
Their "partners" know they can bed 'em and leave 'em
Alone and bitter and used.

We worship youth, but we kill our babies,
deny the truth and embrace the maybes,
Our sainted dead, we treat like crazies,
meanwhile the War rages on.



CHORUS

That's what I have so far. Feel free to suggest other advice-givers and more from the Voice. In my head it's a little Jamaican-sounding so if that helps, use it.

Sophia's First Communion and Confirmation

One of the many things that I've neglected to write about is my daughter Sophia's First Communion and Confirmation. She received both sacraments on April 26th, 2008. She was so beautiful and so excited, it was truly inspiring.

I'm thrilled that our bishop has lowered the age of Confirmation. As a former high school teacher, I can confirm that our young people need as much grace as they can get. Going into adolescence equipped for battle just makes sense to me.

The ceremony was pretty funny. The Dean, Fr. Chuck (who confirmed the children on behalf of Bishop Olmsted) had such a hard time getting decent answers from the kids when he questioned them that I wanted to ask him how long he had been in dentistry.

"What do we receive when we're confirmed? Bobby?"
"The gift of Confirmation!"
"Good, Bobby, but when we get the gift of Confirmation what do we get?"
"Confirmed!"

It went on like that forever. He finally got them to start listing the gifts of the Holy Spirit and some were dubious. I don't think St. Paul mentioned the gift of Niceness.

Sophia chose St. Josephine Bakhita as her confirmation name. Here's what she wrote about her on the prayer cards we made as party favors:

St. Josephine Bakhita was born in the Sudan, captured by slave traders at
age 10, and lived most of her life as a slave. She was tortured severely—beaten, burned and forced to work very hard. Despite all of this, she saw the wonderful works around her and wondered what master could have made them.

Although she did not know the name of God, Bakhita always knew He existed. She was sold many times and eventually ended up with nuns in Italy. It was there that she learned the name of God: Jesus Christ, her "Good Master." She was so happy to know Him that she served Him with her life. She forgave her kidnappers and torturers and had great love for everyone she met.

I chose St. Josephine to be my confirmation Saint because of her bravery, her
longing to know Jesus, and her great love for Him.

St. Josephine Bakhita, pray for us!

Easter Break in Mexico

Easter Photos

Our Recent Trip to the Zoo

My cousin Andy and his family came down from Denver to visit over the holidays. We loaded up our 5 kids and his 6 kids and went down to the zoo. Next time we'll have to remember to bring passports because the park rangers almost didn't let us out with some of the more wild kids...

Kids' Saint's Day Speeches

Every year, in lieu of a Halloween celebration at the school, our kids have a saint's day celebration. All the kids in the school research a saint and then give a short presentation about that saint's life dressed as the saint they've chosen.

The quality of the video is not that good, but I posted them fast, so no complaints.

This year, we had the following saints:

Olivia, as St. Clare of Assisi



Joseph, as St. Jude Thaddeus



Sophia, as St. Colette



For good measure, we also have Max as St. Luke (Skywalker)

New Pics of Kids

Our friend Alishia took some pictures of our family this weekend. I like this one of the two brothers. If you follow the link below you should be able to get to the others.

by alishialinn
 © All rights reserved

Just follow this link to see the photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alishiahanson/sets/72157602590972643/

(If the link doesn't work, try copying and pasting it from this email into your browser's address bar.)

The Pitter Patter of Tiny Feasts

One of the best things about being a Catholic is that there's always a reason to celebrate. This week alone our family will be celebrating 3 special feast days. Today is the feast of St. Therese of Lisieux. This day is special to our Olivia Therese and she's loving living it up. Tomorrow is the feast of guardian angels, which we all have (Sophia claims she has two) and Thursday is the feast of St. Francis of Assisi--one of Annamaria Francesca's patron saints.

There are a million ways we can honor our saints and reflect on their good examples. Today we let Olivia eat off of our "You Are Special" plate and Amy made a crumb cake; tomorrow we might have angel food cake; Thursday we're eating Italian and the kids are stripping of all their clothes in public like St. Francis.

Another good thing is that we have the kids' saints to back us up on discipline/family issues. For example:

"Olivia! Do you think St. Therese ate with her fingers??"

"Sophia, why can't you be more like St. Clare and embrace poverty and fashion-backwardness?"

"Joseph! There's no way the foster father of our Lord would condone hitting girls."

"Annamaria! Seriously, kid, there's no way Mamma Mary was this stubborn."

At the moment, Max (named after Maximilan Kolbe) is perfect and, like his patron, dotes on his mother. Eventually though he'll need to be punished and then we'll let him know that his patron was martyred in prison so "Time Out" is really an opportunity to emulate his role model.

Anyway, find out who your saints are and then make a big deal about it. We do it and we love it.

Domestic Safari Update

I don't have time for a long field report today. (Actually, I never have time...) I just thought I'd share a few things that struck me as funny/telling about my kids.

First, my son Joseph is on a "little league" soccer team called the Knights. This, however, is not the name he and his friend Petey lobbied for. They wanted "The Bloodsuckers". I think that's a terrifying name for a soccer team--what is this, professional wrestling? Can you imagine a horde of 7-8 year old boys screaming down the field in KISS make-up? It seriously scares the poo out of me.

Maybe they were playing off the homophony between soccer/sucker--if I go with that, does my boy sound a little more literate? Or maybe it was veiled protest against corporate team sponsorship? The back of their shirts might then read "The Bloodsuckers/Smith and Jones Accounting" or something like that...

Second, last night was, in my wife's words, "a little miracle". Why? Because the kids all played together in peace. The irony here is that their peaceful activity was creating and naming all sorts of Lego weapons. My daughter, sweet Sophia of the hook-hand dreams, was chirping out all kinds of horrific names for their creations:

Pursuit of Darkness
Day of Doom
Bloody Bud
Romeo

That last one gave me some hope that my kids weren't hopelessly morbid, but then I remembered that Romeo met his demise in a double suicide. Perhaps we should feed them Quaker Oats in hopes that they'll develop pacifist tendencies.

On a happier note, when I told Olivia that she could make other things besides weapons with her Legos, she lovingly told me that she'd make me a flower once she was finished with her "space guns".

I should probably read this again. Which, by the way, is a post that was commented upon by somebody in New Zealand. (If you're still visiting, we should arrange a house-swap vacation or something. I live near the biggest hole in the world and you live near Hobbits...)

In my next field report I'll write about the new self-defense courses my son Max (9 months old tomorrow) is offering his siblings and I might also discuss the new class I'm offering at our parish, Monday School.

Of Hooks and Mirrors

I called this blog the Natalist Diaries because I wanted it to be a sort of field journal of my domestic safari. Home, as my man GK puts it, is “the one wild place in the world of rules and set tasks.” Truer words were never spoken. This morning the Queen informed me of some very strange goings on indeed.

Apparently, my eldest daughter, Sophia has been having nightmares. She’s always struggled with being fearful at night, but this time her fear is so outrageous (even for her) that I had to comment on it.

Two nights ago, Sophia crawls into our bed apologizing to Amy for the dream she just had (this is a quality of her first-born, “I-have-to-be-perfect-and-never-do-anything-that-might displease-my-parents” constitution).

“Don’t get mad at me,” she whimpers, “but does Olivia have a hook for a hand?” (Olivia is our two-handed third child.)

“No, sweetie, Olivia doesn’t have a hook for hand.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m pretty sure.”

What elevates this incident from the mundane to the ridiculous is that Sophia kept asking Amy if Olivia had a hook for hand all the next day.

“Mama, are you sure she doesn’t have a hook for a hand?”

“Sophia, she’s standing right there. Look at her HANDS.”

“Okay, Mama, but are you sure?”

This is life with Sophia, our little actress. She’s an amazing kid—smart, funny, kind, beautiful, fashionable—but everything that happens to her is so the drama, all the time.

The funny thing about this hook-for-a-hand farce is that it really isn’t about Olivia, it’s about Sophia. What would she ever do with hook-handed little sister? This is just another of countless examples of her unselfconscious ego-centricism. She’s completely oblivious to her narcissism.

Sometimes she’ll come in at night, worried about kidnappers.

“Mama, are you sure no one’s going to come and steal me through the window?”

“Yes, Sophia. I’m sure.”

I always like to chime in at this point.

“Sophia, why would someone want to steal you? Think about it: why would a bad guy break into your window, which has a locked shutter and a chest of drawers pushed up against it, just to steal the heaviest, most verbal kid in the family? The baby’s in the room next to yours and he’s way more portable than you are and far more likely to forget about Mama and Papi as he grows up poor in a dirty trailer park with desperate, unfashionable, kid-stealing foster parents.”

Silence.

“Mama, are you sure no bad guys are going to take me?”

What amazes me is that as crazy as my kids can be, they always hold a mirror to my own irrationality. It seems each of our kids embodies some of the good and bad traits of Mama and Papi. This makes for a pretty entertaining home life, but it also serves as looking glass for the Queen and me to see our own faults and strengths.

In Sophia, I see so many of my irrational fears and so much of my unwitting selfishness; but, thanks be to God, I also see such a desire for goodness and so much beauty, creativity, and trust.

Some Pictures from Pinewood, AZ

Amy and the kids are on vacation in Pinewood/Munds Park, AZ just a few miles outside of Flagstaff. I'm mooching bandwidth from a neighbor to work remotely. So far, we're tired.

Olivia and I went for a picture walk today and snapped photos of anything that caught our fancies. She was really cute about the whole thing, but still has a long way to go...

We picked up Joseph and Sophia from drama camp and Joseph got jealous of Olivia with the camera. He took it upon himself to make things right and relieved his sister of the camera so he could take some pix himself. Both of their work is represented in the slideshow, as is mine.

I like photography. I think I'm pretty good, too, but there's a lot to learn to be great and I don't want to make that investment. If, however, a reader wishes to purchase a wide angle lens for my Canon Digital Rebel that reader would be heartily thanked...

Sophia got a main part in the play. She's Baghera in Jungle Book. Joseph has been cast as an elephant, but he wanted to be a monkey. I told him it wouldn't be acting if he was cast as a monkey

God is good.

Blessed R. Drapeau

So, I'm sitting around worrying about my finances, when this comes in the email:

Matthew 6: 24-34
Jesus said to his disciples: “No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you--you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, ´What will we eat?´ or ´What will we drink?´ or ´What will we wear?´ For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. "So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today´s trouble is enough for today.”

That's uncanny, right?

Sophia keeps asking me if we're poor. I'm not sure what she thinks it means to be poor. I ask her if she's going without anything she needs, she says "no". I ask her if she's unhappy, she says "no". I ask her if she knows her Mama and Papi love her, she says "yes". I ask her if she loves her brothers and sisters and if they love her, she says "yes". I tell her that there are a lot of people with more money who can't answer those questions the same way, so, no, we're not poor. But she has eagle-ears (if there are such things) and always manages to overhear Mama and Papi talking about money. What a kid.

Anyway, rich we ain't. At least not in the "we-don't-look-at-price-tags" way. But, I've got half a dozen friends who love me like a brother, supportive parents and in-laws, cool siblings (including brothers-in-law and their wives), five amazing, beautiful, loving, and fun kids, and a wife whom future generations of women will pray to under the title of "St. Amy Elizabeth, Martyrfamilias". That's a lot.

Field of Flowers (Narnia the Musical)

Here is Sophia's big solo from Narnia. We are so proud of her!