July Already?

It's been quite a while since I last posted. Things tend to get really busy around here near the end of the school year. In May, Josh and I each graduated with a M.A. degree in theology, I experienced my first (that anyone knew about) Mothers' Day, we put our house on the market to sell, Josh finished the year of teaching, and we went to a wedding and saw some friends from college.

At the beginning of June, we went on vacation with my family to a beach on the east coast of Florida near the area where my grandparents live. From there we flew to Washington, D.C. to look for an apartment and visit some friends. Also in June, Josh had his first (also that anyone knew about) Fathers' Day. Since then, we've mostly been spending time at home, hanging out and slowly packing, or with family. We had an appointment with my midwife, who is also a naturopathic doctor, to have a check-up for John Paul. He is 16 lbs and 26 in long and doing great, much better than the last time she saw him when he was struggling to learn how to eat and gain weight. She spent 2 hours with us going over natural treatments for basic childhood illnesses so that we're prepared should anything come up. She also told us that we can always call or email her with any questions that we have, even while we're in D.C. She is so awesome; I'm so thankful we found her!

This month, major events include going with Josh's family on their summer vacation and moving at the end of the month to the Washington, D.C. area. Oh, and we hope our house sells soon. St. Joseph, pray for us!

Here are some pictures:

Christ is Risen! Alleluia!

During the last few weeks of Lent, I worked on writing my master thesis. Mercifully, my professor let me take as much time as I needed after the baby was born, and we finally decided I should have a draft turned in around April 1st. I should hear back from him any day now about corrections and additions I need to make. Josh has already finished his thesis. We will next have to have them bound; the college's library will then have our theses as books on its shelves, along with those of our classmates.

I also started back at work in March - in a sense. I show up on Tuesday nights when the Parish School of Religion (CCD) classes meet and work on paperwork at home. I drop by the rectory just to get some things out of my office after the secretaries have already left; it's easier that way. I now have to start preparing for First Communion. We have about 25 kids receiving their first Eucharist at the beginning of May. We were planning on having a bilingual Mass since a majority of the students come from Hispanic families; however, the priest who speaks Spanish in our parish was reassigned as of this week. So I guess I'll be asking the deacon to be there to give the homily at least in both languages.

Here are a couple of pictures of John Paul from the end of March - two and a half months old:




During Holy Week, Josh helped to lead a retreat of sorts for the students at his school (all boys) and the girls' Catholic high school. It started at 5 pm on Holy Wednesday and went through 5 pm on Holy Thursday. Following the model set up by the USCCB the students and teachers who wished to participate fasted for those 24 hours - it was a "Fast-a-thon" - in solidarity with the poor and especially migrants, since migration was the theme this year. The retreat began with Mass and icebreakers, and the students learned about Catholic Social Teaching through talks and activities. John Paul and I went home for the night and returned around 10 am the next day. It was nice to see the students learning more about migration, since many of them take the attitude - no doubt learned from their parents - that "those illegals" should not be here. They came to see that this goes against our Catholic faith. Persons who are in this country "illegally" still have dignity and are our brothers and sisters in Christ. They were challenged to ask questions (such as why people feel the need to migrate here "illegally" in the first place) instead of accepting the common attitude toward migrants as criminals or leeches on the economy. I was impressed to see the maturity of some of my former students, who are now seniors. The retreat concluded with making and eating together a simple meal of rice, beans, and tortillas.

Josh, John Paul, and I attended the bilingual 3:00 Good Friday service at our church, which was packed. We considered following the crowd watching the living way of the cross process through the streets, put on by the Hispanic youth group. However, John Paul was apparently getting hungry, so we walked home instead. (We usually walk to church since it is only a few blocks - 5 to 10 minutes - from our house; that's much nicer than putting JP in the car, driving two minutes, and taking him out again.) On Holy Saturday we had lunch with Josh's parents and brother before driving to Houma to spend the night at Grandpa's house, along with my parents. Uncle Al, Aunt Delia, and Austin came in from Houston, and my sister and her boyfriend came in from Shreveport. Although Josh and I prefer the Easter Vigil Mass, we decided to hang out with my family Saturday evening and go to Mass with everyone in the morning; we weren't sure if John Paul would make it through the longer Vigil Mass either. Before Mass on Easter morning, John Paul was sporting his bumGenius diaper and bunny ears:



Here he is with his Mia (my mom):



Mass was very good, and it was nice to see the people from my grandparents' church again. Celebrating the Resurrection of our Lord was of course joyful, but there was a touch of sadness without having Grandma physically with us. Yet she was with us in the liturgy, celebrating Christ's triumph over death with the communion of saints in heaven. Easter last year was spent between my grandparents' house and the hospital, where we would go to see Grandma during the visiting hours in the critical care unit. I hope she was happy watching us all together this year.

After Mass, JP donned the bunny ears once again. Here he is with his Grandpa (my Dad) and his Aunt Amber (my sister):





Looking at his Easter basket:




A couple of family pictures:




The table of candy, colored eggs, and decorations is a tradition that goes back to my Grandma's childhood. The cutouts are originals from my great-grandmother. The sheer amount of candy was a source of fascination when I was I child; I still love to walk by the table and eat pieces of chocolate all day long!

We had a crab and crawfish boil as our Easter feast. Here are some pictures of the prep work:


That's James, Amber's boyfriend, me with JP in the wrap, and Amber; this was James and John Paul's first crawfish boil. James is stirring up the live crawfish as they're being purged. Here are Grandpa and Dad getting the pot ready:



And here's Grandpa with Aunt Delia and Uncle Al:


We had a nice day; the food was great and it was nice spending time with family. Josh's parents also spent part of the day with us, and the neighbors dropped by, too. There was lots of candy to take home; Josh and I have almost finished our share of it already. A couple days after Easter, here's what JP was up to:

An Update

John Paul is now three months old, as of Wednesday. It's been a while since I updated this blog because, after getting used to having a baby and working through some breast-feeding issues, I was trying to write my master thesis since I did not write a single page before the baby was born. Boy, have I learned my lesson. I'm not saying that I won't ever procrastinate again but that I'll make sure I get major things done, or at least started, before the next time I know a life-changing event is about to occur.

Anyway, I'll make an attempt to summarize the events following John Paul's birth. We had a rough time with breast-feeding from the start. John Paul did not latch on right after birth and never really seemed to get the hang of it thereafter. We tried and tried to get him to eat, but the little guy just couldn't do it. A few days after his birth, our midwife came to our house to check on me and the baby. She tried to help me as much as she could and called a couple of local La Leche League leaders for advice. One leader came to my house the following evening and tried to help him latch on; she advised that we just keep trying and instructed me to pump milk and feed the baby by syringe (not a bottle to avoid nipple confusion) every two hours. This went on for about two weeks. John Paul got down to 6 lbs 4 oz at his lowest point. I was at all times exhausted, worried, and saddened by my little boy's condition (although looking back I realize he was never really in danger). At about two and a half weeks, I contacted a lactation consultant who advised trying the nipple shield. I did not want to have to use a shield, knowing that it can cause more harm than good at times and knowing they are way overused and over-prescribed. The LC assured me that we had reached a point where the shield was necessary - we had to get some weight on the baby. So we started using the shield and the baby did gain weight. Sadly, the shield has been in use ever since, although in the past few days, I've had the time to work with him a bit and he seems to be latching, but he is also pinching - and it hurts. We hope that it will get better soon and we can finally work on things like feeding discreetly - so we can go places without worrying about when he will need to eat next - and feeding while lying down - so I can get more sleep at night.

Here he is at about a week old:


And at two and a half weeks:


And at three weeks old, with daddy:


John Paul was baptized on February 14th at our parish church, Immaculate Conception. Fr. Joey, a friend of the family since his days as pastor at my grandparents' parish, celebrated Mass and the Rite of Baptism. It was beautiful. John Paul didn't cry when the water was poured over his head, which Fr. Joey said is a sign of a future vocation. (I've been saying all along he's going to be a priest, hehe.)







John Paul received his first ashes on Ash Wednesday, February 25:




He didn't look too somber the next day, however:



Here he is at almost 7 weeks old, hanging out with daddy:



Just before he turned two months, John Paul went on his first road trip. We stopped in Memphis to see friends - Nils and Heather - on the way to my cousin's wedding outside of Nashville. We also saw friends who live in Nashville - Maria and Mike. Everyone was pleased to meet JP; he was happy too!


He happily slept through the entire wedding and reception, thanks to the Moby wrap:


Here he is at two months:




See those cheeks? They're so chubby they droop when he holds his head up. Very cute!

I'll give an update on the last month in the next post.

Into the Sixth Month

Life has been a bit crazy around here. We were evacuated to Shreveport for a week during Hurricane Gustav and were riding out the outer bands - with tropical storm strength winds and rain - of Hurricane Ike at home by the end of last week. Josh and I were fortunate enough to have only minor damage to our house from Gustav and no significant flooding from either storm. The day we evacuated for Gustav was the same day Grandma's funeral was held. I was sad that so few people could come, knowing that the church would have been packed given other circumstances. Also, I felt like we just left her behind as we ran away from the storm - not knowing whether my grandparents' house (which is located south of Houma, near the area where the eye of Gustav made landfall) would even be there when we returned, leaving us with very little to remember her by. Their house made it through the storm with relatively little damage, but Grandpa had to stay with my parents the following week due to the excessive flooding from Ike. The time between the storms was interesting - being unwilling to stop watching the news or unpack or restock the refrigerator or put items around the house back in their places (which I still haven't finished).

In the meantime, my new job as the Director of Religious Education at our church required me to try to hold registration for religion classes for public school students after weekend Masses, while people may or may not have even returned to their homes. We have a large Hispanic population at our church, so the language barrier presents further problems with trying to get the children to class. We held our first class and parent meeting on Tuesday night, to which many people who registered did not attend and several who had not registered did attend. I've been staying busy with tons of paperwork and organizational tasks to try to help classes run smoothly.

I've finally been able to start my online training course for teaching Natural Family Planning. Since I've had almost a year of practical experience already in teaching with supervision and helping to counsel couples, I'm hoping that I'll be certified before the end of the year. Additionally, Josh and I have started the real work for our master theses. I really want to have a draft written before the end of the semester so that I will be at least mostly finished when the baby comes. I think Josh is aiming for the same goal. At this stage, the work required is mostly reading/research. I hope to come up with a working outline in the next week, but we'll see about that...

In baby news, I can definitely feel movement at this point, and sometimes Josh can feel it, too. We should be going to see the midwife either next week or the following week. (Our schedule got thrown off due to the hurricanes.) While I'm still adapting some of my regular clothes to fit, I don't think that is going to work for much longer. Depending on what I'm wearing (lucky for me, the current fashion includes large, flowing shirts), it's still not obvious to some people that I'm pregnant. We should be starting our 12-week Bradley course in the next few weeks, which I'm excited about. My mom, Josh's mom, and I are going to work on registering for baby things on Saturday while Josh goes with the pro-life club (at the school where he teaches) to pray in front of an abortion clinic.

So, that's what we're up to lately. I'll try to update again after our next pre-natal appointment.

20 weeks +

We had our appointment with our midwife today. It was supposed to be Monday, but the remnants of Tropical Storm Fay presented a weather problem to meet with her. We were going to reschedule for this coming Monday, but we'll be evacuating on Sunday due to Gustav. So today was it. The baby's heartbeat is good, the position of my uterus is right (height at about belly-button level), my blood pressure is good, I have no swelling, there are no problems with my urine, and my weight is about 131 lbs. In other words, everything is as it should be.


My Grandma passed away on Tuesday. In light of all the suffering she was going through, with new problems seeming to crop up every day, (and in light of the storm currently heading directly toward my grandparents' house) I believe her passing was an act of mercy by God. If I've ever experienced a living example of redemptive suffering, it was through her. I will miss her terribly, of course, but I know in hope that she is numbered among the saints, part of the Church Triumphant (as they used to say). And part of the beauty of being Catholic is that I know she is present every time Mass is celebrated. In the Liturgy we gather together with Christ - in the Word and especially in the Eucharist - and with all the angels and saints as we praise God together. I am saddened knowing she won't be able to hold my children, knowing how very excited she was about becoming a Great-Grandma, but I am consoled knowing that she will now be able to watch them grow - much better than she could have here.


Grandpa, Grandma, and I at our wedding rehearsal dinner