the heroic details

Right off the bat, this pregnancy was different.  I remember on the morning of January 16th, 2018, I was cleaning the kitchen after breakfast.  I wasn't feeling very well.  It was that crampy, irritable, fatigued feeling a woman gets when she's about to start her period.  I glanced at the calendar to look at the date and realized my period was a day late.  I had been tracking my cycle very closely ever since my miscarriage, and it had eerily come every month on the 15th like clock-work.  I knew in that very moment, even being just 1 day late, that I was pregnant. I happened to have an unopened pregnancy test in the bathroom.   I waited until I needed to go, then peed on the stick.  It was positive! Having had a miscarriage just four months ago, I wasn't exactly eager to announce the pregnancy.  I had my doubts as to whether or not this one would "stick."  I told my husband of course, but we kept it between the two of us for 13 long weeks. It was very

For the past 6 months, my oldest son has been receiving instruction at our parish for the sacrament of Confirmation.  His class consisted of 10 boys/men.  It worked out really well because Elijah's class at school is also preparing for Confirmation, so his religious instruction at school for this whole year has been focused on that.   Originally we did not think he would be Confirmed this year at all, but then our priest made the announcement about the classes and although Eli and his good friend, Finnian, are both only 11, the priest let them into the class.  They both did very well, and they were the two youngest confirmed yesterday at our church. During Mass Processing in The Bishop presiding over the ceremony was Eusebio Elizondo, one of our auxiliary bishops.  I had never had the pleasure of meeting him before, and I very much enjoyed his joyful and vibrant personality. His speech to the confirmadi was good and hilarious.  I couldn't hel

On April 4th, we celebrated Anja's 9th birthday.  My parents drove into town this week because Elijah is receiving the sacrament of Confirmation this weekend, so they were here to celebrate with us.  Because her birthday always falls so close to Easter, it often ends up that her grandparents are here for her birthday.  She has a tradition of asking my mom to make lasagna for dinner. Unfortunately, I was hit with a cold on Sunday and it was a brutal one.  It's Friday now and I'm still struggling to function.  There's not much I can take for relief because of the pregnancy, but I did go to an urgent care doctor and he did prescribe a couple of things.  Mostly though, I am unable to do much of anything but rest until it passes. Needless to say, her birthday was kept very low-key due to my sickness.  The morning of, my mom and I went to the dollar store and bought a few decorations.  Everything was pink, just like she asked for.  The day before I had picked up a chocola