|
THE PARENTING DARE BLOGI love, love, love mothers.
Join our community! |
|
|
THE PARENTING DARE BLOGI love, love, love mothers.
Join our community! |
|
Ten years ago, in the spring of 2014, my daughter Malaysia asked me if I would ever get pregnant again. I chuckled and said, “No, I am too old for that.” I paused and probed, “But if I could get pregnant, what would you prefer? A sister or brother?”
“Sister.” The next day, which was actually Easter Sunday, I took a pregnancy test and found that my 47-year old body had conceived.
0 Comments
Russ and I have been astounded by our grandchildren. They are precious, precious, precious. We love when we hear our backdoor creak open and little footsteps patter down the back hallway. We stop everything and attend to that grandchild. Yes, she always has a parent or two with her, but we don't focus on those people. Ha. We focus on our baby granddaughters.
I’d like to start this post with a few questions:
Yeah, me too. Happy Summer! It’s time to relax! I cannot wait to blog again; I have missed you!!
For those of you that are new here (and a big welcome to you!), my name is Lori Doerneman. I graduated from college a million years ago with a middle school education degree; I taught for five years at a fabulous little Catholic school in St. Louis, which I loved. When I had my first child I tried to keep teaching, but it became obvious that my heart was no longer in the classroom. In the fall my son David made the basketball team at Bishop Carroll Catholic High School. Having a son in a high school sport is sort of like going into Witness Protection. I basically left the life that I knew and focused on getting my freshman to and from practice (5:30-7:30 p.m. every single night, even Fridays!).
It is now mid-March, and I am reengaging with my life, stepping back into my little routines. I have missed this space. I have missed you. There are some experiences in my life that I'd like to share with you, but they are not ready yet. They are still simmering. So I decided to reach back into my file and share a pivotal experience that happened to me when I still had a lot of young kids in my home. Grab a cup of tea, move the wrapping paper off of the couch, tell the children to play downstairs and give yourself the gift of time to read these reflections on the birth of Jesus. They were written by the 8th graders at Holy Spirit Catholic School in Goddard, Kansas. Instead of going deep into the actual events, I asked the students to reflect more deeply on what it would have felt like to be a certain character. I wanted their inner thoughts. Enjoy!
Confession time: for the past six weeks or so I've been thinking about my children and their people, wondering how the onslaught of the internet is going to affect them long-term. We, as a society, are now tied together yet separate—each person scrolling on their phone, taking in life like a cascading waterfall, allowing it to deluge us with fantastic stories of phenomenal weddings, catastrophic events, sweet moments.
I see the pull of the internet affecting my children and myself. I want more for them, for me, for us. I am getting old, and I’ve been mystified by the changes happening in my body. When I look in the mirror, I wonder who is looking back at me with all of those wrinkles. When I glance at my hands, they have somehow become my mother’s. My skin is getting thin. So, truth be told, I’ve been quietly obsessing about my aging mind and body, wondering how I will handle this obvious downhill slide. I have not really shared this with my people, it's been a quiet sort of bereavement, an ache of the heart.
Friends, in my last post I made the point that our lives are now going at Warp Speed. We are hit with a barrage of information in a single day; it’s enough to make the head swim and the nerves fray. Our souls were not made to live that fast.
I do want to spend time in the next several weeks pondering the ways that we can bring a bit of peace and balance back into our daily lives, but before I go there, I need to address one aspect of the internet: expectations. Good morning. It is early, the kids are sleeping, and it’s dark outside. I love this time of day when everything is new. I am sitting in my prayer corner, a renovated area of my home (it used to be the bar!), surrounded by books, pictures of my people, my favorite Divine Mercy Image, and Our Lady of Fatima. A fresh cup of coffee is steaming beside me.
Knowing that I am making time for my personal writing makes me feel warm inside; I’ve been working to mold 12, 13 and 14 year olds into writers; it feels delicious to just sit and write for fun. |
Welcome!
I'm Lori Doerneman Wife. Mom. Catholic. Idealist with 8 kids, keeping it real. Archives
May 2024
Note: The Parenting Dare is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com!
|