For all mothers who have lost a child...

....please read this heartwrenching piece, and storm heaven in prayer for my friend Christy, her husband and ten beautiful children (including her sweet Clara).
______________________________

Mariposa is our home, but it also means little butterfly and that is what she is. A sweet butterfly that is in her cocoon, will come forth in brilliant color, bestow a butterfly kiss and then fly away as the spring time air calls her forth.

My Little Mariposa
By Christy Wall

The technician’s hand is poised over my swollen belly like a child standing with a net, waiting to catch the butterfly. The baby flutters and turns in the warm water, I can almost see her pretty face laughing. There is a wild trail of goo on my skin marking the dance of my daughter as she cavorts within my womb. I am breathless with her beauty.

My daughter. My daughter, Clara. It is music to my ears to say her name. She pauses for a moment and the technician starts measuring with clicks and whirls of the machine. I am so enamored with her pretty little round head that I do not see the horrendous cysts taking up the space where her brain ought to be. Her arms wave in front of the camera like a sweet greeting and my heart swells with love, but I do not see that the other one lies floating in sea, for it has no bones. The misty floaty thing, the technician says to me, as I admire her curved spine, is her bowels. I can not even process this information, for she has taken off again in a flight of fancy, swirling and leaping in joy. And finally, the technician mentions the heart that is doing nothing because it is broken. I look at the technician with wide eyes "But my heart is all she needs."

"Yes," she agrees slowly. "But your baby will die once she leaves your womb." Tears well up and in a moment I am sobbing. I am overwhelmed. My little daughter is alive and rejoicing in life. She knows my voice, the beating of my heart, the measure of my step. She knows the deep voice of her father, the laughing voices of her nine brother and sisters. She is home and has a family. My womb gives her the only life she will ever know. Every moment within my womb is a moment of joy and love and comfort that she would not otherwise have. Because the minute she is born, the world will kill her. What mother does not wish to protect her child with her very body? And I am given the unique privilege of giving her the only life and protection she will ever know.

But there is more. With God’s grace, I will carry this baby in my womb for 20 more weeks. 20 weeks to know her better, for the children to talk to her, for her to kick with her two good strong legs, for her to laugh as she plays in the waters which belie her floating intestines and arm, for her to love because she does not need a brain to love.

And after that, I will bring a priest and the family to the hospital. And I will deliver this baby into the arms of the priest who will baptize her. She will be born into Life, then. Eternal life.

________________________________

Beautiful Homeschooling

As you might expect, I do my best to incorporate beauty into our homeschooling days.

beautiful clutter: the learning table in autumn

Learning room wall in autumn. This will become birds,

butterflies and flowers in springtime. Yes - in our dining room! nature study: proper care and feeding of rosebushes

geography

life skills: baking
more nature study: life cycle of butterflies
Though completely off-season, raising and studying butterflies
was our favorite project of the semester. Highly recommended!
even the little ones loved this one

As for our curriculum, we've tweaked a number of things we'd originally set out with.

We simplified our morning prayers from this to a morning offering and a Hail Mary. I'm glad we did. Gianna loves offering her day to Our Lord, and found the St. Thomas prayer cumbersome. Perhaps she'll enjoy it later, but for now I'd like to keep things as simple and captivating as possible.

We switched our original math course out for Math-U-See (Primer), which works well and is quite enjoyable.

We abandoned our handwriting program in favor of the more beautiful lettering in the Italic Series. Gianna wants her letters to look "pretty" (I wonder where she gets that from). :)

For history we're reading Little House and Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans. Gianna loves history.

Nature study is all about exploring, observing and having fun. It's all over the place from sea life, rose and flower study, worms and roly-polies, to butterflies at Christmas time. Lots of fun and beauty in science class!

We read holy scripture together from the Golden Children's Bible, recommended by Laura Berquist.

We still use Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. We love it!

~

For extra-curricular activity Gianna does ballet and art class weekly.

My husband reads Andrew Lang's Blue Fairy Book to Gianna every night. Magical tales, and magic experienced with her "favorite man in the whole wide world". What could be better?

________________________________

And there's so much more. The most important part of education isn't even listed above.

"Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do... but how much love we put in that action." Mother Teresa

Your Recommendations: First Holy Communion

I've been thinking a lot recently about Gianna's First Holy Communion. Though it's a year-and-a-half away I'd like to find some good resources we can work with now. What do you recommend? Are there specific books/resources/activities that strike you as being especially thorough, beautiful or inspiring for a young girl?

Adoption Links

For those of you who are coming here to read our adoption story, the broken links in my sidebar are now fixed - I hadn't realized the connection would go bad when I switched my url. Thanks for your patience!

Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall

As some of you have asked, I did finish the mirror for the girls' room. It proved a very satisfying first woodworking project. If you have an inclination yourself to make such a thing, I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have - I highly encourage taking on such projects. Working with our hands to create something beautiful for the good of our homes and our family life is extremely satisfying, and the result edifies not only through beauty, but by turning our minds to Him who gave us the grace and the hands to accomplish our work.

(Open the image for better detail.)

room view "Before" pictures below.

Because We All Love "Before" Pictures

It all started with a sheet of plywood and some crown moulding....


Here the crown had been nailed and the onlays were ready to set in place.

Is it too late to say, "Merry Christmas"?

Some of my favorite pictures from Christmastide:

the Christmas photo

Christmas morning - peaceful anticipation

My husband took this one of us girls at a local
tree-lighting ceremony in early December.

I'm sorry this arrives so late, but Merry Christmas, everyone!

Gratitude

Wow! Thank you for your extremely kind and generous welcome. Once again I find myself completely humbled by the goodness and beauty of others. I learn more firmly how kindness and charity show that we are made in His image!

Another thing I've learned? Word travels fast among Catholic circles! :)

Diving right back in...

....because to explain this blog's absence with any sufficient detail would make for a very long post, and one I'm not sure I should share online. Not yet anyway. You may notice I've deleted a good number of posts and removed some personal information. I'm still in the process of sorting through 2 years of writing in an effort to retain some privacy.

I am grateful for all the kind emails these last few months and those that continue to trickle in inquiring about our well-being and about plans for blogging again. Thank you. I can't promise I'll post much these days, but in weighing the decision to blog or not-to-blog, I've come to realize I benefit tremendously from recording the details of our grace-filled life (more on that note in my sidebar). And so it continues....