Baby #3

Seven for Friday

September 9, 2011 By Sarah Reinhard 3 Comments

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This week we celebrated Mary’s birthday. That’s Mary the Mother of God. The Blessed Virgin. My homegirl.

Yeah, what’s a birthday to her?

But to us? Well, WE have every right to celebrate!

And celebrate we are…with prayer AND giveaways!

Over at CatholicMom.com, we’ve put together NINE DAYS of giveaways–a novena of giveaways, complete with an actual novena.

Don’t worry about jumping in late…your prayers are never wasted. Don’t waste any time, though, getting over there for today’s giveaway, sponsored by On This Day Designs! Be sure to check in every day until the 16th, too, because there are books, jewelry, rosaries, embroidered goodies, and more books coming!

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About a year ago, I bought Meredith Gould‘s The Catholic Home: Celebrations and Traditions for Holidays, Feast Days, and Every Day. I justified purchasing it because I was planning to use it for research for my book which is due out in March.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Catholic Home, and I was excited to hear that Meredith has put together a study guide for it.

The study guide‘s free and, from what I’ve been able to see so far, a wonderful accompaniment to the book.

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Speaking of the book that’s due out in March, I think it’s safe to share some information. And the fact that people I really admire tell me they’re getting copies of it for early review and blurbs.

An author friend told me recently that it’s nerve-wracking when people start getting early copies of your book.

I smiled, but I really had NO CLUE.

With Welcome Baby Jesus (and Welcome Risen Jesus, which is due out at the beginning of the year), I didn’t have this to worry about, in part because of the booklet format and publication cycle.

But Catholic Family Fun: A Guide for the Adventurous, Overwhelmed, Creative, or Clueless is going through all the traditional hoops. I wrote it last summer, edited it this summer, and sit here biting my fingernails as good friends and writing colleagues and heroes tell me about getting their copies.

I haven’t even seen copies of it! Is the cover pretty? Is there a picture of me pulling out my hair? (Did my three-year-old take said picture?) Is it good? (Because I didn’t think so until we had thrashed through the editing process. And then I only liked it grudgingly.)

Oh, and do you think I’ll be able to get my kids to try out some of the neat ideas I shared in it?

Um, wait. I’m not supposed to admit that…

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Don’t you love that subtitle? A Guide for the Adventurous, Overwhelmed, Creative, or Clueless

I’m going to have to do some working to get it memorized, but I gotta hand it to those Daughters of St. Paul: they captured exactly what I wanted to get in the title!

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You know who else gets me?

Jeff Young (aka Catholic Foodie).

Every time I listen to his show (except for my Mary in the Kitchen segment), I drool.

His latest episode is no different. Maybe it’s that I love pizza. A LOT. And that I have found my inner Southerner in my passion for crawfish and southern eats.

The part about Mama cooking love into her food? What part of that doesn’t make you think of Mary?

My Mary in the Kitchen segment is a reflection on Mary’s birthday, taken in large part from a column I wrote a couple of years ago for Faith & Family Live.

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In other news, I had to buy new socks this week:

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This is a snapshot of the week via Twitter. See if you can feel my pain/amusement/horror/joy:

(Click to enlarge. And yes, he IS now pulling himself up. AND crawling. AND smiling like crazy.)

Stop by to see Jen at Conversion Diary for all the fun that is 7 Quick Takes Friday!

Filed Under: Quick Takes Tagged With: Baby #3, Books, Catholic Family Fun, Catholic Foodie, CatholicMom.com, contests, giveaways, life with boys, Meredith Gould, my book, Quick Takes, writing

Babies Don’t Keep

September 5, 2011 By Sarah Reinhard 4 Comments

Part of the Mary Moment Monday series

It was a night that was longer and harder than any I’d had in quite a while, one where I started longing for sunrise at around 3 and dozed in 20 minute intervals. I held my hot baby’s body close to mine and made soft soothing noises, trying to keep the din down so everyone else, especially my overworked husband, could sleep.

When my husband walked by the couch on his way to get ready in the morning, I happened to glance outside my kitchen window, and across the expanse of two rooms, I saw the streaks of pink and the lightening of the sky to a gray-blue.

The day rolled in with a bang of colors, an explosion of cool air and beauty that I couldn’t help but notice. I could barely keep my eyes open and standing up was a chore, but here, visible through my kitchen window, was proof that life could go on and go on with a reason to smile.

With each successive baby, the reality of the long nights and short years of this phase of my motherhood touches me closer to my heart. It seems only a moment ago that I was holding my first baby, wondering what, exactly, I was going to do with her. Now I’m on my third and that first baby is boarding the bus every morning to go to first grade.

I’ve been hearing the phrase “Babies don’t keep!” from more mature moms in my life for many years now, but I’ve finally stopped retorting, “Good thing, too! I can’t take much more!” Maybe I’m finally old enough (and worn down enough?) to appreciate the moments of rocking the current baby’s small body and the downy softness of his hair.

Babies don’t keep, it’s true. They grow taller and begin running off to adventures and scrapes and new friends. They grow smarter and begin reading to themselves. They grow older and acquire their own style and their own taste in everything from music to books to shows.

I can’t help but look to Mary as my children get closer to eye-level in more ways than just height. She surely understands the excitement I feel to finally be able to communicate and be understood by my offspring. She must also, though, see the regrets I feel as I blunder through their growing up. Mary probably never lost her temper or yelled at Jesus, but I think she surely felt the frustrations I feel.

Those babies don’t keep, but neither do the toddlers, or the preschoolers, or the grade schoolers. When they’re teenagers, it will be just as fleeting a time as it is now, though for a whole different reason. Then, when they fly away, I’ll find myself busier than ever with the next level of my vocation.

What can I do to treasure the moments with these people in my life, whether they’re my children or my nieces, whether they’re babies or young adults? How can I step back and let the Holy Spirit speak through my actions and my love for them?

This “Finding Faith in Everyday Life” column originally appeared in The Catholic Times.

Filed Under: Inspired by the Virgin Mary, Mary Moment Mondays, Motherhood, writing Tagged With: Baby #3, Catholic Times, Finding Faith in Everyday Life, Mary Moment Monday, Motherhood, Virgin Mary, writing

Called Out of the Office…

August 23, 2011 By Sarah Reinhard 1 Comment

…by “real life”…

The face the boy makes that cracks us all up

(Yes, I’ve already used this picture once this week. But it still cracks me up. So here it is again.)

So you enjoy the rest of the blogosphere and the lovely weather, why don’t ya? I hope to be back to regularly scheduled blogging by Friday!

(No worries, ye who tend that way, though prayers are always appreciated and returned in kind…just a lack of sleep combined with an ear infection, school starting, and work overload!)

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Tagged With: Baby #3, blogging, in real life, pictures

The Slurping Coffee Early on a Sunday Daybook

August 21, 2011 By Sarah Reinhard Leave a Comment

Outside my window: The sun is pouring through my office window, making a shadow of my fingers on the keyboard. There’s rain in the forecast for later, so my clothesline, which I can see from my window, will stay empty today.

Around the house: The girls watching a movie in the front room, Daddy’s in his recliner snoozing, and the baby’s asleep for a bit longer (I hope). I have a few things to get done in my office, but I think my uninterrupted time this morning is getting gone pretty fast.

In my kitchen: The dishwasher’s running and there’s a basket full of clothes to fold. Let’s not talk about the mental block I have for meal planning lately.

In my thoughts: All I have to do this week! School starts, too, so there’s some excitement–and, if I’m honest, uncertainty–with that.

In thanksgiving: For an answered prayer. For a sister-in-law who brings me joy. For a friend who makes me smile. For a family who loves me.

Nose inserted: I am sitting down each day with Lisa Hendey’s soon-to-be-released book, A Book of Saints for Catholic Moms. I read a chunk of it before it was available as a print version, but sitting down with the book each day is truly a gift from a friend. This book will be one of my favorite gifts. I can’t wait for you to get your copy! I also just started Wholly Mary: Mother of God, by Chris Padgett. I’m one chapter in and hooked!

Recent reads:

Introduction to the Devout Life, by St. Francis de Sales – such an awesome book. I don’t even know where to start for a short blurb about it…so I won’t. I’ll just say that it’s one of the most useful spiritual reads I’ve read and that it’s so applicable to me as a mom and wife and person. Wow. SO glad I read it!
Stealing Jenny, by Ellen Gable – I met Ellen for the first time at the Catholic Marketing Network trade show and Catholic Writers Conference Live a few weeks ago, and she gave me a copy of this book. I had already started the electronic version she sent me, and it had already claimed me (though I couldn’t indulge and stay up late to read it until I returned home). My niece promptly claimed the hard copy, and I finished the electronic copy. It was amazing! It will be out soon…TOTALLY worth your preorder!
A Piece of the Sky, by Michelle Buckman – I didn’t think I could be a Michelle Buckman groupie properly if I hadn’t read her first novel. So read it I did. It’s out of print now, but I found it via Paperback Swap a while back. I really enjoyed it. I’d call it chick-lit, but well done. I’m not a big reader of chick-lit, for the most part, but I liked it. Buckman has a real talent for getting to the heart of an issue and keeping things real, while making faith and God tangible and approachable.

A favorite thing: A good book.

Worth a thousand words: (courtesy of my road-trip-partner niece, Ree)

The face the boy makes that cracks us all up

Filed Under: daybook Tagged With: Baby #3, Chris Padgett, daybook, Ellen Gable Hrkach, family, Francis de Sales, Lisa Hendey, Michelle Buckman, pictures, reading

The Baby Made His Rounds

August 10, 2011 By Sarah Reinhard 6 Comments

At the Catholic Writers Conference and Catholic Marketing Network trade show last week, the baby made his rounds. I’ll post more pictures later this week at the Catholic Writers Guild blog.

He was quite a fan of Karina Fabian (and I don’t blame him):

Jerry Webster was a source of ongoing amusement for him, which is attributable in part to the Grandpa Magic that Jerry has:

Ellen Gable Hrkach had a chance to see his “squishy face” in action:

Lisa Mladinich and her daughter (who I have blog-named “Rose”) were favorites through the week, and we were so blessed to room with them:

Lisa Hendey is a big fan of babies, and, as it turns out, so is Jen Minson (right), who made a special trip to have coffee with us (and she brought her two girls, who were utterly delightful):

John Michael Talbot refused to disturb the sleeping baby. His wife, pictured right, loves babies, so I didn’t have to twist hard to have them pose for a picture. (Yes, it was shameless of me. But…isn’t this a great picture? They were really that reflective about it.)

Filed Under: family, in the world Tagged With: Baby #3, conferences, Ellen Gable Hrkach, Gerard Webster, Jen Minson, John Michael Talbot, Karina Fabian, Lisa Hendey, Lisa Mladinich, pictures

Wordless Wednesday: Happy Boy

June 15, 2011 By Sarah Reinhard 2 Comments

Filed Under: family Tagged With: Baby #3, family, pictures

Worth 7000 Words (give or take)

June 3, 2011 By Sarah Reinhard 3 Comments

So, I wanted to do a picture post. But in the recent move, I seem to have misplaced the cord that connects my camera to my computer. Thanks to my sister-in-law, though, I have plenty of pictures.

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Isn’t this pretty?

My sister-in-law and her oldest daughter, Ree, love sky pictures. And so do I. This came from my sister-in-law’s camera, and I just had to share it.

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Look what we have now:

Aren’t they CUTE?!?

We have another litter around here somewhere, too, but we’re still looking for them. And yes, the mamas were formerly kittens. (I was lazy/unorganized/whatever and didn’t get them fixed. Or maybe I had a secret desire to recreate a part of my kitten-filled childhood for my own kids. Hard telling.)

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Speaking of cute:

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When I saw this picture in my sister-in-law’s electronic folder, I had a moment of…WOW.

It wasn’t that long ago that the ones in the back were the little kids. Time sure flies!

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Here’s some perspective…this is MJ, the hen who was a chick not so long ago:

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This is just cool. At least, I think so:

That’s not Photoshopped. That’s a real street in Columbus. The Reinhards it’s named after were my husband’s actual family, as in grandfather and great-uncles and such.

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