How "The Little Way" Made Me A Better Wife and Mother

We live in a culture in which we often ask questions like "How can I benefit from this?" or "What do I get out of it?" The concept of "serving" people has a negative connotation in our society. We want to BE served, not serve others. I know that I have been guilty of feeling this way, or asking these very questions in my life. 

One day, I was browsing an Etsy site, looking to purchase a simple chain bracelet for my Consecration to Mary (more about that in another post.) While on the site, I came across something called Sacrifice Beads. I had never heard of them, and my interest was piqued. After a quick Google, I discovered that St. Therese would carry around beads in her pocket, which she called her Chaplet of Practices, in which she would count her sacrifices or acts done out of Love for God. You can read more about this here. 

I was so interested in the story and the beads, I decided to order myself a set. I thought if anything, I could instill it in our home school lessons somehow. When they arrived, I first started thinking about ways I could do acts of love for strangers, and people "out in the world." Then a series of events happened to me to make me realize I should be doing acts of love right here in my very home to the very people who share this roof with me. 

It all started on a Saturday, which was a particularly bad day. Nothing went right. I had big plans to do this or that, but things kept coming up to stand in my way. And all the things I did manage to accomplish felt like they were just kind of falling apart. It was one of those days where half way through, you seriously just want to go back to bed and force some kind of do-over. And the worse it got, the more troubled I felt, and the more angry I got with my family. I started ruminating on how much of a huge mess they all make, how ungrateful they all are for everything I do, and thinking I must have the WORSE behaved children in the lower 48, and just WHY, for pete's sake, does my husband have to take his shoes off and leave them RIGHT in the walk way?! I got myself into such a lather that the entire world looked black and hopeless and I lived with a band of rude, lazy, ingrates who treated me like an indentured servant. (I can uh, be a little dramatic sometimes...)

Then, late in the afternoon, tears already having been shed to some extent- I was cleaning the upstairs, picking up random toys in the hall, etc. when I came across a prayer card for Divine Mercy just lying on the floor. Ok, yes, we're Catholic. The chances of having a random prayer card lying on the floor are pretty good, so I'm not saying it was a miracle or anything. But it just happened to be lying there RIGHT when I needed it most. I picked up the card and looked at Jesus' glowing face, and read the words at the bottom of the card. Jesus, I trust in You. 

And with that, I spent the rest of the afternoon ruminating over the mercy of God and God's infinite Love for us. How God loves us regardless of how ungrateful we are. God loves us regardless of how much of a mess we make of our lives and the lives of others. God loves us regardless of our rudeness and our slothfulness. 

And this brought me right back to St. Therese and her Little Way. St. Therese once wrote, "It seems to me that there will be no judgement for victims of love, or rather, the good God will hasten to reward, with eternal delights, His own love which He will see burning in their hearts." 

She had complete confidence in God's Love and infinite Mercy. And thus she spent her life doing small acts of charity and love for those around her. Not to benefit herself in any way, but instead to be a conduit of God's Love. 

The next day, the homily our priest gave completely hit it home for me. It was about our vocations in life, and our duty to serve others within those vocations. My vocation is motherhood and marriage. It is my ultimate duty to serve. Just as ordained people have given an oath of obedience, so had I when I entered into the sacrament of marriage. 

I went home from church realizing that since it is my duty to serve these people ("these people" being my lovely, loud family) I would attempt to do so with the intention to be a conduit for God's Love, like St. Therese. I need to do as many daily sacrifices and acts of love on my family as I possible can. And while I don't necessarily remember to use the actual sacrifice beads, they hang on a little hook above our white board and whenever I look over at them, it reminds me of my commitment to this. 

I have made a conscious effort to stop what I'm doing to get something for one of the kids. Instead of making the kids hustle to bed so I can have an hour of peace and quiet to read, I'll go up with them and read a chapter of Little House on the Prairie out loud. I've baked my husband pie for dessert "just because" and I've picked up his shoes from the middle of the walkway over a hundred times, because I realize he is just a fallible man, and I am just a fallible woman. And God loves us any way. 

 

Part Two

 

 

 

I'm pretty new to cloth diapers, as I've mentioned before. I had a couple previous attempts that were short lived. But the reason I was unsuccessful before was mainly due to making it harder on myself than I needed it to be. Being the cheap skate that I am, I started out using the flat, white cloth diapers with pins like my mother did before me. These require a diaper cover, and while I am sure there are plenty of people who use this type of cloth diaper and love it, it really just wasn't for me. I was constantly afraid to go anywhere with the baby for fear we'd have a major blow out and there would be a terrible mess at an inopportune time/place. The whole system just seems more cumbersome. I ended up putting the baby in disposable whenever we left the house or I laid her down for a nap, which led to me just putting her in disposable all the time.

 

Then I bit the bullet and invested in some pocket diapers. Hallelujah! All I can ask myself is "Seriously? What took me so long?!" I found some really affordable brands on Amazon and bought them in bundles.

 

The best brand I purchased is from Jack Jill Baby. They are made with Charcoal Bamboo Fleece, and the color inside is Dark Grey, which is terrific because no matter what anyone has ever told me, I still have trouble keeping the whites white when poo is involved. I rinse immediately with cold water, trying to scrub out the ickies, but it never fails. I have stains. They fade with a couple washings, and I tend to line dry them to let the sun bleach them out... But all that is an unnecessary worry with the dark grey lining of these diapers. I also found that I am in love with the inserts that come with these diapers. They are sturdier and thicker than the other inserts I have. These are my top choice. I got 5 diapers for $45.

 

 



 

The interior of Jack Jill Baby Pocket Diapers

 

 

A demonstration of the insert into the pocket. (I used a white insert in this picture so you can see the insert sticking out of the pocket...)

 

 

 

The thickness of the inserts. I love this extra stitching in the middle.

 

 

 

The other brand I purchased was a company called LBB (although on Amazon they are also listed as Fervent Love so maybe that's the company name?) These are also pocket diapers, and although I like these too, they rate second to the ones I mentioned just above. The interior is white and the inserts aren't sewn together quite as sturdy as the Jack Jill Baby brand.

 

 

 

This is the white inserts that come with the LBB diapers (shown here on top of a Jack Jill Baby diaper.) They are absorbable, but seem to be of cheaper quality than the inserts of Jack Jill Baby.

 

From time to time, I still use the Diaper Cover method with prefolds (those white rectangles with a thicker, more absorbent strip down the middle.) I have a tendency to use these as a last resort however, usually when my pocket diapers are all in the wash and I need to do a load. I've tossed the diaper pins altogether, so here is how I use them:

 

 

I bought these diaper covers off an Etsy sight, Mommy Soup. I really like her covers and I have used both snap and Velcro.

 

 

 

 

The Velcro has an interior square of Velcro as well, so you can attach it to itself to avoid snags in the wash.

 

 

I generally stick a prefold in like this, folding the two sides over the absorbent center section. Then I just close the snaps or attach the Velcro- no pins necessary.

 

 

I will sometimes fold them like this and layer two prefolds on top of each other for extra absorbency when it's naptime. It's a bit bulkier, so I don't do it like this if she's going to be crawling around but it works well for sleeping.

 

I did splurge on a couple Cloth Diaper Bags for when we're out and about and I need a place to stick my dirty diapers. I held off buying this at first because as I mentioned before, I'm kind of frugal, but after carrying around a plastic shopping bag I decided it was probably worth it. I bought these:

 

 

 

 

When washing my diapers, I use Molly Suds Cloth Diaper Laundry Powder because its all natural, Earth derived ingredients.

 

 

 

All in all, I've spent about $150 worth of Cloth Diapering supplies, which might seem like a lot but honestly I was spending about $60 a month at Costco buying a box of diapers and wipes so these have paid for themselves within 3 months. I will probably purchase a few more (I'm really interested in trying new brands!) so the cost will be a bit higher in the end but still no comparison to the cost of disposable. One could argue that using a wash machine and dryer does cost money, but I think the cost is pretty minimal compared to all the other added benefits of cloth diapering like keeping disposable diapers out of the landfills, less diaper rash issues, etc. I do line dry my diapers on hot, sunny days too which helps reduce resources.

 

I guess you could say that I'm a Cloth Diaper Convert. :)

 

 

 

First things first. Cloth Wipes. 

 

 Back in the days of disposable diapers, I'd use wipes and then just put them in the diaper and roll it all up and toss it in the garbage. But when I started out with cloth diapering, I was sort of at a loss as to what to do with the wipes. I mean, obviously I was going to toss them in the garbage. But now I couldn't roll them all up in the old diaper and toss the whole shebang. And there is a real art to changing diapers. After having so many children, I'd like to say I have a system down, and that system included dropping yucky wipes in a yucky diaper.

 

The other thing that kind of bugged me about using disposable wipes with cloth diapers was the fact that it seemed kind of silly to be spending money on wipes when I was trying to save money on diapers. There really is no "cents" in paying for wipes, amirite? (I can't resist the occasional bad joke...)

 

So, being the newbie that I am, I purchased this from Amazon.

 

 

It comes in a box, and inside is a bag full of little soapy bits of coconut oil glycerin soap with essential oils to inhibit bacterial growth and aide in skin protection. Once I bought these, I found a recipe for making your own wipe solution, but I haven't tried it yet. I'll have to give it a go in the near future and let you know how that works. But for now, here's how I've been using these:

 

 

The key to this is HOT water. It makes the soapy bits dissolve faster. I let them sit in there and then after a while, I stir it up and try to break down the chunks.

 

 

I don't know about you, but I usually saved these little plastic wipes containers. They are great for organizing little things around the house like Barbie clothes, hair ponies, etc. So I have a few of these lying around. (You can see in my picture that I don't have the soapy bits completely dissolved...I lose patience quickly.)

 

 

I purchased two bundles of flannel wipes from Amazon (link below) and they fit PERFECTLY in the plastic wipes containers when you fold them in half.

 

 

I push my stack down a little to start soaking up some of that water in the bottom layers.

 

 

Then I flip the stack over, and the bottom wipes will eventually soak up any remaining liquid. Then I have a stack of wet wipes for the day!

 

I find I use only one wipe for a wet diaper, and at most two for a yucky diaper. So they last throughout the day pretty easily.

 

I'm going to post some Amazon affiliate links here to show you what I bought, in case you want an easy and quick look up:

 

 

 

 



Stay tuned...tomorrow I'm reviewing my favorite cloth diapers!

The Extraordinary Parents of St. Therese of Lisieux....and laundry. :(

Ok, wow. I seriously wasn't even kidding about how much of a flake I am! My second post is a week after my first! I know this isn't an excuse but I'd really like everyone to feel super sorry for me because of all this laundry that's been holding me back from being a more productive person:

And this isn't even the half of it (or the third, for that matter.) If you want to do a really complicated math problem that unlocks the secrets of the Universe, try figuring out why I end up doing three to four loads of laundry a day when only 6 people live in this house? Ok, I know 6 sounds like a lot, but I have a seriously huge front load washer. I think some homeless people may be camping out in the basement and slipping some extra clothes in there...

I don't normally fold my laundry on the dining room table, but when your rolling up your sleeves to do some serious damage to the massive pile growing in your laundry room, the table seems like an easy place to set it all. (This also forces me to put it away by dinner time...I've been known to run out of time in a day and shove it in a basket and put it in the corner of my bedroom for two weeks.) All laundry aside, my house generally looks like this:

So, I guess I really shouldn't use laundry as an excuse. But stick with me- I'm determined to actually make a habit of writing a blog. It's pretty much top of my list for 2016 Goals.

Now then, to the topic at hand. My latest book. I just finished reading The Extraordinary Parents of St. Thérèse of Lisieux by Hélène Mongin. Ah, the French. I seriously LOVE their accent marks. And this book- wow, this book. So good! Get out and read it!

I have a special place in my heart for St. Zélie Martin- I feel a real affinity with her. She was a working mother to five daughters (Nine children altogether, but five surviving daughters- all became nuns, to say the least)  and she really valued her faith life, fitting it into every available nook and cranny of each busy day. After reading this book, I find myself inspired to try harder to say the rosary daily or to incorporate new prayers into my day. She also made me want to make a better effort to go to a weekday mass once in awhile. I think if I ever have another girl, I'm going to name her Zélie. What an amazing woman! 

And I really don't want to leave out St. Louis. Such a gentle and loving father! And I thought MY 

husband was a great father. 😊 After I finished reading this book, I have to say, felt a little sad I was done.

The book I'm currently reading was suggested to me by my Godmother and I can already tell you it's amazing. Jesus and The Jewish Roots of The Eucharist by Brant Pitre. 

Stay tuned for my take on it...