Why I Don't Care if People Criticize My Family Size

Our family, just before we moved to Kansas, right after Elias was born. 

Here's the thing....

I hear and see SO MANY complaints from moms frustrated with the (often) rude comments people make about the number of kids they have, particularly if they are close together. Some of those comments include things such as..

"Haven't you figured out how that happens yet?"

"Maybe your husband should start sleeping on the couch."

"Wow, that's a big family." (Said at 3+ kids...)

"You have your hands full."


These comments which have been said to us even by people fairly close to us, don't bother me in the least.

Yes, I have figured out how that happens. (hehehe)

Yes, I do have my hands full.

It doesn't bother me because I am not at all surprised that someone can't understand why we would have three children in five years and still be open to more. When it comes down to it, there are a MILLION different reasons to NOT have a child.

Here are a few of ours:
1) We don't make very much money.
2) We have jobs that require odd hours and travel.
3) Our family lives far away and it could become fiscally impossible to visit them as plane ticket costs skyrocket. (Pun intended).
4) We are already out numbered, as parents.
5) Our house is small.

You get my drift.

So I can totally understand why someone would be surprised that we would be open to having more children. I don't fault them for it in the least, while there are more polite ways they could broach the subject, I love talking about our children and the joy they have brought to our lives. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that each child is a treasure for which we are so thankful, especially as I witness the painful, heart-breaking struggle of infertility.

Each child is SO UNBELIEVABLY different, and a lot of people don't understand that either. They think we just keep replicating the same DNA/person over and over again.... Procreating with reckless abandon, as my husband would say.  Each child, though, is uniquely different from the other, and their contributions to our family and society will be vastly different. Even my relationship with each one is very different. My oldest is curious and more anxious than his brother and sister. My daughter is perceptive and affectionate. My youngest is shy but learns fast. Simply because they look alike or come from the same genes means nothing in terms of their personalities!

Some people may see me dealing with a toddler meltdown at the grocery store and think, "I'm so glad I don't have kids!" As I, myself, am thinking, "What was I thinking, having kids?" HA!

But so many more will see our family laugh, go on adventures, pray together, comfort each other, and love each other and in wonderment say "How do you do it - live your dreams and raise kids?" They are part of the dream, baby. ;)

So maybe instead of taking offense the next time an offensive comment is made, let's use it as an opportunity for joy - remembering that each child entrusted to us is a gift and we chose to have them despite having a million reasons not to. The sacrifice that comes from being a parent is incredible. But the love in mine and David's household is multiplied by three.

Our cup overfloweth.

Sometimes also our toilet...

But it's worth it.


This picture was taken at a restaurant we visited after recording all day in the studio. This is what happens when someone else's kid is crying in the restaurant. ;)

Top Ten Catholic Online Dating Suggestions

I just got home from a wonderful experience speaking and leading music at the Ave Maria Singles Retreat. It was truly an inspired and fantastic time getting to know so many unique, professional, and FUN people!

Many of you may know that David and I met via AveMariaSingles.com. David's first message said: So I can see by your profile that you can't cook... so I guess if it works out between us, we'll probably starve.

I didn't immediately respond to his message because he lived in Massachusetts and I was living in Michigan at the time, but something kept drawing me back to his profile -- we had so much in common -- so I decided.. what the heck... I'll shoot him a message. I was hooked. He was funny, flirty, holy. After a week, he called me. After two months of talking for hours every day, he came to visit. After seven months worth of visits, he came to live in Michigan. After seven months of living across the street from one another he proposed! Six months later, we married! 

David proposed to me during Adoration. He said, "I want to be a better man for you. I want to lead you to Heaven. Will you marry me?" Of course, I said, "YES!"

 This is when David messed up my name during our vows, calling me "Elena Noelle" instead of "Noelle Elena" and we could not stop laughing. 

 Our first dance was to "Earth Angel" and then "Angel" by Shaggy -- thanks to John Angotti for his amazing music at our reception, and to Podesta Imaging for photo cred! 

 

Almost five years later, we have three beautiful children ages (almost) 4, 2, and 1! 

________________________________________________

Now, a few things we have learned and some things that I learned at the retreat I attended this weekend. (If you've been out of the dating scene for awhile or just aren't sure what you are looking for in a man or woman, I recommend a singles retreat simply for the practice of meeting people and conversing. I almost felt like a social butterfly because it was so much fun to sit and chat with a bunch of people who were just as interested in meeting you as you were in getting to know them!) 

I've narrowed my dating advice, or really more like.. suggestions, to ten things:

1) Don't mass message or email a bunch of people. 

A generic email is less interesting than a personalized email addressed specifically to you. It shows personal interest, not desperation to find someone -- anyone. It also helps you to stick to your standards and not settle for just the person quickest to respond. I received many generic emails that asked questions that really I had already answered in my profile - so I could tell they hadn't read my profile!

2) Don't get too personal right away. 

One person I had met basically stated in his profile that he was once a womanizer or drunkard but now had seen the light. Eh... that's a bit too personal. Immediately, I jumped to being skeptical of this person's character. Someone else may have interpreted it as simply being honest and forthright, but if we let people see our deepest personal information right away, it can also take the fun out of getting to know someone and building an intimate relationship with that person. There are some things that everyone can know... like what kinds of sports we like to watch or what we like to eat, but then there are some things that should be left for our intimate, close friends and relationships like our deepest hope and dreams. 

3) Don't wait too long to meet. 

David and I really had a pretty short courtship compared to some of our other friends. We married about two years from our first meeting. Before we met, we had spent about two months talking on the phone to one another for hours -- literally hours -- every day! We had developed a relationship with one another over the phone and had an idea of what the other person was like, but when we first met, it was like we had to start all over again! The first day we met was really awkward! We just kind of stared at each other, because we realized that the comfort we had developed on the phone now had to develop in person and that the relationship was in many ways starting from scratch.  We had to see if we had chemistry together, if we could work with one another's quirks, and even if we could play music together! If we had waited longer, it would have been harder to use our rational thinking to determine that this relationship was really something we wanted to continue, because we would have been in love with the fantasy person with whom we had been communicating over the phone. 

4) Men, pursue!

There were some wonderful men and women on the Ave Maria Singles retreat and I couldn't believe they were single! Fabulous, intelligent, professional, attractive men and women who are hoping and praying for their future spouses. One of the things I LOVED about David was he was the first guy that really pursued me and initiated in our relationship. He called. I never had to. He emailed. He held the door. He paid for dates. He came up with dates. He asserted himself in crowds and introduced himself. He asked me to dance (even though we are horrible, horrible dancers). He asked me to pray with him. I loved that. All of this made me feel like I could settle into my role as woman and let him take care of me. There was a wonderful security in his pursuit. 

5) Women, be kind! 

At the Ave Maria Singles retreat, a few men told me that they would like to pursue women, but they are anxious because women have been cruel to them in the past. That broke my heart. Women... we don't need to be cruel. A simple "I'm flattered, but I'm sorry, no, thank you, I'm not interested in dating you at this time" should suffice. Responding any other way is not only hurtful to the men who try to find the courage to ask us out, but it is also extremely unbecoming to who we are as women. 

6) Pray together

When I first suggested reciting a prayer that I had found a couple weeks into our hourly phone calls, David told me that he wasn't sure if by praying together we would create a level of intimacy that we weren't ready for yet. He called me back shortly after consulting a fantastic spiritual advisor of his and said, "I was so crazy! If this is or isn't going to go anywhere, the Lord needs to be part of this! Let's pray!" Praying doesn't mean that the relationship is going to magically work out, but it does mean an openness to the Lord's will and desiring the relationship be centered on Christ. When we are centered on Christ, we can love one another the way Christ loves - beyond the feelings and into loving one another in spite of and despite of our flaws. 

7) Vocation is a calling but love is a choice. 

You may be called to marriage, but you are free to choose who you will enter that Covenant with -- and hopefully it will be a great choice! Love is a choice -- it is a decision, not a feeling. When we are in a relationship that isn't good for us, we say it is hard to walk away because we are in love with that person. The distinction is: We can choose to love someone or not to love someone, while we still may have feelings, attachment, and attraction to that person. This is important to note, because when the romantic feelings are gone during the day to day grind, after having kids, big arguments over petty things, big arguments over bigger things... we can still freely choose to love that person, and that makes our love and that relationship all the more meaningful due to our exercise of free will to love even when we or our significant other is being unlovable and it is sacrificial in nature! 

8) Be open to relocation.

My friend Rose Ferguson, President of Ave Maria Trips  made an intriguing observation... People who sign up for AveMariaSingles.com  choose to do so because they haven't met anyone they want to date in their current social circles, but they sometimes say they they are unwilling to relocate. This could be a potential problem if a relationship is built and neither person wants to move. The relationship then enters a standstill and "If you really loved me, you'd move" becomes the modus operandi and, in a way, a very real truth. If love is sacrificial and neither person is willing to budge on moving, then is it really love? I don't know... that would definitely need some major discerning!! David and I, once the relationship was established after meeting in person, were both open to moving. We had to trust, though, that the Lord would take care of us and we kept Him as the center so that we could have peace about whatever decision was made. David ultimately moved to Michigan simply because that's where a door opened. If he didn't find a job, I would have looked for jobs in his neck of the woods. 

9) Romance is amazing over long distance relationships, but takes work. 

Butterflies. All I ever had throughout the whole time David and I were dating was butterflies! He bought me flowers, earrings, made postcards with little drawings of us, and sent me at least one thoughtful text everyday. We played Scrabble online together and corresponded via snail mail, too! We worked hard to maintain our long distance relationship. We saved money for travel. We took pictures and printed them out and FRAMED them! I still have all the little notes and photos we shared during our time of long distance dating. We let the other person know they were always on our mind, hearts, and in our prayers! This is so, so important, because especially when you are not face to face, it would be easy for the other person to feel neglected or unloved by an absence of note or phone call. We had to build trust also - that the other person isn't secretly dating someone on the side - so we made sure to let the other know what we were doing, where we were, and who we were hanging out with. We called each other on typical "date" nights like Friday and Saturday just to let the other person know that they were our date for the evening despite the long distance!

David made this for me and sent it via snail mail. It says, "I hope that someday the distance between us will disappear forever."

10) Patience but Prudence

Meeting people online takes a lot of patience. Often, you can tell by the first or second date if someone is right for you or not, but when you meet online, that process can take a bit longer. There may be chemistry online, but not in person. The person may sound one way over their profile, but not live up to that reality in person. They may say they love working out, for example, but maybe they enjoy working out but never actually do it! They may say they love children, but never indicate that they'd rather not have any of their own. The list can go on. If you feel the Lord has called you to pursue finding someone online, don't expect the first contact to go anywhere. I and many people I know who have dabbled in the online dating site world have had many bad dates/bad communications, but the point is that the Lord will lead you through those experiences to refine yourself, your interaction with others, and help you see what you do and do not want in a spouse! 

Make sure, too, that you are ready for a serious relationship. Do you have past sins that need to be confessed? Do you have serious debt that you would bring into a relationship? Do you have unresolved issues with previous relationships or relationship experiences? Do you carry around bitterness and hatred towards an ex that will affect your relationship with someone new? Do you need to live life on your own for awhile, find a good job, get an education first? Do you need to work on your relationship with the Lord first? Many of those issues applied to me! When I was praying about my future spouse, the Lord told me, "You're not ready yet." When David was praying about his future spouse, the Lord told him, "She's not ready yet." 

Be patient, but be prudent in your pursuit of a spouse. 

May the Lord come first in your life! Smile more, pray more, heal, and forgive so you can love more! 

God bless!

Many prayers for all of your vocations!! 

My Spouse Drives Me Crazy

I told my husband I was going to write this blog and he said, "Ah! Are you going to make me look bad?" Haha, no, I said... I'm going to make ME look bad.

Recently, I've been reading the book It is Well by Chris Faddis in which he tells the tragic, yet faith-filled, hope-filled story of losing his wife, Angela, to cancer. I followed Chris and Angela on their Facebook support page and cried at every post or picture posted. The posts spoke of very real suffering. The posts spoke of hope in Christ. The posts spoke of beautiful spousal love which transcended every mediocre version of love in movie or song, past feeling to dying to one another spiritually. The pictures showed their family loving one another through it all - both of their children hugging their mom on her hospital bed. I almost can't write about it even now, the intensity of suffering and faith that gripped our hearts and made us pray for a miracle.

There is a bigger Truth revealed in this book that hit home for me - a Truth I always knew, but hearing from someone who had put it into practice to the end rocked my world!

The Truth is: I am called to get my husband to Heaven.

Yeah, yeah, I know that and I do my best. But here's the other part of that:

My husband is the person God has chosen for me, to help me get to Heaven.

Let's read deeper... this isn't just about praying together. This isn't just about trying to guard the other's heart. This is about the CHALLENGES of marriage, specifically the challenge of being married to WHO you are married to!

(DISCLAIMER I want to clarify that I'm not saying if anyone of us is married to anyone abusive or unfaithful or irresponsible financially, etc, that it's something to be tolerated - I'm speaking today only of the normal, everyday annoyances and personality challenges that we face as married couples once the honeymoon is over!)

I have seen a lot of growth in myself, being married to David. He is more relaxed than I am, in general. His first response to crisis is prayer. My first response to crisis is panic, then prayer. :)

Chris Faddis talks about how we see the good and the bad of one another and how great it is that we can love each other beyond that. My husband's weaknesses, though, have a way of bringing about my weaknesses.

When he forgets to do something I have asked... I get frustrated and angry. Is that just his weakness -- or is it mine?
When he plays with the kids before bed while I am trying to calm them down for sleep and put the kibosh on all the fun..... is that his weakness -- or mine?
When he is running late in the morning because he took an extra long prayer time and I am mad that I put everyone's shoes on and he still isn't in the car -- is that his weakness or mine?
When he wants to be affectionate and gets his feelings hurt because I reject the affection in my own frustration that he doesn't understand I do NOT want anyone else to touch me that day... is that his weakness -- or mine?

Sometimes I think... AH! IF ONLY HE WOULD CHANGE this or that! Or Why, WHY, can't he see things MY way?!?!

Granted, there are legitimate things that he needs to work on. But more often than not... his weaknesses... the weaknesses I can so easily find in him (and overlook in myself), simultaneously bring up my own weaknesses... my weakness towards....

Impatience.... Self-centeredness... Frustration... Lack of Compassion... Lack of Humility... Lack of Generosity

These virtues are MUCH easier for me to practice outside of marriage, but oh-so-difficult to put into place in marriage... why? Because, I think we take advantage of the fact that we have seen one another at our worst, and are still loved. We assume the love and let ourselves get away with not really deserving it- nor even attempting to earn it.

So my spouse will get me to Heaven, not just by guarding my heart and praying with and for me.
He will get me to Heaven not just by being a loving father or a dedicated, faithful husband.
He will get me to Heaven just by being who he is  - who God created him to be, for me.

And as I pick up his laundry in the middle of the bedroom floor once again....

I will be a saint.

:)