Two Years of Anna Clare

A few weeks ago my second daughter turned 2. I’ve been thinking a lot about a letter I wrote her the first week of her life. I wrote about how much I loved her, and how I was so excited to see what being her mom was going to mean for my life. I also observed that I didn’t feel as though I knew anything about her, except that I loved her. To be honest, two years later I still feel that same way many days!

Her daddy was convinced she would be a he. After much waiting and worry, she came fast and before we knew it, we had two daughters. Her arrival sent us into such a whirlwind we had a difficult time choosing her name. She just didn’t “look” like any of the names we had picked out.

She has been difficult to read from the time she started moving within me and she has been difficult to get to know. She didn’t arrive with the goal of making herself know as her sister did. She has her own world, and has a tough time inviting others in – or caring much at all about joining the rest of the world. For this I loved her instantly, and this has been the challenge of being her mother.

She’s smart. Not in the way that she will recite facts we have made her memorize as is generally easy to do with a two year old. She has no interest in sharing her knowledge to please us; or anyone else for that matter. She seeks knowledge. It’s the very air she breathes. She wants to know how things work and will destruct anything to make that happen. Things are for a purpose – and it is ingrained in her to figure out what that is and how it works. She doesn’t care much for the aesthetic appeal of things. She wants to take it apart and put it back together, its color means nothing to her.

At age 2 she is already skilled at any and all things wires and cords

Anna is as sweet and loving as a little girl can be. She needs no affirmation and takes no direction. An empty corner and a project to figure out does more for her little mind than an audience. We had no idea she knew all of her numbers and letters until I overheard her whispering under her breathe while I taught her sister. I never taught her, she taught herself, and that is how she likes it.

There is never any middle ground with her. She is all or nothing. She lives constantly on one end of the emotional spectrum and refuses being taught to move away from that way of life. This is my biggest concern for her, and one of my proudest moments as a mother. I don’t worry about the trouble she will get into as a follower. Her own impulses are way too strong to follow anyone else’s.

Who says a little girl must laugh and smile at her birthday party? Why do that when you can read a book alone!!

This makes her a difficult child to parent. She cannot be forced to eat or sleep. Still, at age 2, she is up 3 times a night. Sleep training continues to fail her. She has not yet learned to comfort herself, nor does she seek comfort from her parents. She needs to cry and scream for hours and must get out what she needs to get out. She’s uncontrollable in a brilliant way. We have no idea what to expect from her in life, and although it is a very tiresome way to live and we have grown weary since her birth, it has also been one of the greatest joys of my life. Her daddy and I joke about how every grey hair and worry line can be directly linked to her birth, but that she will be the child to make a discovery or cure a disease and fund our retirement.

She is loving and goofy, the most serious and the silliest. She has an amazing ability of communicating with large animals that is foreign to every other member of her family; yet communicating with people seems to be a struggle for her. Fearless and powerful, if there is one thing I know about her, it is that she will always amaze me.

She makes me a better person. She teaches me daily that God has a plan and that sometimes it’s hard, but still perfect. She gives wonderful hugs and her smile has the power to bring joy to me like no other.
I can’t wait for her to be a big sister this year. I just know she’ll be awesome at it – and she’ll do it in a completely original and surprising way!

Happy 2nd Birthday Anna Clare!

How Soon We Return

Look who sat in a chair today! He even got a heart pillow as his prize for making it through!

The past few weeks I have been able to think of nothing else. Conversations in my head went something like this:

“Anna has been up all night screaming every night this week. She is 7 months old, we really need to nip this thing in the bud….”

“Who cares, Joseph has to have heart surgery.”

Ok, so that is a an understandable response for the wife of a man facing a really scary heart procedure. But……

then it spiraled into:

“We have to go to the store because we are out of diapers.”

“Who cares, can’t think about that right now, Joseph has to be have heart surgery! Who knows if he will even be here to change diapers ever again! I can’t do this by myself, Oh my God, I will die, I will die……….I’ll go broke…..and crazy…….and I’ll have to move home with my parents……and my kids will hate me because I will cry through their whole lives……and I can’t lead their souls without Joseph…………..so they will end up getting paid to do things a lady doesn’t do…………”

Ok, so things got a wee bit out of control. In my defense, I have an amazing husband! He is truly, truly my best friend. We were even best friends before we stated dating. He changes diapers, gets up in the night to feed babies, cleans the bathrooms, and is a silently holy husband and father. So, yes, I was upset about the prospect of losing him, of the girls losing him.

Praise the Lord, his surgery went well and as of now, he is looking really good. We have a long road ahead of us in many, many ways. Your prayers are still humbly requested as this is only the first step for him and his health.

But, to me, for a while, this was the only step I could see, and it ended with a call from a surgeon in an operating room. That much I knew. I feel so very blessed by the outcome of that phone call. And then, about an hour after I was able to see him, as rough of shape as he was in, I started to think about everything else that needed to be done for life that I had let fall to the weigh side.

I’m now trying to play catch up; be by Joseph’s side, help with the girls, work, and budget for all these wonderful medical expenses. Don’t get me wrong, I am far from complaining here. I’m just realizing what I have done to myself.

So, before I go to sleep tonight (after I pay the bills and get some work done) I thought I would reflect again on Joy. The importance of finding Joy in the everyday aspects of life and taking that Joy and turning it into prayer has been really important to me over the last few months. I now see God was preparing me for the road ahead. He has taught my heart about Joy. He has taught me how to recognize Him, and all of His gifts, through Joy. In these everyday things I see grace, mercy and unconditional love. So, although yes, there is a lot on our plate here in the Rutchik home, I really just want to share our Joy, to be a witness through this gift.

In efforts to keep the Spirit of Joy alive and strong in my heart, I will share some of the Joys I have had through what have been a few of the most difficult days of my life:

My mom came to take care of my children. She pretty much canceled her life and came to pick up the pieces of mine.

My friends and family have been lining up to show me the face of Christ. The offers for assistance in any form have been pouring in and we really, truly appreciate every one of them.

My friend Krissy came to sit with me at the hospital while I waited. She did so with 2 kids at home and one in her arms. I know it was a sacrifice and she never once mentioned all the juggling she had to do to make it happen.

The medical professionals. I so appreciate their gifts, as they are so different then my own and so amaze me.

Prayer. We’ve been told by many people that our situation gave them something to pray for in a time when they felt they had fallen away from prayer. We have even been able to spend some good time in prayer with our friends. We have spent great time in prayer together.

My husband, who’s last words as they put the mask on him in the OR were, “Tell my wife I love her.” Seriously, with this man! He is romantic even in the scariest moment!

My marriage. I am so thankful for our marriage. When we face things like this I’m reminded how very strong and Christ centered our marriage is and I thank God for giving us the life situations that call us to this type of marriage.

The world. We have met and been blessed with such good people. In my mail box today we received two anonymous gifts of large sums of money. The sacrifice and dedication to the call of charitable giving in the hearts of these friends gives me hope for humanity. Who has money to spare in these times? No matter who these people are, they sacrificed because they anticipated the needs of others. How beautiful. It really touched my heart. We are all called to charitable giving in some way. It may or may not be in a financial way, but we have all been given gifts to share with one another. I thank these people for sharing with us their blessings, we will in turn pray for them. In the spirit of respecting their call to charitable giving, I won’t go asking around as to who would do such a thing and wouldn’t even know where to start.

My lovely, lovely ladies. Their faces so bright! They are my little pieces of Joy!!

And, now, my youngest little Joy is crying in the night, so off I go to enjoy some late night time with her!!

…how soon we return…..but we thank God for it!

Too “Busy” For Joy? Not In Our Home!

How many times have we heard, “We’re too busy” in response to a question involving something “fun?” I’ve heard it often form others, and on occasion, as it escapes my own lips. It saddens me how “busy” we are has almost become a mark of social distinction. When did it become fashionable to be so overbooked, stressed out and sleep deprived?

Do our children really need to be shuffled here and there, to activity after activity until they don’t even know how to enjoy down time? What does this way of life do to the development of their little souls? I don’t have children old enough to be involved in activities and sports - yet. I hear so much about this way of life from other mom’s, I can’t help but wonder how I will deal with it when my time comes.

My husband and I worry that too many choices can be oppressing. If one is so busy doing a million different things, how can they really discern and develop the gifts God has given them? As parents, would it be horrible of us to allow our children to try many different things, and then pull them out of the things they aren’t gifted in? This is by no means a criticism of mothers who try to do it all. We all do the very best we can, and that means different things for different families.

Unfortunately, this over booked way of life is tempting to those living the vocation of motherhood. Of course there is always something to be cleaned, made, fixed, organized or packed. It’s the nature of running a living household blessed with little souls. It’s not uncommon to hear women singing the praises of another mother and using phrasing like, “she never sits down, she’s always doing something!” “I WISH I could get as much done as her!” What concerns me is not the state of the bathrooms in the homes of these woman, (as I am sure they are immaculate and ready for unexpected company) but the spiritual lives of the women who are raising our future Church. Time for contemplation and the ability to do so is a skill that improves over time. Time, that one little word defines so much of our lives.

Why are we creating all this busyness? Isn’t the point of working, cleaning, making meals in the kitchen and doing the laundry all in order to have our needs met so we can be able to……..to what? I want to fill in that blank with JOY! We are so busy doing all of these things in life so that we can get them done and enjoy….life! Our blessings and lessons can be found in the work, and the play that NEEDS to follow.

I’ve been praying to find the joy in the things that stress me out. Since I am a firm believer in full disclosure for the sake of relating, here goes:

This week I have a full plate of things to do for work. Although I actually really enjoy my job, there is one aspect of it that makes me uncomfortable. After I write articles on people, I have to give them a title to go on the cover of the newsletter. Generally, these titles need to be really friendly and inviting. Since I’m a bit of a sarcastic person, I call it “campy,” or “hokey.” I’m just not in tune with “happy, happy” things. I have no gage for knowing if something is good or lame, because I think everything is lame.

For this reason, my husband has a love/hate relationship with watching TV commercials with me. ‘DUMB,” “LAME,” and, “PaaaaLEASE!” are words often shouted off the couch - where I sit in my creatively elitist perch. So, in order for me to allow myself to write these types of things on paper without cringing, I enlist the help of my husband each month. Unfortunately, he thinks everything is lame too, so it has become a really fun game for us. This is where JOY entered our incredibly busy weekend. Yes, we would both have rather been sleeping at 1am last night as I was still working. But, instead of me complaining because I have so much to do, or my husband whining about having to take care of the baby so I could get my work done, we played “name that article,” and laughed. God, how we laughed! After going waaaaay too far into cornyville and giggling about what people would think, we chose:

“Does Your Lawn Need a Check Up? Matt’s On Call!”

For an article about a college kid who does landscaping in order to pay for his dream of going to medical school. Get it? I know, we think we're super clever. I actually still think it’s lame, but my husband assured me it’s, “the right amount of lame.” It was a blessing to share this time together. Looking back, we would have missed it if I would not have been working. And, we found the joy in the situation while our living room looked like this:


I know, it’s bad, you can judge if you want, but we’ve got joy in our hearts over here!


Because I knew my husband would be dog tired today from our late night last night, and because I am slightly too tired to chase around my 18 month old, I decided to pack it up and bring joy to daddy’s office this morning. I put the girls in the van, hit the drive through for a dollar large pop to help my hubby get through the day, and surprised Joseph at work! He was thrilled to see us- and thankful for the gift of caffeine! Another joyful moment derived from what we could have decided was a stressful situation.

I pray for the ability to turn all of my stress over to God, leaving more room for Joy to move on in! I pray for joy in your lives as well.

Daddy, at work, with his baby girls. Who won't leave the house a mess in order to surprise their hubby and put this look on his face!

The Joys of Family Life

The Joys of Family Life

This week in book club, the focus of the week was joy. How we fulfill the vocation of wife and mother by creating, encouraging and accepting joy into our homes sounds simple enough. But, first I’ll load the dishwasher, change the baby, pay the bills, and get dinner going. Before this mama knows it, bedtime routine begins and joy gets pushed off until tomorrow.

I’ve always been, for the most part, a very joyous person. “Bubbly” was the word teachers used to describe me in parent-teacher conferences when I was young. Although I’m sure this was a nice way of telling my parents I may talk too much, I’ve always taken it as a compliment. I fell blessed to be able to find the joy in difficult and stressful situations. Being able to see the value of suffering has been a true blessing in my life. This clearly does not make me some contemplative, spiritual guru—no, not by any means. Just as any other spiritual gift given, I often fall short on my use of it. My husband and I have even discussed our fear that we only know how to develop ourselves spiritually, as individuals and as a couple, in times of crisis. And, in our short marriage we have had our fair share of times of crisis. Thankfully, we have grown tremendously as man and wife- and as Catholics- during these times. We’ve grown so accustomed to this way of life, we’ve almost become too comfortable with the cross we carry.

A family can’t live in emergency mode forever. People dealing with illness who insist on keeping their everyday lives in tack always amaze me. I’ve often heard about people who don’t want to die in a hospital, they want to go home and be present in their everyday lives, even as they die. As hospice sets up camp in the home, people still go to school, go to work, laugh, play games and watch TV.

I’m searching for that everyday joy. We finally feel as though we have a grasp on some sort of “normal” for our family. Our prayer is that we can learn how to accept it, and find joy and spiritual renewal in the everyday happenings of our home. We truly want to make this our domestic Church. Maybe, it will begin with joy!

It sounds so dramatic to me, to have to work on joy. Earlier this week, as I discussed joy with the wonderfully faith-filled women in book club, it was quoted that if you do not teach your children to find joy with you in your home, they will go out into the world looking for it elsewhere. This thought sent shivers down my spine. People do horribly damaging things to themselves and others- all in the efforts of filling the hole in their lives they don’t recognize as longing for God. This is not what I want for my children. I don’t want them to yearn for joy, I want them to live in the Lord! I want simple, everyday, joys to be enough for them because they know they will find the ultimate joy when they return home to us in this life, and home to God in the end.

Our hearts long for peace. Ultimately, we find that in God’s Kingdom after our earthy lives are finished. But, until then, we yearn to be close to Him. This is why we love, we dream, we work. There is joy in the everyday tasks of living. The mere possibility of knowing and understanding, just for a moment, what its all about. These moments are found in the smiling faces of our children, squeaky clean, or muddy messes, that is where the joy lies. Just to get through the tasks of everyday life I struggle with, I often need to remember our holy family. There have been times when cleaning the kitchen seemed so dooming I couldn’t even get myself to do it after telling myself, “I’m doing this for my husband, I’m doing this for my kids.” Nope, on a few occasions, I’ve cleaned the kitchen only because Mary did it for the baby Jesus and so I can do it for him too!

I pray I will become better at weaving the little joys into our lives. I vow to play in the grass (sans shoes, my favorite way!) even when the house is a mess. I want to be able to see myself through the eyes of my children and not be ashamed. I want them to remember mama’s smiles, not a twisted face of worry and stress. Tessa inadvertently showed me this face, through her eyes, this week after she got a hold of my camera and took a picture as I was yelling, “no, no, no!” It is certainly not what I had expected. But, in an effort to find the joy in it, I will share it here:



Attractive aren't I? Yeah, that's what I thought! With this lovely face I announce to you that starting today, it is Joy Week here at Falling Upward! I encourage you to reflect upon and pray for joy in the everyday lives of you and your family. I also invite you to post your own blog or share some of them here at FALLING UPWARD. Make sure to link back here to Joy Week, as joy is something to be shared--or so some Christmas songs will tell us......