Maybe A Different NFP Post

I said maybe because, well, I haven't actually done much searching on the interwebz for NFP so possibly there is another (probably better) blog post or article regarding this exact viewpoint on NFP.

A couple of disclaimers. I think that NFP is an awesome gift that Holy Mother Church has given us and just because we don't use it doesn't mean that we think anything bad about it. I do not judge anybody's choice to use NFP to avoid or to conceive...in fact, I really don't think about why you might or might not be using NFP and whether it's a valid reason. I try to assume that you and your husband are prayerfully discerning whether or not you have reasons to avoid. I ask the same of you.

Last week on my Quick Takes I asked for prayers for a special intention. My special intention was that this month would be our month to conceive. That didn't happen. We have been trying/hoping for about 8 months. I've struggled with being sad and angry and unwilling to accept this as God's will. But, the other night, I had an epiphany. We have prayerfully discerned that there are very few reasons that would make us decide to avoid (this is of course from the perspective that we are at right now, no, we can't possibly know what the future holds) and these reasons would probably serious enough that avoiding long term would be more likely than temporary abstinence. We have decided to be completely open (**another disclaimer, I'm using this in relation to not using NFP to avoid or conceive, I think we all know that using NFP is also being open to God's will and I'm not minimizing that, it's just difficult to verbalize it**), and it struck me that this means that we have to be open to becoming pregnant, as well as not becoming pregnant.

Yes, I know that NFP could help us conceive, and I have some minimal knowledge regarding STM so I know what to do if it seems that something is wrong with me. But, I think that in keeping with being completely open, it means that we have to accept those months that we don't conceive, just as much as we have to accept getting pregnant sooner than we expected. It was kind of scary to get pregnant with Christopher when Dominic was 4 months old. I wasn't sure my body could handle it, but I trusted God to provide me with the grace that I needed to get through the pregnancy and handle some Irish twins. ;-) I need to trust God that He is timing our next one to His perfect timing. No, it's not what we had hoped/expected (after getting pregnant with Dominic and Christopher so easily we expected that we'd have babies much more frequently), but accepting that it didn't happen that way is just as important as accepting babies when they come sooner than we expect.

In the meantime I am using this time between babies to overhaul myself. Spiritually: I've been better about getting up for morning prayers and Mass together as a family on a daily basis. Physically: I'm heavier than I've ever been before in my life and I'm working on getting healthier. When I say heavier I mean dangerously obese, I'm going to do a post later this week about the start of my journey on weight loss. On my vocation: I need to focus more on the boys that I have...being in the moment. Trying to focus on the boys and playing with them as much as I can.

Learning With Play

As Dominic gets older and starts to understand a bit more of what is going on, I can see that my vocation is turning into a stricter sort of job. As I'm home with him all day, it falls to me to help him learn and to guide his vocabulary as wee as his spiritual formation. Lofty tasks for sure. So I'm beginning to work on focusing things a bit more, not sitting down "learning" but working on finding more ways to increase learning in play.

I try to talk about colors and letters, sounds and numbers as we play as well as trying to read to him though he's started wanting only to read on his own, and when I attempt to read he grabs the book and says "oh no! All done!" A friend suggested some CDs that integrate our faith as well: Making Music Praying Twice. We will be looking into those as well.

Do you have any suggestions? What do you do with your little ones to teach without structure?