Last week, I was scrolling through the pictures that I’ve taken over the summer and Maeve ran over to join me. We chatted about favorite summer memories and our adventures different parks around the city. She told me her favorite was building sand castles at one of our favorite parks:
Each time Maeve sees a picture of herself, she says something along these lines: “Oh, I’m so pretty!” “I love this picture of me!” “That shirt is so cute on me.” She doesn’t critique her body or make a negative comment about what her hair looks like. She unabashedly confident that she is beautiful and good.
I’ve been reflecting on how challenging it is for me sometimes to look at my body and just appreciate the reality of who I am, what I look like, and who I’ve become. I’m trying to be more intentional about the way that I talk about my own body when I look in the mirror or see myself in a picture.
I’m working on noticing the small things about who I am that make me me and growing in gratitude of them: the freckles on my shoulders, arms strong from tossing toddlers up in the air over and over, and ears attuned to a baby’s cries from across the hall in the middle of the night.
When I was reading through some poetry and deciding which one I wanted to feature in this month’s newsletter, I rediscovered Kate Baer’s Robyn Hood. It fits with this train of thought perfectly. Read on to discover it as well as a fun thrift store find that’s making my mornings much easier and THE book of 2022 that I read this month.
Enjoy the July edition of Naptime Notes and I’ll be back in your inbox in August (where you’ll find me prepping for Maeve’s first day of preschool 😲).
What I’m listening to on repeat:
Revisionist History by Malcolm Gladwell. All year long, I wait for Malcolm Gladwell to drop a new season of Revisionist History and it’s here. This year, Malcolm is obsessed with experiments. Natural experiments, thought experiments, and failed experiments. I’m four episodes in and I’m intrigued. My only complaint is that Malcolm doesn’t post new episodes of the show year-round.
Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J Ryan Stradal. Thanks to a recommendation from Claire Swinarski’s newsletter, I picked up Lager Queen of Minnesota by Stradal and it was easily my favorite summer read last year. I love listening to this book from his back list via audiobook. It’s a mother-daughter story that involves everything from Scandinavian lutefisk to hydroponic chocolate habanero peppers.
A Critique of Feminism with Dr. Abigail Favale on Pints with Aquinas. Tattoos. New feminism. Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. Ephesians 5. All of my favorite topics are covered in this great conversation between Dr. Abigail Favale and Matt Fradd. I’m looking forward to diving into The Genesis of Gender, Dr. Favale’s newest book. Also, her tattoo sleeve featuring Saint Joan of Arc has me spending some serious time thinking about dream tattoo—a sacred heart sleeve.
All of James Taylor’s albums. I recently started picking up a few CDs when I go to the library with the girls. Now we can listen to a full CD without having to sit through Spotify ads. I know, what a concept. So far, we’ve picked up albums by Paul Simon, The Head and the Heart, and Kat Edmonson. But the album I reach for more often than not has been James Taylor, particularly American Standard.
The Pinkalicious Podcast. The girls love this podcast. They get to hear Pinkalicious and Peterrific without staring at a screen, and I get to cook dinner without a ton of yelling (mine or theirs). I’m calling this one a win.
Something I’m reaching for every day:
Skincare has been part of my routine for the past decade or so, and I’ve used a wide variety of products. Some were not so great (I’m looking at you, Proactiv) and some have been fantastic. But my new favorite is this set from NudeSkin that I’ve been using this month.
When it came in the mail, I may or may not have washed my face at 9:00pm I was so excited to give it a try.
Okay, 7:30pm, fine.
Each step of the routine is great, but I particularly love lemon-aid detox and glow micro-peel, which features the highly satisfying experience of seeing all of your dead skin get sloughed off in front of your very eyes.
Listen, my toddlers are in bed by 7:00pm every night. I have to find entertainment without leaving the house somehow.
A tiny shift that is making all the difference:
Last month, I spent my spiritual direction session talking (and crying) about how challenging being a mom is. This challenge is only exacerbated by my perfectionism and how much I struggle to ask for help from others. But I resolved to make some small changes: make time during the day to recharge and start letting people in.
When I was talking with a friend later that week, I discovered I wasn’t alone in my experience of exhaustion as a part time work-from-home mother without childcare.
Enter kid swap.
Once or twice a week, a friend and I get together and one of us drops off our little(s) and goes to work at a coffee shop for the morning. The other person takes care of the pack of toddlers. Then a little later on in the week, we swap spots.
Getting to sit down at Panera and type up this newsletter or work on an article without getting interrupted approximatly 173 times during the span of eight minutes with requests for bathrooms, milk refills, or who-pushed-who drama felt like a total luxury.
Kid swap has so many benefits and I could easily write an entire newsletter on it. I love how it helps me be single-hearted in the present moment. When I’m typing away at the laptop and sipping on a Dr. Pepper, I can focus in and get some deep work done. When I’m with the kids, it’s easier to be present to them because I know there is dedicated time for work and I don’t have to multi-task to finish what needs to be done that day.
The books and articles keeping me up at night:
Expecting Adam: A True Story of Birth, Rebirth, and Everyday Magic by Martha Beck. Friends, I devoured this book in two days. I moved appointments and to-do list items in my calendar so I could read this book, which I think it is going to be THE book of 2022 for me. It follows the true story of Martha and her husband, John. They’re both perfectionists who can’t imagine what it’s like to admit they don’t have everything together or that they need help.
They’re plotting out a future that includes multiple Harvard degrees, accolades, and roaring success. But then their son, Adam, receives a prenatal Down syndrome diagnosis. Everyone from academic advisers to friends warn Martha and John that if they decide not have an abortion, their goals will fall apart. Fortunately, that’s exactly what happens, and in the best possible way.
I could write ten pages on why this book was such a good read and why, as soon as I finished it, I started reading it again from the beginning. Joseph could write about the same amount of explanatory pages because that book was all I talked about for ten days straight. It was beautiful, sacramental, and so human.
Epiphany in the Baby-Food Aisle On a trip to the grocery store one day, I had a realization about me, my son, and the meaning of life by Jessi Klein. This excerpt of Jessi’s latest book talks about the archetypal “hero’s journey” and how motherhood is a heroic journey in and of itself. The whole piece is a fantastic read, but the last two paragraphs stopped me in my tracks.
This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub. After seeing Emma’s house featured on Cup of Jo (fellow book lovers, click here and swoon), I picked up her latest book. She calls This Time Tomorrow her “autobiographical time travel novel.” It’s the story of Alice, a forty-year old woman who has a not-so-terrible life but desires deeper relationship with her dad, who is dying in the hospital. The morning after her fortieth birthday, she finds herself transported back to 1996 with a chance to relive her sixteenth birthday. She spends it finding the joy in the little things she never appreciated about her dad, her best friend, the boy she had a crush on in highschool, and herself.
Everything on Matthew Pierce’s Substack, Evangelical Think Pieces. A massive sarcasm warning as you dig through his archives. I laughed out loud so many times while reading this one.
The books I’m reading (and re-reading!) with the girls:
Flotsam by David Weisner. A little boy comes across an underwater camera while collecting flotsam. After he gets the film developed, he discovers an incredible, imaginative underwater world. No words, just stunning pictures!
Clementine by Sara Pennypacker. Maeve has recently started asking for a chapter book at bedtime. I’m ecstatic about this request and am making poor attempts to play it cool. Clementine proved a hilarious first chapter book read aloud experience. From Clementine’s hair cutting fiascos to her determination to call her little brother every vegetable name imaginamble (why should he get a regular name when she has to be stuck with a fruit name?) all of us quickly fell in love with this spunky and hilarious eight year old character.
At Night by Jonathan Bean. This short and sweet book had Maeve asking if she could sleep on our roof at night—a request I denied, much to her annoyance.
Summertime in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. These gorgeous picture books illustrated by Renee Graef are a walk down memory lane for me. I have so many fond memories of my mom reading the Little House series out loud to us and our family vacation to Mansfield, MO to see Laura’s house.
Hello Lighthouse by Sophie Blackall. Gorgeous illustrations and a charming story made this a fast favorite. I learned so much about lighthouses and the history of lighthouse keepers while reading it to the girls!
The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis. After finishing Clementine, we decided to read the Chronicles of Narnia as a family next. Honesty hour: It’s going very slowly since Maeve found a Disney Frozen chapter book at the library and has requested it every night instead of Narnia.
A braggable thrift store find:
Our (new!) Bonavita coffee maker. When Joseph and I were putting together our wedding registry six (!!) years ago, we put a Bonavita coffee maker on the list. Joseph had done the research and found out that it’s basically the machine equivalent of a pour over. However, we couldn’t justify the cost of it and ended up swapping it out for a Mr. Coffee coffee maker.
In the past six years, our coffee routine evolved from that Mr. Coffee maker to a French press, then ultimately we ended up making a pour over in the morning. But imagine our surprise when we ran across a Bonavita coffee maker for TEN DOLLARS while thrifting a few weeks ago.
Friends. It has been so long since I’ve used a coffee maker that I had to have a refresher from Joseph. But the JOY of just being able to grind some beans, put them in a filter, and just press a button is amazing. This wonderful machine has reduced my coffee prep time by at least half in the morning and it makes a killer cup of coffee.
A few conversations to tune into:
💙I loved sitting down with Lisa Cotter to chat about one of our mutual favorite topics: the feminine genius. This episode could have easily been four hours long and there are so many gems in it, but my favorite part was when Lisa shared about how she does not do it all and what she says “yes” and “no” to as a Catholic wife and mom. Tune in here!
💔This summer on the podcast, I’m hosting friends who contributed to my new book: Sisterhood: Giving and Receiving the Gift of Friendship. In this inaugural episode, Kiki Rocha and I talked about what it looks like to take a step back from a friendship and how to find healing from friendship wounds. Check it out here!
🧡 The second episode in the Sisterhood series on the Letters to Women podcast launched this week! Tune into hear my friend Lindsay Schlegel and I visit about what it’s like to bring Christ into friendship and to encounter Him in friends. We also had a great conversation about why it’s important to have both friends in the same season as you and friends who are in totally different seasons of life. Listen here!
A quote I’ve been thinking on:
There’s been so much big news in the past few weeks: Abortion, gun violence, international conflict. Whenever something big happens in the world, I find that I tend to react slowly and with very deep impressionability (it’s the Melancholic in me).
When I spent more time on social media, the pressure to react quickly and publically always rubbed me the wrong way. When I saw this quote from Jackie Hill Perry, it captured my feelings exactly. What a wise reminder about the importance of being quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger:
The amount of “social pressure” to add commentary to every current event is interesting. It’s as if we believe a post is the primary proof of one’s theological and socio-political position. To me, sometimes it seems that certain “hot takes” are less about the event itself and more about how one’s response to said event categorizes them. A social media post becomes a tribal marker. A gang sign. An anthem for which “side” you represent.
Not only that, these social pressures create an environment of performance and virtue signaling. A post becomes a tap dance, an act, and a stage play attended by hundreds of strangers. Keep dancing and they’ll applaud. What’s happening to us is that we think making a post is a sufficient means of changing the world and the place to be affirmed by people that don’t even know our middle names. Meanwhile, we’re just talking and doing nothing.
What if the first place we went to with our celebration and our outrage was to an embodied community made up of flesh and blood? People we know, who we can touch, hug, pray or protest with. What if our words stayed at home first? A place where nuance, thoughtfulness, and wisdom could shape them.
None of this is to say we shouldn’t speak but we should be slow in doing so. If and when silence seems the wiser option, may it be because your words found a refuge away from the applause.
A poem to leave you with:
Kate Baer’s poems on motherhood always strike me, but this one (Robyn Hood) is one I committed to memory:
Imagine we took back our diets, our grand delusions, the time spent thinking about the curve of our form. Imagine if we took back every time we called attention to one or the other: her body, our body, the bad shape of things. Imagine the minutes that would stretch into hours. Day after day stolen back like a thief. Imagine the power of loose arms and assurance. The years welcomed home in a soft, cotton dress.
Your turn! What is one thing that you love about the way that you look? Channel your inner confident toddler and leave a comment (or hit ‘reply’ to this email!) telling me about it!
If you enjoyed this newsletter, I’d be honored if you’d join me as a paid subscriber at just $5 a month. Also, if you know someone who would love reading along, could you send it to their inbox? Thanks in advance!
In His Sacred Heart,
Chloe
p.s. Just for fun! I’m a library patron with a hold list that’s a mile long. How about you?