May Naptime Notes

PICU stays, pennichella, and THREE poems

May 18, 2025

Hi everyone, it’s been quite a while since this newsletter has landed in your inbox. Thank you for your patience. I’ve had every intention to send out some thoughts, poetry, and book recommendations, but my best laid plans kept getting derailed.

I’ve been thinking of renaming this newsletter since no one in my house wants to nap except me, when I can find a comfortable sleeping position at thirty-two weeks pregnant. Top newsletter name contenders over the past few months include:

Quarantine Notes

Back in March, we spent two weeks in quarantine ahead of William’s first surgery. That Lenten quarantine was penetitial, full of the girls running fevers (nothing like being sick while you’re quarantining in an attempt to not be sick), me praying desperately to the patron saint of children with fevers for William to not get sick ahead of surgery, lots of rainy days, and a few mental breakdowns.

I coped mainly by throwing myself into “quaran-cleaning”, which involved me purging and deep cleaning a room a day while my children utterly demolished every other room of the house. But the coat closet looked fantastic for a few weeks, at least.

Although surgery went smoothly (thank you for your prayers!) and recovery was what we expected, we discovered that William needed a follow-up surgery to remove additional tissue. Our plans for a spring trach removal, reconstruction, and a splash pad summer went down the drain.

But after weeks in quarantine, we entered into Holy Week with incredible gusto, bringing our three kids age five and under to every Triduum Mass/service, with the exception of Easter Vigil because we aren’t that crazy. Easter was beautiful and the Dr. Pepper flowed freely. He is risen!

We went back into quarantine on Easter Tuesday in anticipation for that follow-up surgery. But that brings us to…

PICU Ponderings

Following a nasty bout with both a bacterial infection and parainfluenza, we landed in the PICU with William and spent a grand total of eight days in the hospital. Instead of going into surgery that first Monday of May, we spent the day convincing the PICU team that William would do better recovering at home and we would be better parents if we weren’t sleeping on the unmoving slab of bricks that is the hospital couch.

Our goal was to bust William out of the PICU in time for Maeve’s birthday. The girls helped us achieve this by pulling chairs to the door of our PICU room and shouting enthusiastic hellos to every nurse, doctor, and respiratory therapist who passed them in the hallway. They also serenaded the entire floor with hilarious songs they made up on the spot (including the one hit wonder, “Who’s going to be here tomorrow? Bacon and Eggs”). Meanwhile, William danced in bed to rap music and laughed and their antics. I think everyone was ready for a bit of peace and quiet, including us.

After some successful gains in the oxygen department, we headed home just in time for cake, ice cream, and some restful naps for William that weren’t interrupted by blood draws.

I’m so grateful to be back home. Will is still taking antibiotics to kick the last bit of sickness to the curve, but I’m hopeful that that clears up soon so we can settle in for the last few months of “normal” before baby boy arrives sometime in June or July.

After seeing Will’s airway reconstruction surgery canceled and rescheduled more times than I can count, I’ve decided to quit looking forward to that trach coming out as the “light at the end of the tunnel” of this season. Instead, I’m working on embracing the season we’re in without looking ahead too far to what is next.

That also includes hiring a fantastic nurse/babysitter to help with the kids this summer, which will hopefully mean that this newsletter (perhaps with a new title) will land in your inbox more consistently again. Maybe there’ll be some weekly musings? Maybe I’ll just nap while she’s here wrangling the crew.

Read on to discover a few poems both hilarious and formative, books worth reading (and re-reading), and links I bookmarked between adjusting the pulse ox monitor and coaching kids through arguments over who gets to make an arm cast out of an old toilet paper roll.

Interruptions abound—but so does grace. Let’s go:

Songs and podcasts I’ve tuned into:

The books I’ve read this past month:

This is a short list because my reading life ground to a halt while we navigated surgery prep, procedures, recoveries, and extended hospital stays. If I had a spare minute of quiet, I spent it mostly staring at the wall attempting to not think about anything, sitting outside just looking at a tree, or trying to catch up on sleep.

My Well Read Mom group met this week to talk about King Lear, but every time I opened that book I just read the first line twelve times and shut the cover. I am however looking forward to a Shakespeare Summer with Maeve thanks to Read Aloud Revival. But in this season of life, I think I need The Bard’s comedic genius, not his best tragic work.

There have been two books however that I’ve loved reading over the past few months. The first is Love in the Eternal City by my editor and friend Rebecca Martin (you can read more about her and by her over at

Virtuous Fluff

!). This is a Catholic beach read and after the past few months, exactly the kind of book I could get lost in. Swiss guards, romance, Rome…it has all of the good things and none of the garbage I have to dodge in typical beach reads.

The second book I (re)read was How to Stay Married by Harrison Scott Key. I read it at the beginning of the year and mentioned it in this newsletter before. But after hearing an older interview over at

Visitation Sessions

(linked above in the podcast section of the newsletter), I knew I wanted to revisit it. If you’re married or thinking about marriage one day, go read this book. It’s gritty, raw, sacramental, irreverent, and human.

Books the Langr littles adored this month…

The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald. This book started out as a read aloud for Maeve and I during our school time. But it captured the attention of everyone in our family so much that we made it our family bedtime read. It’s such a lovely fairytale and, as always, our kids pick up on way more of it than I think they will.

Here I Am! by Dr. Abigail Favale. Both the boy and girl versions of this book were in the kid’s Easter baskets this year and we’ve read this book many, many time over the past few weeks. It’s such a beautiful, simple, and honest look at the gift of our bodies and how they reveal who we are. What I’d LOVE to see is another version of this for slightly older kids that expands on the ideas presented so well in this Theology of the Body for littles board book.

An eclectic list of things I’ve loved this month…

Although I refuse to buy a pair for myself since I’ve already lived through this trend once, my girls are living in these shoes this summer // This toy has inspired hours of adventurous outdoor play and a little bit of shrieking // I pulled this book of the shelf quite a few times to talk with the kids about Pope Leo and how he was elected // This decaf tea is my new go-to evening beverage // Despite all of the craziness of the past few months, I’ve prioritized movement and can very proudly say that I’ve worked out every day in 2025 thanks to these short, five minute workouts // Can’t wait to gift William this on his birthday // Naming a baby is one of my favorite parts of pregnancy and the comments on this post have so many good ideas // Our PICU stay was 1,000% LESS stressful because of the Ronald McDonald house on the same floor as the hospital — what a total gift // Our front yard garden is going strong and every year I look forward to making this with our arugula // Loved the blackberry lavender doughnuts from this new cookbook

A little change that’s making a big difference…

All of my big kids have dropped naptime, which used to be such a respite during the day—especially when I could coordinate all the naps and get a few minutes to read, rest, and reset the house. I knew that we needed to have some sort of quiet time in our home, but every time I introduced the idea, all the kids balked and pitched fits. After we came home from the hospital and everyone was strung out on sleepless nights and too much sugar, I decided to rebrand quiet time for everyone’s sanity.

Enter pennichella.

Way back in 2019, we took Maeve to Rome with us and loved how everything ground to a halt after lunch. Shops were closed, the streets were empty. Everyone was getting a bit of rest, or as they say in Italy, pennichella or riposo. So I decided to call quiet time pennichella and told Maeve that’s what we did together when we were in Italy together.

This idea mainly works because Maeve loves stories about her visiting Rome as a tiny baby and Ada is jealous of the fact that she wasn’t born yet and didn’t get to come on the trip.

Tiny Maeve! St. Peter’s! Rome!! And a very young Joseph and Chloe who looks better rested after 12+ hour international flight than I do on the average day around here.

I started out with a short and sweet fifteen minute pennichella. The kids and I eat lunch together, read a book, and then everyone goes to their room (including me). Everyone has the freedom to do whatever they’d like to do during pennichella, as long as they are in their bed and quietly respect other people’s rest. Each day, I’ve added five minutes onto the time with the goal of a forty-five minute daily pennichella.

After a week of building the habit, the girls ask me when pennichella is and love planning what they’ll do during the time. Sometime one or two of them falls asleep, sometimes they look at books, sometimes they play with their dolls in bed. Meanwhile, I read, write, and rest, too.

We’re calling it a roaring success and I love that we’ve built the habit of quiet time before baby arrives with his own nap times this summer.

A quote I’m pondering…

If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him, in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him. If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me. Still, He knows what He is about.

- Cardinal Saint John Henry Newman

Three poems to leave you with…

When I first discovered the poem “Disobedience” by A.A. Milne via

Poems Ancient and Modern

, I laughed out loud. I then proceeded to read it outloud to everyone in my family who would listen. Here it is in all of its hilarity:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

James James
Morrison Morrison
Weatherby George Dupree
Took great
Care of his Mother,
Though he was only three.
James James Said to his Mother,
"Mother," he said, said he;
"You must never go down
to the end of the town,
if you don't go down with me."

James James
Morrison's Mother
Put on a golden gown.
James James Morrison's Mother
Drove to the end of the town.
James James Morrison's Mother
Said to herself, said she:
"I can get right down
to the end of the town
and be back in time for tea."

King John
Put up a notice,
"LOST or STOLEN or STRAYED!
JAMES JAMES MORRISON'S MOTHER
SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN MISLAID.
LAST SEEN
WANDERING VAGUELY:
QUITE OF HER OWN ACCORD,
SHE TRIED TO GET DOWN
TO THE END OF THE TOWN -
FORTY SHILLINGS REWARD!"

James James
Morrison Morrison
(Commonly known as Jim)
Told his
Other relations
Not to go blaming him.
James James
Said to his Mother,
"Mother," he said, said he:
"You must never go down to the end of the town
without consulting me."

James James
Morrison's mother
Hasn't been heard of since.
King John said he was sorry,
So did the Queen and Prince.
King John
(Somebody told me)
Said to a man he knew:
If people go down to the end of the town, well,
what can anyone do?"

(Now then, very softly)
J.J.
M.M.
W.G.Du P.
Took great
C/O his M*****
Though he was only 3.
J.J. said to his M*****
"M*****," he said, said he:
"You-must-never-go-down-to-the-end-of-the-town-
if-you-don't-go-down-with-ME!"

I read this poem from Kate Baer over on Cup of Jo and immediately sent it to my poetry-loving mom friends:

And finally, this poem has been a consolation through the past two months. I’ll leave you with this selection from “Little Gidding” by T.S. Elliot, beautifully appropriate with Pentecost approaching: