Independence Day Teens and Food

The vegan, gluten free Springtime Strawberry Lime Crisp is baking in the oven. My husband and I will be taking it, along with his should-be-world famous corn, to our dear family friends.

Our sons are in Spain and Florida, exercising their own independence. We miss them terribly but are so happy to know they are having beautiful experiences, the eldest at a home stay with the Experiment in International Living in Valencia, the younger at a goal-keeper camp in St. Petersburg. The organizers of that camp, who coached Tim Howard here in New Jersey, had scheduled him to help run the camp. World Cup Success intervened.
.

A Day of Sweet Hours with Our Sons

"All our sweetest hours fly the fastest." Virgil, who figured this out more than 2,000 years ago.

Today began, quietly enough, with a prayer to the Holy Spirit. Two friends and I are praying a novena for a special intention close to our hearts. I have never prayed a novena with friends before and it was calming to know they were praying the same words for the same intention.

The rest of the day sped past. I took Gabriel to his appointment at the pediatric trauma unit, where a nurse removed the five staples in his scalp and declared him good to go - to the gym, to the swimming pool, to Spain. I discovered finding a parking spot at our local hospital takes more time than having staples removed from one's scalp.

A Homecoming Weekend, Sort Of

Homecoming is a bit of a misnomer today because even though it is our local high school's Homecoming Weekend, half my family is out of town. Gabriel, a high school senior, and Greg are in Fairfax, Virginia tonight. They've spend the past four days touring colleges in the region and sightseeing in our nation's capital. I miss them badly. My husband rarely travels for work and I am not accustomed to having half my family missing from home.

Six Mile Run and the Seasons of Marriage

As anyone who has been married for a while knows, marriage has seasons: the early years, the years with babies and toddlers, and so on. Right now, my husband and I have two teenaged boys and no travel soccer on our family calendar any more. This means our weekends are wide open.

Bigger Picture: Evening Prayer and Soccer Fields: Unexpected Beauty

This dusk found me waiting two hours in another county while our son did a soccer clinic. I spent the time knitting, reading, talking on the phone and praying my Liturgy of the Hours. Then I took a stroll with my cell phone along the edges of an enormous complex of soccer fields. As I walked, my shoes soaking in the damp from the afternoon rain,  I watched boys of varying ages run through drills and scrimmage. This is what I saw when I turned my head in the other direction.

O blest Creator, God most high
great ruler of the universe,
who robes the day with radiant light
now clothes the night in peaceful sleep.






Read other Bigger Picture moments here!

Savoring A Pause in Our Busy Days

This is a photo I swiped off the web of Main Street Bagel in downtown Flemington, New Jersey, where I spent a couple of hours this morning with L, our 12-year-old son. We sat at the farthest right table in this photo, next to an older couple. We ate homemade bagels,  I sipped coffee, and we both enjoyed some rare down time.

My husband and I have entered that phase of parenthood, or should I say our sons have entered that phase of their own lives, where down time is an anomaly.

In Praise of Soccer Moms

This afternoon, I found myself riding in the front seat of a minivan, heading north on the Garden State Parkway to a travel soccer game. My driver was a friend named K., just 30, with three children, ages 10, 8 and 5. Traveling with us were my 12-year-old son and her oldest, her daughter K, a fifth grader who plays up on a boys' travel team.

As she drove, K. fielded phone calls on her cell phone from her husband, from other soccer coaches and from the managers of three other soccer teams with which she is involved. It occurred to me, that were it not for women like K. my son never would have played what is now his ninth soccer season with our local club. K. never finished college, but she has the management skills of someone running a thriving business.

Without women who stay home for at least part of their children's childhoods, so much of what other children in my suburban community enjoy - the travel soccer teams, the privately subsidized public schools' music programs, and so on, would not exist.