Last word

Lately, okay more than once a day, I am entangled in this web of where I fail miserably in trying my hardest, against my will no less, in keeping my mouth shut. The battle of the wills surmounts in the never-ending need to get the last word in, or is that out? In other words, I would like to break the cycle of continuous arguments with my children.

This largely occurs with my older two whenever it comes to chores, school work, when, how long and where they can spend time with their friends. I mean every time I say "no", "did you do your chores?" or "How about finishing your Math" etc... The correct answer being: "yes, Ma'am" or "no, Ma'am". However, I hear moans, groans, and the infamous but, but...it's not my fault!

Now reader, we have schedules of "to-do" lists for the work that is expected to be accomplished throughout a given day -- for all within the family. No one is exempt...For Goodness sakes! this is not at all new to anyone. So why the resistance? Why the weeping and gnashing of teeth? ARGH!!!!

I realize that yes, in fact, I am the parent here and not trying to make friends with my on-the-threshold-adolescent children. On many occasions I have been dubbed "the mean mommy" Although, I know this is par-for-the-course, yet it stings...a tad bit. No mom wants to be the meany. Yet, I know my actions and reactions toward the children's balking is to be firm while being loving. I lose site of loving them while remaining firm and lose the firmness while loving. The truth is I have never done this before. I've never raised a "tween" nor read the-book-of-the-month-club and lack the wisdom to write one on this topic.

I love my children very much. Let me be honest, there are those times -- those moments when, well, I'd like to hop on the next available plane and head for Bali or Greece to escape it all. Reality hits knowing that I could not nor should I do this...unless, of course, the trip is well thought out and planned with my husband's blessing :)

While my finger-tips quickly form the words of my heated thoughts, dear hubby is preparing dinner, so that is an escape. In the background the two youngest are arguing about who knows what. Hannah puts out the fire. Colin helps his father set the table. It is, afterall, his "kitchen duty". So, that is also a break, right?

Be thankful in the small moments. Ah! yes, to remain grateful.

Pray for me, a sinful mother, who seriously has no clue what she is doing. I live and pray only by God's grace - day to day. Thank God that is all He gives us...any more and this gal would find the nearest crazy house. Oh yes, she already lives there...

"Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth. A door of enclosure about my lips. Incline not my heart to evil words, to make excuses in sins..."Psalm 140:3-4a

Moments at the March for Life...

In the midst of the massive amount of God's faithful believers, here my family stood for four hours...may the prayers of all be according to God's ultimate will.

FDR with Hannah and Colin

I love this shot (well done DH) where you can get a glimpse of the amount of faithful that showed up on this beautiful sunny Washington DC day holding onto hope through their prayers

Met. JONAH of the OCA giving the first address to the faithful

Hannah united with Srs. Vicki and Martha from the Monastery of the Holy Transfiguration in Ellwood City, PA...happy smiles all around!

one of the many icon banners of St. Elizabeth and the Theotokos, as expectant mothers, bearing in their wombs the Forerunner John the Baptist and Jesus Christ, the Son of God!

Hannah with a friend, Lucy

FDR in the thick of it all...awesome!

The following is taken from the National Review by Frederica Matthews-Green

Just two days after the inauguration, another crowd fills Washington
streets, the pro-lifers who gather each year for the "March for Life." This
January 22 marks the 36th anniversary of Roe v Wade, and after so many years
with little change or improvement, the nation has grown a bit blasé about this
annual demonstration against abortion. We still say abortion is a "hot issue"-
but if you think about it, it's not as hot as it used to be. The abortion
controversy used to command cover space on magazines, and TV networks showcased
hour-long debates. You don't see that anymore.

You could say that
people just got tired of hearing about it. Year after year the two sides said
mostly the same thing, and nothing much changed. Eventually, public attention
was bound to sidle off to a newer, more exciting topic (gay marriage, anyone?).
When attention drifted, it was the pro-choice side that had command of the
status quo.
And you could say that that settles that; from now on there will
be less and less talk about abortion, and we'll just get used to things the way
they are.

But I can imagine things going a different way. Not
soon-maybe not till the baby boomers have passed from the scene-but it's
possible that a younger generation will see abortion very differently. And the
reason is, as the saying goes, "Nobody knows when life begins." With abortions
now running around 1.2 million per year, the total number of abortions since Roe
v Wade is about 49 million. That's a big number-about a sixth of the US
population. It's a big number, if you're not absolutely sure that it's *not*
life.

After all, if you saw a little girl hit by a car, you're
going to yell, "Get an ambulance!" not "Get a shovel!" It's in the very fabric
of humanity to be on the side of life, if there's the faintest hope that life
exists. We don't throw children away when we're not sure whether they're alive
or not. And, as the pro-choice side never stops saying, it's not that they're
positive a fetus is "not alive" - it's that they're not sure.

When
I was a young fire-breathing college feminist in the early 70's, we didn't see
abortion as a melancholy private decision-it was an act of liberation. By
choosing abortion, a woman could show that she was the only person in charge of
her life, and bowed to no one else's control. But this formulation turned sour
as the grief felt by post-abortion woman began to accumulate. The flip side of
autonomy is loneliness, and for many women, their abortion decision was linked
to emotional abandonment.

And then there was the advent of
ultrasound technology, enabling live images of a baby moving in the womb. In
1989, word went round the pro-life movement to order the tape of pollster
Harrison Hickman's presentation at that year's NARAL convention. On it he said,
"Nothing has been as damaging to our cause as the advances in technology which
have allowed pictures of the developing fetus, because people now talk about
that fetus in much different terms than they did 15 years ago. They talk about
it as a human being, which is not something that I have an easy answer how to
cure."

So there are some reasons to think that the abortion
question has not been settled, but has merely gone underground. That might be a
necessary step. It has to go away so that it can be rediscovered, and seen in a
fresh light.

I don't expect that reconsideration soon: my Boomer
generation will never see abortion as anything other than the wise and
benevolent gift we bestowed on all future generations. We still control the
media, the universities, and so forth, and it will take time for all of us to
topple off the end of the conveyer belt.

But the time is coming
when a younger generation will be in charge, and they may well see abortion
differently. They could see it, not as "a woman's choice" but as a form of
state-sanctioned violence inflicted on their generation. It was their brothers
and sisters who died; anyone under the age of 36 could have been aborted (and
somewhere around a fourth or a fifth of all pregnancies, in fact, are aborted).
A younger generation might feel a strange kinship with the brothers and sisters,
classmates and coworkers, who are missing.

And I'm afraid that, if
they do see things that way, they aren't going to go easy on my generation. Our
acceptance of abortion is not going to look like an understandable goof. The
next generation can fairly say, "It's not like they didn't know." They'll say,
"After all, they had sonograms." And they may judge us to be
monsters.

Maybe that won't happen. Maybe future generations won't
think twice about abortion. But even we who have grown sick of talking about it
still harbor some doubts. In particular, people who think of themselves as
defenders of the weak and the oppressed must have many a quiet moment when they
wonder, "How, in this one issue, did I wind up on the side that's defending
death?"

There's a lot of ambivalence out there, and a lot of
unspoken grief too, I think. So you never know. Pro-choice may have won the
day-but sooner or later, that day will end. No generation can rule from the
grave. When that time comes, another generation will sit in judgment of ours.
And they are not obligated to be kind.********Frederica Mathewes-Greenwww.frederica.com

March for Life

Thirty five years ago on January 22, 1973, Roe Vs. Wade, altered the course of our moral history.

I am in silence today, in prayer for the unborn, the aborted, the women living with the aftermath of their choice to either abort or who have chosen to keep their unborn child.

My thoughts extend to the Theotokos where she was alone, never knowing a man. Yet, in the midst of being unwedded, she willingly gave her life -- her body to bear the Son of God for all of mankind.

For many years I have dreamed of attending the March for Life in Washington DC, but my husband and the two eldest are going instead (too long a day with the little ones) along with a handful from St. Vladimir's Seminary consisting of priests, students, wives, and families. In prayerful efforts they will hold onto their icons and banners.

This year Metropolitan Jonah will lead the Orthodox delegation at the March for Life and will be the first religious leader to speak at the rally on Capital Hill. They also will be joining Saint Tikons Seminary and the large Orthodox Christian for Life http://www.oclife.org/oclife.html contingent in the March for Life from the White House to the Supreme Court for a prayer service. From there they will go to St. Nicholas Cathedral.

Please take a moment to pray... every day on this decision. May our Lord have mercy on us all!

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0410_0113_ZS.html
a great site from Cornell University describing Roe vs. Wade. You can also Wikipedia the topic.

http://www.marchforlife.org/

Time

Time is short, and it is unknown when it will expire.
Therefore, let us struggle and be careful and expel every evil thought with
anger and fervent prayer. And if we shed tears, we shall benefit greatly,
for tears cleanse the soul and make it whiter than snow. Let us stand
ready for battle courageously, for we wrestle against the powers of darkness, which never make allies and never lessen their attacks. Therefore, let us rouse ourselves and not be drowsy, for our eternal life is at stake. If we lose the victory, we have lost our soul, have utterly lost eternal rest and joy in God, and have condemned ourselves to the second death, which is eternal separation from God-may this not come to pass

Elder Ephraim of the Holy Mountain

Family photo Opp...

During break we were blessed by my father-in-law the opportunity to have professional pictures taken. This was a wonderfully relaxed day since he gave us this photo session as a gift and it was gratefully received for many reasons: 1) professional photos are expensive 2) who can ever get a family of six all together in a relaxed atmosphere? and 3) they were taken with "us" in mind where we were not treated as the "next customer".

So thank you Tom, thank you for these treasured moments!

Hannah is 10!

She is full of passion, resiliency, spunk, ambition and incredibly organized! Her daddy wonders what he'd do without her...and I feel the same. Yesterday Hannah Elizabeth turned 10. We ventured into the city with her favorite cousin, Gabrielle, who came to stay with us. We ate at The Hard Rock Cafe and enjoyed The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway. She is still flying on cloud 9, or in her case...cloud 10!

May God grant you many-many years, our dear wonderful-in-a-blink-of-an-eye-too-grown-up-daughter!