I went to Spain so I wouldn’t need to make any decisions. Liam, our 20-year-old, is spending this semester studying in Spain, and two of my friends offered to...
Family
When I was in eighth grade I was what I like to call a standard achiever. To me this meant doing the amount of work needed to get where I wanted to be and no...
Parents who want their children to grow in appreciation for and commitment to Mass are much like parents who are determined to make sure their kids go off to...
I was making dinner last January, my then-3-year-old following me around the kitchen like an insistent cat in want of food, when he asked me a question I...
As a child I attended a K–8 Catholic school and went to church with my family every Sunday. For me, Mass was a thing to get through so that we could go home...
Little ditty about Jack and Diane. Two American kids growin’ up in the heartland. John Mellencamp’s popular song makes me uneasy. Whenever it comes on the...
St. Catherine of Siena. Our Toyota Sienna minivan has an extra “n,” and on our busiest days I could be known as Annemarie of Sienna. (I did not include “Saint”...
No one wants to admit to having mice, because they think it reflects badly on their housekeeping skills. As if the mice are outside saying, “Hey, did you see...
When our son Liam, now 20, was in second grade, I have a clear memory of his focus on Catholicism. It was the year of his first communion, and in his Catholic...
When Katie and Kevin’s son Matthew was 2, Katie was concerned that he was getting lost in between his older brother Bennett and his baby sister Annabelle. “He...
