Last weekend, I was sitting in mass in the first or second row as usual, and this day I happened to be holding my seven-month-old son Michael during the Eucharistic Prayer. He’s a “glasses grabber,” and so I took off my glasses to avoid him getting them. Now, without my glasses I have really bad [...]

As a Catholic father, I experienced something new last week that I’ve never felt before. For quite some time, my son, the Extraordinary Boy, aged not-quite-eight, has been telling me that he’d like to be an altar-server. Last week, he was scheduled for his first training session. Our parish is run by the Canons Regular [...]

So a few weeks ago, the Extraordinary Wife and I decided it was time to give our 7-year-old son, the Extraordinary Boy, an allowance. Here are the terms: They have daily chores to do. If these are done, the boy gets $2.50 per week. If he helps with the trash, he gets an extra $1. [...]

Thank you Lord, for all our many blessings,For warm dry homes, for enough to eat,For healthy children, and for those who are not healthy,For our own health, even when it fails. Lord, thank You for our accomplishments and our successes,But even more for our failures and our fears,For it is the times of trial that [...]

At our house, we don’t eat meat on Friday. The Extraordinary Mother-in-Law presented the kids with many books (she’s a schoolteacher, this is in character for her), including for the Extraordinary Boy (soon to be 7, but reading at the third-grade level) a book of fish-riddles. Among the fish jokes, this classic: “What a is [...]

The Extraordinary Boy made his first Reconciliation today! First Communion tomorrow! Father unspeakably proud!

The remarkable thing about this story is not what it says, but that it comes from the AP, via MSNBC: NEW YORK – In American pop culture, the face of abortion is often a frightened teenager, nervously choosing to terminate an unexpected pregnancy. The numbers tell a far more complex story in which financial stress [...]

Reiterating once again the basis for my belief that large Christian families are the best hope for the future of our nation, we find this statistic that conservative Christians have 78% more children than secular liberals (H/T: Faithmouse): Writing in the Wall Street Journal, social scientist Arthur Brooks notes that if you pick 100 adults [...]

Catholic Moms’ blogs always have recipes in them. No doubt that’s a good thing. Here’s a good recipe for Dad to make for the kids (and himself); odds are no Mom will touch it, to cook or to eat: The Regular Guy’s Four Cheese Macaroni with OctopusesIngredients 2 boxes mac & cheese cheddar cheese 2 [...]

Last year, a gathering of astronomers redefined what a planet is, in such a way as to exclude Pluto from the definition of what a planet is. Since 1910, they’ve been telling us that Pluto was the 9th planet. Now they say it isn’t. To most people hearing that news (indeed, to most of the [...]