Category: motherhood

WOW! So it’s 2016 already?!

That means it’s going on 11 years since I started my motherhood journey. And this blog has seen me through the majority of it! I have grown and learned so much over the past decade. It’s been quite a ride. I look back on earlier posts and remember those days when the kids were little, and I was barely hanging on. Lots of good and happy moments…but I know that the girl I was back then didn’t really know who she was yet. I didn’t know what it meant to be a mom and still be ME. I didn’t know what it meant to be a mom, period. Most of the journey to figure it out was slow and the change was unnoticeable. But there were also some major milestones along the way that seemed to launch me right into a new chapter almost overnight. Like when I discovered that being a mom didn’t have to be the ONLY thing to define me.  And that I could still have big dreams and think outside the box…and that doing so might not be to the detriment of my children’s well-being, but actually a precursor to it. I wrote about that season HERE…I was never ever the same kind of mom after that. And I’m so grateful.

Continue reading 2016: Where I’ve been and Where I’m going

I’ve got 25 minutes until the kids come home from school. I’m sitting in my living room with a Christmas candle burning, Steve Harvey on the television, and a pile of clean laundry sitting next to me that I know I eventually need to fold. Baby napping, it’s a chance to take in a quiet moment.

And yet, my heart is restless. I can’t concentrate. I feel this wild pull to sort my thoughts, not the clothes.

Ever since Friday, we have been reeling, feeling, discussing, arguing, and deciding. Sorting.

I’m reading the comments, the posts, the pleas, the exhortations, the rhetoric, the propositions….

And I dig deep into my my heart, soul and mind with all my strength and I am asking like the rest of you…

“What are we to do?”

I think we all want to pass this test.

Continue reading I don’t know…

 

So it’s been a while since I’ve officially confessed something here, and given the name of my website, this is unacceptable. So here’s one:

I have a horribly underdeveloped  way of dealing with vacations. I am (not at all metaphorically) a 4 year old child when it comes to vacations. Because…

1) I absolutely LOVE them. The first time I got to visit Disney World with my children, I thought my heart was going to explode under the enormous weight of SHEER JOY. I have to give a shout out to my mother and father in law here who SIGNIFICANTLY contributed to it being the best experience EVER…largely because of their meticulous planning, generosity and saint-like patience holing up with me and my Littles for 10 days. The experience was also awesome, well, because Disney. But I may or may not have been more excited in Disney World than my kids. I wore Mickey Ears, volunteered for the story book times and was shamefully giddy upon meeting Princess Belle (my all time FAVE). All in all, I would say vacations totally ROCK. BUT….

Continue reading And the Living is Easy…

I hesitate to even write this as there are millions of voices already clamoring to be heard in the midst of this devastating tragedy. And the more talking there is, the noisier it gets.

And the harder it is to listen.

I am not a politician, nor am I a member of the NRA. I don’t understand much about mental illness, especially the shadowed corners of a human mind that can carry out something so evil.

I am a mother. I am a mother who welcomed her 1^st grader home from school on Friday with grief in my eyes.  She asks me what’s for snack. I stare at her Tinkerbell backpack and hold in sobs. For my child, life goes on like any other day. And yet for others…

“WHY is this happening?!” we cry.

And we are pummeled with answers: Gun control, mental illness, policy, religion….our hearts cry out for restitution and relief, while our minds struggle to analyze and problem-solve. Similar to the 9-11 tragedy, we begin looking for a way to rebuild.

But with so many opinions, where do we start? Continue reading Ears to Hear

 

So I decided I’m boycotting Mother’s Day next year. Can I do that?

Here’s the reason. For two years in a row now, I’ve had a less than stellar Mother’s Day. I know, I know…how is that possible when you have the best family on the planet?!

Well I can start by telling you what is NOT to blame. It has nothing to do with all that mumbo jumbo about having unrealistic expectations in regards to holidays. You know the whole idea about how we women put so much pressure on the day that it inevitably fails to live up to our high hopes?

No, no …THAT is a rookie mistake that only newlyweds make. It only took me a few years to learn that you’re not supposed to expect too much,…that way you can be really knocked out when something goes awesomely.  Once I let go of hopes that my husband would hire someone to skywrite, “You’re the world’s best mother” across the horizon during a sunset dinner, things began to go much more smoothly.

Continue reading Happy Un-Mother’s Day!

Today I’m a guest blogger at Laura Kroko’s website, Beholding Glory. She is a mother three children and the author of a bible study called, “Beholding Him, Becoming Missional”. I just finished leading 20 women through the study at my church and it was GREAT!!

This post is a part of a series Laura is doing called “Creation revealing the Glory of God”. Be sure to subscribe to her blog so you can see all the posts in this series! To see my guest post, please click  HERE!