A Bittersweet Christmas
Christmas is a funny thing, isn’t it? Take the other night at my house: Christmas decorating night! We hauled out the boxes of decorations from…
Step Five out of Angry: Times of Unique Stress
I went in for my every-three-and-a-half-months, I’ve-put-this-off-too-long, please-cut-my-hair-so-it-doesn’t-look-like-I’m-wearing-a-lampshade appointment at the hairdresser. I have a headful of decidedly curly, i.e. forgiving but frizzy hair, quickly becoming more frizzy and less forgiving. I believe the dialogue went something like this.
Hairstylist: Are you under a lot of stress?
Me: Um, well, yeah. Some.
ADD: Our First Two Weeks After Diagnosis
It was as if I was watching a Polaroid photo develop. First, a vague figure appeared. “You know, we have a family history of ADD.”…
Helping Kids by Telling Stories
A friend was making friendly conversation with my oldest son during that “shake the hand of the person next to you” time in church. “You…
Moving to Africa
Because many of you have been with me as I have been “growing up” in my motherhood, I am elated (and only slightly terrified) to…
Mean Girls: My Story
A few nights ago found me at a dinner theater, silently viewing the musical Annie from a darkened front-row table. I watched with mixed emotions:…
An Ode to … Me
It was one of those checkout lines that was not made for women with four children seven years old and under. Twenty, maybe thirty minutes…
Avoiding Burnout: 31 Tips for Entering the No-Fry Zone
Author’s note: Some of you know that I struggle painfully with overcommitting, overworking, and a number of other (uh, prideful, fearful, faithless…) related issues that…
10 Practical Ideas to Help Stop the Whining, Already!
Does your family have a whiner? (Do you grimace when I mention this person?) One of my children, who is five, has managed to bring…
A Book of “Me”
As a fun teaching tool at our house — and you’ve probably heard of it before — I landed on the idea of making an…