Tonight, I was telling Olivia, my sweet just about 2 year old, to keep her grubby mitts off the food that was waiting to go into the oven. She got frustrated with me, grabbed a piece of paper and pretending to read it, said, “shut up, mommy” and handed it to me with a humph. Oh goodness. I just laughed at her and moved her away … Continue reading “Shut Up, Mommy,” Saith the toddler
The best parenting analogy I have heard compared having a child to being given a plant. Some plants are more demanding to grow than others. Some are more sensitive to change. Some must be nurtured for many seasons before they will show their flowers and bear their fruit. Others are easy and sunny and thrive on neglect. We create a lot of trouble when we try … Continue reading What sort of garden do you grow?
I’m not one to put much stock in sterotypes, but I was raised Catholic. And I have Catholic guilt. Bad. But I’ve worked really hard to get rid of it and I’ve learned some things along the way. Like that the problem with Catholic guilt is that it relies on a very inaccurate view of how the world works. It’s mostly sustained by the holy trio of bad ideas:
1. Somehow everything is my responsibility
2 Everything that goes wrong is my fault.
3. What I want or think is almost certainly wrong.
Catholic guilt’s hard to get rid of because of the specter of pride lurking just over your shoulder. If you reject the triumvrent above, it’s because you are giving into pride. Giving into pride is giving into a delusion. Taking the risk of being delusional requires lots of evidence and really, what have you ever done that’s so special any ways?
One of the things which I have had to learn as part of the process of moving past feeling guilty for bothering people with my breathing is how to tell the difference between an excuse and a reason. Continue reading “Telling the difference between an excuse and a reason”
Michaela is my oldest daughter. After having 2 boys, I really wanted a daughter and somehow, I wound of with 3 of them (yes I do know how it works!) but Michaela started it all. And although this might sound like a strange thing to say about a not-quite-7-year-old, I admire Michaela a lot. She really is the most naturally positive, determined person I know. … Continue reading What Michaela is Teaching Me
So, I have my kids in the local public schools which has real drawbacks and benefits. One of the things I am struggling with is when – if ever – to push back over some the homework issue. Like has happened at a lot of schools, homework has creeped down into earlier and earlier grades. So, my 1st grader has nightly homework and my kindergartener … Continue reading Homework in kindergarten
Note: A few years back I did some writing for a now defunct Christian magazine. I never put these articles up here because the magazine owns the rights to them, but now that they are defunct, well, I’m going to share! In the early ‘90s Salt-n-Peppa famously sang “Let’s talk about sex, baby” and boy, oh boy do we take their exhortations to heart. Sex … Continue reading Let’s talk about sex, baby!
I have some argumentative children. Quarrelsome, you could say. Sometimes they will do something mind bogglingly absurd and then try to defend themselves by saying, “you never told me I couldn’t [paint the dog with gravy]/[microwave a stuffed animal]/[tell relatives how much I enjoy setting things on fire and seeing how long it takes for them to call you to express concern]/etc.” To which my … Continue reading “No Crapping in the Middle of the Living room!”
The more kids, the harder it is to keep the house clean. When you live in areas with Western levels of prosperity, there’s a lot of crap for kids to make a mess with! So to have more than a couple of kids, either you have to be a super organizer or you have a very high tolerance for mess. Or I suppose you could … Continue reading The real reason prosperous humans have fewer kids
I am not God (just in case you were confused – lol), but based on what I know about God and how he works – which admittedly may be all wrong – I have certain hypothesis about what God would want us to be saying about a variety of topics. And although it may seem blasphemous to those who think that we already know all … Continue reading What I think God would say about abortion
Want to drive yourself crazy? Do what I do: have a set of kids, wait 5 or 6 years and have another set. Try to figure out if you screwed up the first set so you can better parent the second set. It’s a terrible pastime, really; going back and revisiting every parenting decision you made along the way to try to judge the outcomes. … Continue reading Mom’s Going Crazy Recipe
The Upside Down World 