• Family - Parenting

    Soft Kitty

    September 16, 2024 - By 

    Almost every night, I sing my children a bedtime song. But there is more to this story. The first thing you should know: I’m an awful singer. I can’t carry a tune no matter how hard I try. For this reason, I rarely sing for anyone other than myself. The second thing you should know: because of the first thing, I don’t generally enjoy singing “for an audience” for an extended period of time. I’m too self-conscious to have fun with it. BUT. Then I had my first baby and he needed a bedtime song. I put a lot of…

  • Family - Marriage - Parenting

    Our Story

    March 14, 2024 - By 

    We met at work in 2006. After I agreed to go on a first date with you to another state where I would meet your entire family and stay at your mom’s house and run around the farm in a dress and heels on our way to said date so you could help your dad smoke a badger out of the barn (also my first time meeting your dad) (WHEW) I guess something must have gone right because here we are. We’ve lived in small houses, in bigger houses, with roommates, without them, in apartments, and – for a time…

  • Family - Parenting

    A Visit to the Library with Small Children

    September 26, 2023 - By 

    One of the reasons I choose to record moments of my daily life is because they can so quickly be lost to the annals of time. Even if you remember the overall gist of what happened, it’s the small details you forget. And the best stories happen in the details. Our memories may be faulty but the things we write down will never be forgotten. This particular library visit is one that happened almost seven years ago, when my oldest was a toddler and my youngest was just over a year old. I stumbled upon it tonight, and -well –…

  • Family - Parenting

    The Importance of Being Bored

    June 19, 2023 - By 

    “I’m bored. What can I do? I’m soooooooo booorrrrrreeeed.” I have distinct memories of whining this very sentence to my parents for many years of my childhood. The response was usually along the lines of “go play outside” or “go read a book” or “go ride a bike” or, the ‘ole standby classic “YOU figure out something to do.” However, something is different when my children whine this at me these days, and the reason is: technology. Because of the options that are available to them versus the options available to me 30 years ago. With technology, there exists a…

  • Family - Fun - Parenting

    In the Blink of an Eye

    March 28, 2023 - By 

    I touched on this the other day, when I wrote: Time flies slowly then disappears in the blink of an eye. In our family, we are at that cusp. That age when you recognize that your kids are Big Kids. Just a few years away from Teenagers. That every moment they are still a Little Kid – you should cherish that. It’s almost a part of your past. They are almost too grown for those midnight nightmares and impromptu hugs and can-you-cut-the-crusts-off-my-bread. Which is why, as a grown woman of over 40 years old, for the last two nights I…

  • Family - Fun - Parenting

    Yes Day!

    July 31, 2022 - By 

    Ever since I let the boys watch that Jennifer Garner movie, Yes Day, the boys have been begging to have one of their own. For the uninitiated, a “Yes Day” is when you pick one specific day that the parents can’t say no to any request the kids have. Now, there are some ground rules. There is a monetary budget. There are no requests to travel outside of the city (or a set radius of your choosing). And no requests that impact the future (for example, they can’t ask for a puppy). We laid the ground rules (most of which…

  • Family - Fun - Marriage - Parenting

    Camping… Sort of

    April 23, 2022 - By 

    Now that most of the major outdoor house projects are complete (**fingers crossed**), the husband and I have made a goal to spend some weekends going camping as a family. We really haven’t done this (with kids) but once, at a campground just a stone’s throw from our house in Iowa. It was amazing, and we stayed in a tent, but it wasn’t quite like true nitty-gritty camping. You can read about it here. Well, the weather looked to be warm, and we didn’t have any plans, so we decided this weekend was going to be our inaugural Missouri camping…

  • Family - Marriage - Parenting

    I Had a Miscarriage

    October 15, 2021 - By 

    Let’s talk about it. I’d hope, by the title, that you will realize the serious content of this post. This is not funny, or witty, or irreverent, or insightful. It is raw and real and painful. But please, I hope you can do me (and my baby) the honor of reading it all the way through. I had a miscarriage. Let’s talk about it. I mean, let’s not just talk about my miscarriage. Let’s talk about them all. Statistics show that as many as one in three pregnancies can end prematurely. The odds are that you know someone who has…

  • Family - Parenting

    Real Life and Cookies

    August 2, 2021 - By 

    Do you know what it is? It’s chocolate-chip cookies, mid-mixing. You see, the boys and I were making a batch of cookies. Which sounds like a lot of fun. Some of my own favorite memories from my childhood including making chocolate-chip cookies with my mom. “But why,” you may ask, “isn’t there anyone actually making cookies in this photo?” Well, my friend, because my cookie-helpers are currently taking a 5-minute quiet time in their rooms. Sometimes they get along so well. And sometimes they bicker like cats and dogs over Every. Little. Thing. They fought over who got to break…

  • Family - Parenting

    I’ll Hold Your Hand

    July 16, 2021 - By 

    My oldest boy is over 4 feet tall. It won’t be long before he’s taller than me. Before he’s a tweenager and then a teenager and perhaps he will be embarrassed of me and roll his eyes at me and be convinced he knows it all. But for now, he’s still a snuggler. A hand-holder. An “I love you so much mom” hugger. Yesterday, when his younger brother had a playdate, A-man and I got some much needed one-on-one time. And as we walked across the parking lot to the big box store (in search of a toy he wanted)…