I’ve never read any of the other blogs out there about what happens to moms when they stop yelling at their kids. I’ve seen them, friends have shared them on my news feed plenty. I’ve just never been the sort of person who likes to… Read More
I think somewhere in my eagerness to begin homeschooling, I had created a vision in my mind that reality has failed to live up to. Now that we’re about half a year in, I’m starting to bend and make way for the reality that this… Read More
I stood in front of her, knelt to her level, eye to eye, for as much as she could look at me. Her eyes darted over my shoulder, down to the floor, back to mine, again and again. Her eyes fluttered, watered, welled up and… Read More
Turbo TV is on in the background. My kids are having friends over and are up late on a school-night, watching television. I hear a character announce himself, defiantly, I am the fastest on this planet! In a world of racing snails and aliens (seriously,… Read More
Dear Lila, Yesterday, you curled on the couch and covered your head with pillows while the rest of us began school. I did not yell. Yesterday, your ears turned deaf when I gently asked you to come to the table. Your weight shifted on the… Read More
From this spot in my bedroom, I see the Lake of Laundry at the foot of the bed, swelling after a week of wash, dry, and dump into a heap before repeating the cycle, before running out the door to our next great adventure. From… Read More
This will pass. This will pass. This will pass. This will…can you PLEASE just do what I’ve asked without being disrespectful to me or annoying to your siblings? …pass. This will pass. It has to. I’m telling myself this as I load the dishwasher, with… Read More
I’m just going to go ahead and be honest here. I had a moment last week, a whole week moments, really, a week of lessons that quickly devolved into little more than coloring and writing letters to Santa and watching Veggie Tale movies about the… Read More
Wait. Expect. Ponder. Wonder. Eleven months of rushing, racing, scrambling over top of ourselves, for this. This short moment each year, where we sit and we wait. We expect. We ponder. We see the wintry world through the eyes of our children and through our… Read More
There was a quiet snowfall. Cinematic clumps of white, drifting and swirling down to the church parking lot, where I stood, chin to the sky, mouth open. About half a dozen kids and I, giggling and licking at the winter sky. Welcome, winter. Welcome, Christmas… Read More
The Frozen Moon 