Love isn’t love. Until you give it away. She leans in to talk to me, dark eyes sparkling. A beauty of a girl. I ask her what she has planned for the rest of the weekend. And then, her face lights up. And she tells me that she is going to see her son as …
Summer heat, haze of humidity presses down. I am sitting on the porch swing. It is August, and I have escaped to get a break from the children, from the craziness going inside the house. I settle in with a good read, or so I hope. And occasionally, I look up from my book to …
I am standing in front of him, my fists clenched. I feel frustration in every pore, every cell. My blood pressure is on the rise. Pulsating. Throbbing. Everything is crashing down around me, and I feel the weight of the world on my shoulders. Sometimes a day just seems to bring more than one has …
Cherish. A word that speaks of highly valued treasure. A mother-colleague spoke today of her family and made reference to the fact that her three teen-aged children knew they were cherished. That they felt cherished by her and her husband. And we talked about the significance of this fact to our children’s lives. Mine included. …
What if we saw the best in people? When our spouse offered to do something in a way that we did not prefer, instead of complaining, we saw the good in the effort. Not how annoying it was that they did it differently. Or wrong. Or what if when our children decided to ‘help out’, …
I feel discouragement tonight covering me like a dark, heavy cloak. This has been one of those days of joy-less mothering. Of difficult parenting. Of challenging discussions. Of battered emotions and low self- efficacy. Of wondering ‘what if’ and ‘how come.’ Of hopelessness. And just now, as I sit and contemplate where I am with …
Most of our conversations these days are had in snippets- across the kitchen counter as supper meal is in preparation, inside the van en route to one activity or another. Or carried out with me at one end of the dining room table and him at the other, conversing whilst we sit down to another …
Sometimes all the patience is sucked out, like a Hoover that tirelessly lives up to its brand. Or perhaps like my new LG- promising that life will be good when you use the label. But when air is emptied from within, like a sucker punch to the gut, and all patience, understanding, joy and hope …
As a mom, I feel pressure to capture and preserve every waking moment of my four children’s lives. To photograph, video-tape, blog, anecdote; to keep a baby calendar, baby-record book, family scrapbook, and personal diary; to Facebook, Pinterest, Tweet and Instagram for the love of my children; and to do things the old-fashioned way: write …
It has been one of those days where I could just lay on the bed and cry about the gloominess of it all. I feel like Eeyore. I have misplaced an essential: my ability to feel the joy. And when that happens, one is left with two choices: recoil or embrace. Cry or laugh. So …
We have a life light, shining outward from the soul- that compels us, in different ways and through various methods, to move forward. Beyond. That insists we “keep-on-keeping-on”. That urges us to place one foot in front of the other and move into the future. That causes us to not stand idle for longer than …
I have been having quite a few of those days. Ah, you know those days I’m talking about! Those days when all you can do is look at your toes and scuffle along. Those days when you feel like the process of looking upward is just too difficult. Or so it seems. That the sun …