Category Archives: Children
Happy? Valentines Day.
I was 8 years old when I first had my heart broken. I had recently changed schools, had only two friends in my entire grade (both of whom had a different teacher than me) and had the biggest crush on a boy that I was convinced was the CUTEST boy for sure in my class, if not in the world.
A few weeks after we recieved our school pictures, after much of my own personal plotting and heart-drawing and fancy-name writing, I boldly walked up to my crush, who was seated atop the jungle gym and thrust out my hand, holding a wallet-size image of my face and said “this is for you.” He briefly looked down at my photo, then glanced up to me and said Read the rest of this entry
Ummm… Excuse me… This is NOT the portion I ordered…
I have heard at least 10,023 times in my life that God never promises to bless us with an “easy” life if we choose to follow Him. While this statement might correct my unhealthy feelings about that to which I believe I ought to be entitled, no matter how many time I hear it, it continues to do nothing for those moments in which the hurt feels too great to bear, and life has not just become difficult, it actually starts to feel overwhelming and like He’s just altogether abandoned me.
Then there is that moment in all our lives in which we are forced to make the realization that we actually don’t get a say in the final determination about who gets to live, who gets to keep their innocence, who gets a “fair” and fighting chance to grow and flourish and become who they are inside without outside tragedy taking it from them and it’s … well… it’s horrible. Read the rest of this entry
From the Archives… Part 2
Today’s post is a continuation of material I’m calling “archives”, which are a series of journal entries and emails from previous years’ experiences. This particular post consists of one email written to my family and good friends a few years ago, when I was about 7 months pregnant with my son: Read the rest of this entry
…hands full
I don’t think I could even begin to count the number of times I’ve received comments (or worse, looks) while in the grocery store, drugstore, or pharmacy that sound exactly like this: “Oh my… you have your hands full.” Of course, such comments usually seem to come when I’m either blissfully unaware of how ridiculous a scene my three children and I might be or when I’m utterly exhausted and have given in to all of my children’s crying and am allowing them all to eat of out unpurchased cereal boxes, while explaining to my almost-seven-year-old that it is NOT stealing because we are planning to pay for them, meanwhile praying that my headache subsides and that my one-year-old doesn’t choke on the handful of high-fructose-corn-syrup pellets he’s just shoved into his mouth. Read the rest of this entry
From the Archives, Part I…
At about six months pregnant with our son, I started to really notice how difficult it was to move baskets of laundry, tantruming one-year olds and bags containing laptops (or diapers) up or down a flight of steps. Additionally, recent high blood sugar levels had resulted in my failing the screening for Gestational Diabetes, my hormone-affected hair was growing out an odd brown color in the front of my head and I had begun to find cellulite in the most unthinkable places of my body (the least of which were my upper arms, which had, infallibly, always been my stand-by best feature).
As if those things were not enough, 
Read the rest of this entry
a Matter of Granola
I recently started a daily regimen that includes approximately 20 vitamin-rich, horse-sized capsules, multiple rounds of aloe vera “shots” and new eating patterns. While I appreciate the difference I’m already feeling physically, I have to admit that I kind of feel like a huge poser…
The most significant internal conflict occurs when restocking my vitamin supply; I will catch myself making any number of ridiculously cynical statements while paging through the product catalogue. (Seriously, though, how can I not make fun of some of this stuff?!) There are pages of herbal supplements which literally promise to “help relieve stressed nerves”, “promote a sense of well being” or “promote relaxation”… just reading the descriptions promotes images of a bunch of stereotypical hippies trying to legalize marijuana and throwing in a breathy “man” at the end of every other statement.
If my new nutrition program does what it’s expected to do, I am planning to be approached with a waiver from the company that produces the products I am using… you know, similar to the offer Abercrombie & Fitch made to “The Situation”, only without the monetary portion and more like a request to sign a confidentiality waiver – as in “please keep it confidential that you are using our products”. Read the rest of this entry
…and a Happy New Year
I heard last week that one in every seven years, Christmas in the Midwest is brown… as in: bare trees, bare gardens, bare lawns… brown. I have no idea how true this statistic is, nor Read the rest of this entry
A TUPPERWARE FULL OF RESOLUTIONS
Last night, I pulled the last wad of tissue paper out of the last of the Christmas gift bags, pulled it apart, meticulously folded each piece (or at least semi-meticulously) and then proudly packed each piece of paper into a Tupperware container. Suddenly I realized how much I was reminding myself of my granny.
I have many memories of my dad’s mom, but perhaps the one that stands among the most vivid Read the rest of this entry
The beginning of…
I’m not sure why “heartwrenching” previews of movies about animals, without fail, always evoke an eyeroll from me… there is a particular one, right now, which features a fish and a prosthetic that seems to be ever-present on the previews of every movie we watch, and probably the reason I get the most annoyed is mostly the fact that from just watching the previews, I can tell it’s a movie that will make me cry– the kind of crying that makes the back of my throat hurt from trying so desperately to hold it back and that just comes out in huge tears, anyway, whilst I feel wildly inspired (to develop some kind of life-changing relationship with a fish?)… the image of me, sitting on my sofa, crying over a fish “tale” just feels so pathetic… why I would rather lose myself in some predictable romantic comedy, I don’t entirely want to know, and, I’m sure is more pathetic and likely not a promising sign of my intelligence, but it is the utter truth Read the rest of this entry
