Six years ago, I was in Costa Rica learning about Children At Risk. One day, my friends and I noticed a new guy in the dinning hall. I had no intention of ever talking to that dread-headed hippie, but my friends were much friendlier than I, and invited the new guy to sit with us. …
I recently noticed Monkey has assigned ownership to probably everything in the house. There’s obvious things like the baby’s bottle, or Monkey’s plastic plates and bowls. Monkey owns all the monkeys and baby sister owns everything which has a lion on it. Last spring, before Monkey learned her colors, she noticed Duane and I used our …
Scenario #1 It’s morning, the baby is “squiging” (wiggling and sucking her fingers), and I need to make milk. Monkey is awake and eating breakfast with Dada. Should I: A) Go out to the kitchen to warm a bottle for the baby, so I can feed her in the bedroom while making milk. Monkey will …
Recently a sweet little boy asked, “why does her face look funny?” I knew soon enough someone would ask, but I hadn’t thought about what I would say. I fumbled something about missing cheek bones, just like her Daddy, and called my husband over to show his fake ears to the boy. The boys was, as …
After meeting our baby Lioness, our friend’s 3 year old son told his mama he wanted a baby. She asked “do you want a baby brother or sister?” He answered, “I want baby Ah-sha-sha.” So his mama asked, “what do you like about her?” He responded, “I like her face.” For the past 4 months …
Just because it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, doesn’t negate the fact the past several months have been really tough in several different ways. There’s been a lot of struggles, hurts, stresses, and disappointments. The biggest challenge for me were the events surrounding Lioness’ birth. We had looked forward to having a …
It’s a lovely winter morning. I am making milk, while holding the baby. She gives me a big smile as I hear a massive poopoo blow out. Suddenly my lap is damp. Meanwhile, Monkey is shoving crayons in my hands and requesting “helpa me color.” Suddenly she announces “I need helpa potty!” Which really means “I …
Not much changed when Monkey was born. For the most part, our lives continued as usual, just stopping to nurse a baby every 2 hours and change her diaper. We still did spur-of-the moment movie nights with friends. Or had friends over for board games, while Monkey crawled around underfoot. We still went to meetings …
Back when Duane and I were engaged, I joined a women’s Bible study on a book called “Lies Women Believe” or something like that. Chapter after chapter, I thought “duh, of course that’s a lie.” Maybe sometimes I acted like that lie was true, but I did know it was a lie. I agreed with …
With each pre-term labor scare (and I had several), I would be up all night thinking, “I can’t do this. I’m not ready for this.” Feeling thankful when labor stopped by the morning, only to be frustrated that I was still pregnant for another day. By 39 weeks, I began to wonder if she was ever …
