I’m saying goodbye to kindergarten as my last baby finished his kindergarten year. With summer coming to an end soon I realize how much I will miss kindergarten. Kindergarten is a new beginning. It’s the first foray into school life with so many new adventures. It’s exciting to finally go to a big school with the big kids and ride the big bus. My youngest watched his two older brothers ride the bus for years. He’d wave to the bus as it drove away from the bus stop and left him behind watching ... Continue Reading...
Poolside Mama
This post contains affiliate links, includes beach chair review. The views listed here are 100% my own. Read why I love these chairs! Poolside Mama is the badge I wear all summer because we have an in-ground pool at our house. My three boys swim daily so they have become amazing swimmers! They are now fishes so I don’t need to hover over them in the pool anymore, however, I am always present. Sometimes I swim also, especially when it’s hot. Having a pool is definitely work with the ... Continue Reading...
A Letter to my Mother in Heaven
Dear Mom, I miss you. I wish you were here. I can tell you a mom is irreplaceable for a child. When a mom dies, her child is no longer whole. The loss makes it hard to breathe. That child flails in the wind like a cottonwood seed. A piece of fluff that gets knocked about the world by the wind. Sometimes I landed on solid ground, sometimes I landed in a pond and almost drowned. But I’m still here. I survived. In the year after your death my dreams plagued me whether they were about your ... Continue Reading...
Five Ways to Teach Kindness to Kids
Kindness as a way of life is something I want to teach my three kids. The three of them fight; I mean they fight a lot. Of course they fight, they are siblings. But I also see kindness woven in between the fights like threads of shining hope that one day they will be kind adults. They are knit together as siblings like a mat of ever-changing interactions and some days I'm frustrated by more angry threads than kind threads. I let the kind threads shine through by highlighting them and ... Continue Reading...
When Another Kid Is A Poor Sport And It Hurts My Kid
For The Love of Football My son loves football. The season is almost upon us again and those fears of what other kids will do to him rattles my nerves already. I’m afraid of what the kids who are poor sports will do to him. He has been the victim of unsportsmanlike behavior that has enraged this mama bear to the edge. It has taken all my restraint to not go ballistic. Kids get riled up and they might go too far, and I get that. But when it’s a blatant act of intent to do harm, my blood ... Continue Reading...
Breastfeeding Taught Me To Love Being Trapped In Parenting Obligations
My boys are older now and I drive them to so many activities that breastfeeding them is just a memory. I can easily conjure up those feelings of breastfeeding closeness because the joy of it was so full and complete. Breastfeeding was a bonding experience I remember with joy even though I often felt trapped by it. Reflecting on my time spent breastfeeding has taught me to love each moment of being trapped in parenting obligations for every stage as my kids grow. This post contains affiliate ... Continue Reading...
An Ordinary Day to Cherish
Home It’s mid-summer and it was an ordinary day at our house. An ordinary day to cherish with family. We were all home. We were all taking our time to do what we wanted and needed to do. We weren’t in a rush. There was no school to get to. There was no homework or rushing off to a sports game or practice. We were just existing; we were just living. No one was sick. We had no catastrophes slapping us in the face. We were just a family enjoying our home together for the day. We were present ... Continue Reading...
Fight Violence with Blankets, Love, and Hope
It’s July and I want a blanket in this heat. I want to comfort myself in a blanket, in something other than what I see on the news. I want to ignore the details of the stories. I want them to not touch my heart because it hurts too much to know it. I want to pretend it all didn’t happen. Yet I can’t stop myself from listening; I can’t stop myself from hearing about the recent violence in the news. It’s been a horrific onslaught of senseless terror. My heart yearns to help those ... Continue Reading...
My Labor with a Midwife and a Physician
My three birthing experiences were completely different. With my first son labor was natural with a midwife who performed hypnosis on me (which worked to reduce my pain for a good portion of the labor), and a bit of Pitocin to finish dilation. My third son’s birth was a planned C-section and interestingly the quickest and easiest recovery. My middle son’s birth had all possible labor scenarios: overdue induction, natural labor with a midwife, dysfunctional labor progression with ... Continue Reading...
When Letting Kids Quit is the Best Thing for Them
I hate quitters. If I say I’m going to do something, I do it. And I teach my kids to be the same way. As a parent, I did something I never thought I’d do, I encouraged my son to be a quitter. He’s an athletic kid who plays football and basketball. He has played soccer and baseball too. Team sports have been his love. This year as a middle school student, track was an option and, as a fast runner, he thought he’d try it. He made it halfway through the season and started to talk ... Continue Reading...
