Monthly Archives: August 2015

But what about the children’s souls?

If you had to pick the single most important duty as a parent, what would it be? Your children’s health and well being? Your children’s education and cultivating their natural talents? 

In the midst of the secularization of our society, much time and energy has been spent obsessing over how we can send our children out into this world as paragons of human health and superior scholastic achievement. But the question must be asked: are they good people? 

This mentality pervades our thinking as parents from the moment we realize we are pregnant. How many times have we said, “as long as the baby is healthy?” When our children our older, we tend to brag about their good grades or athletic abilities with no mention of whether we are raising people of integrity or not. read more

Snapchat for Old Fogies

I noticed a rash of my favorite bloggers lately started using an app called “Snapchat.” I had heard of it, of course. It seemed to be all the rage with the young-ins a while ago. I didn’t pay much attention to it because between Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest, I really felt like there wasn’t any more room left for time wasters in my life. Because at some point the kids get really whiny when I don’t feed them. So needy.

But then yet another mommy blogger confessed that she was now addicted to it, so I decided to check it out. Maybe I could just buy some of those automatic food dispensers for the kids and leave some Cheerios and water in it. read more

Potty Training from the Trenches

Why yes, I am going to bore you with a post about potty training since I have potty trained a grand total of two kids now.  There is so much advice out there on potty training already, I figured I’d add to the noise. Because you can never have too much advice on potty training, am I right? 

Right. So, I do have to disclose that this will probably only pertain to girls, as little girls are the only thing I have experienced. I’m like that song from Annie. “Some women are drippin in diamonds. Some women are drippin in pearls. Lucky me, lucky me, look at what I’m drippin in, little girls!”  read more

Rhea is 3 months!

It kind of stinks having a baby at the beginning of the summer because come August when everyone else is talking about how they are so ready for boots and sweaters and pumpkin spice lattes, you’re all: Wait, what? Where did the whole summer go? I thought it had just started! 

But I can’t really complain. Spending a summer inside snuggling with a newborn has its advantages. We love our happy Rhea-baby.

  
Milestones: Rhea coos and babbles up a storm. She will take any excuse to flash you a toothless grin and start “talking” to you. She is sleeping for longer stretches at night, mostly between 9 pm and 2 am. After that, it is pretty much a crap shoot as to how much she is going to wake up to nurse or not. Some nights, she only wakes up once. Some nights, it seems like she is waking up every hour. She holds her head up really well, and I am able to hold her on my hip in the typical baby hold. I remember it took Wren forever to have that much back strength. She hates tummy time and will not hold her head up while she is doing that, however. Stubborn baby. She isn’t rolling over yet, but all of my girls have been late doing that. (Must be something I am doing wrong.) read more

Weird Stuff my kids say

Our Mondays consist of barely surviving. I have been spoiled all weekend by Scott’s reassuring presence, and then that is abruptly gone come Monday morning. Hence, there is always a period of adjustment for me as I come to terms with the fact that this is my circus and these are my monkeys. I like to call our Mondays “Hot Mess Mondays.” So in honor of Hot Mess Monday, I think it is fitting for me to be blogging during nap time instead of cleaning the kitchen in the aftermath of breakfast and lunch. Here are some little pearls that have come out of my children’s mouths. read more

Hey Mama, when your husband tells you you’re beautiful, stop disagreeing with him

A woman’s worth, it seems, is measured in how attractive she is to the public at large. I never noticed it when I was young and unmarried. I knew a lot of women suffered from body image issues, but I couldn’t understand why. Who cares if you look like some stranger in a magazine or not? I shrugged it off and went about my business.

Fast forward to after I got married and had my first child. Body image issues hit me like a ton of bricks. What had happened to my youthful appearance?! I had stretch marks etched on my hip (just one hip, so it wasn’t even symmetrical) a dark vertical line running down my midsection, and I looked like an overstuffed sausage in all of my pre-pregnancy clothing. I panicked. What was my husband going to think? He is going to be so horrified and wonder what happened to the girl that he married! read more