I have a stubborn, finicky five-year-old. Who tries to convince me and everyone else otherwise with his charming blue eyes. No really. He’s stubborn and finicky. It is for this reason that, when he began swimming on his own two weeks before his first round of swimming lessons, I texted his father and said “Swim […]
The Lilies, the Snakes, and the Misplaced Boob.
It was time for a new adventure. And I wanted to see firsthand, for the first time in my life, The Cahaba Lily. It’s a famed flower in our area, being very rare, quite endangered, and living in sparse, hard-to-access clumps along the Cahaba River, which is a relatively tiny waterway that winds itself through […]
How Mommy Nobel Peace Prizes are Won.
“I’m having a bad day.” “I’m having a bad day too.” “Wanna join forces and do something really difficult together?” “Sure! Let’s be sure to take on something so challenging that it will surely be physically impossible for us to accomplish it with the quantity and ages of children that will be accompanying us.” “Perfect! I’ll pick […]
Marketing 101: A Crucial Skill For Parents.
Last Wednesday night, Ali had her Awanas awards ceremony. Noah had his Cubbies banquet the week before, and I remembered the agony of trying to get him to sit still through Ali’s ceremony last year. It negated any ability I had to celebrate my oldest child, and I had no desire for a repeat. So […]
For my Wistful Future Self.
A few weeks ago, I shared this video on Instagram. This is Noah’s current favorite phrase to me, thanks much to Farkle from “Girl Meets World.” When your five year old watches every episode of Girl Meets World 20 times with his nine year old sister…and he picks Farkle as his role model. It works […]
Minecraft, Soap Opera Mod.
“You know, I bet you and the kids would really love Minecraft, as much as y’all are into Lego.” This sentence, spoken by a very naïve version of myself sometime last year, solely goes to prove that “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” is a LIE. Since that […]
On Oldies and Parenthood.
As a kid, I remember my parents singing us the oldies. My mother had goofy taste – her favorite lullabies included She wore an itsy bitsy teeny tiny yellow polka dot bikini and Yellow Submarine and Puff the Magic Dragon. (Not sure what my Mom was doing during the sixties and seventies but really it’s […]
The Perils of Standing Up.
It took weeks of parental foot-putting-down for us to convince Noah to stand up to pee. He liked sitting down just fine and saw no reason to stand, thank you very much. Lazy peeing is good peeing. And finally, when out of sheer obedience he would stand, he would inch closer and closer to the […]
On Parenting The Male Variety.
“That bad smell you’re sniffin’ is my feet.” Because that’s what a little boy tells his sister, who is across the room, when she happens to have the sniffles. He was sitting in my lap, though, so I should know – he wasn’t wrong. His shoes have smelled so dead-rotted-carcass lately that one night I […]
Stumbling Into Epic Adventure
“I’m starting to feel antsy to get out of town again – I guess that’s a good sign.” I had just told Chris that last Sunday, and it was the first time I’d even thought about leaving town since the all-too-often mentioned wreck twelve weeks ago. Sitting with my legs down for more than half an hour […]