One Word 2013: Enough

January 4, 2013 By 27 Comments
dsc_6467

I wish I were a mom with constant craft supplies. I wish I had every kind of glitter available and fresh scented play-dough always waiting for little fingers to mash. I wish I were a mom who filled hours with learning, a mom who sent thank-you notes on time. I wish I had real, practical goals in my mothering life. I wish I weren’t just standing at the kitchen sink while my son begs me to play cars with him again. I wish I weren’t begging him to stop asking so I can finally mop the floor … [Read more...]

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Advent Poetry Series “Darkness”

December 14, 2012 By 7 Comments

Darkness For Behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people; but the Lord shall rise upon thee, and His glory shall be seen upon thee, and the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. -Handel’s Messiah (from Isaiah, chapter 60) Immensity, cloister’d in thy dear womb, / Now leaves His well-beloved imprisonment. -John Donne “La Corona” We are all some mother’s child, all born through great pain, then a flood of … [Read more...]

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Julie Bowen and our Bellies

March 5, 2012 By 10 Comments
Sculpture by Sigrid Herr via Sarah Bessey on Pinterest

Last night was a sucker punch of bedtime crazy. My screaming preschooler woke his brother up twice between the hours of 8 and 9:30. I was back and forth to them and finally finished bedtime at 10:30, three hours after it had started. I'm still at my parents and felt sorry for myself. So I poured a bowl of M&Ms and sat in the bathtub talking saltily to my husband on the phone until I finally said, while staring at my "smushy belly" (as August describes it adoringly), "I can't talk anymore. My … [Read more...]

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Julie Bowen and our Bellies

March 5, 2012 By 10 Comments

Last night was a sucker punch of bedtime crazy. My screaming preschooler woke his brother up twice between the hours of 8 and 9:30. I was back and forth to them and finally finished bedtime at 10:30, three hours after it had started. I'm still at my parents and felt sorry for myself. So I poured a bowl of M&Ms and sat in the bathtub talking saltily to my husband on the phone until I finally said, while staring at my "smushy belly" (as August describes it adoringly), "I can't talk anymore. My … [Read more...]

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Just Write: The Miracle

October 21, 2011 By 16 Comments
happy baby

You’re up at 5 am. They call this “sleeping through the night.” I groan and meet you in our secret place: dark room, soft carpet, a rocking chair in the corner. The glow of nightlight feels sacred when I’m here, like I’ve been roused from my sleep for some holy appearing, a light leaking, heaven-glow. I’m barefoot. My t-shirt says: “Brooks was here” across my chest. It’s a quote from a movie but it’s also your name. And you’ve definitely been there. In the darkness, … [Read more...]

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Thankful Tuesday: Moby wraps, pancakes, and baby dimples

May 10, 2011 By 4 Comments

Let’s start with this: There are some seasons in a marriage where you feel more like a team than you ever have, where you know what to say to each other in the sweetest and most painful moments, where you laugh big, hearty, hysterical laughs at each other. I’m thankful that Chris and I are in that season. And I’m thankful that Sunday night during my Bible study, Chris yelled over and over for me from our bedroom. I left my friends in the living room and found him on the bed, lying on his … [Read more...]

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3 Weeks Thankful

April 5, 2011 By 6 Comments

How do I count the ways? My littlest baby is three weeks old tomorrow and he’s perfectly healthy and beautiful (besides a weird outie belly button and a pair of cross-eyes but only I’m allowed to say that because I’m his mother. You should say he’s adorable). Yesterday I survived an extra long day alone with the boys. Chris had to work late so I went all the way through dinner and bedtime alone. And we all made it! There were definitely some moments of weakness: a Janet … [Read more...]

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In God’s Sweetness (a Thankful Tuesday post)

March 29, 2011 By 15 Comments

Yesterday was my first real day home with two kids. I don’t have to do it long. For the rest of the week my husband is working from home and next week my mother-in-law arrives. (And my mother just left this past Saturday after being with us for two weeks.) I have it really good. But I woke up in fear of what the day would bring. I spent Sunday suffering from mastitis. If you don’t know what that means, don’t bother looking it up. Just know that it’s terrible. I was in bed with a high … [Read more...]

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Worship, breastfeeding, and shifting that paradigm

July 11, 2010 By 8 Comments

Dear friends, I'm writing from a cozy cabin in the mountains of Colorado. I've spent the past three days with my parents, brothers, sisters in law, August, and all his super cool cousins. It's been a good, exhausting trip and I'm sorry to say that I have very little insight to give you on this late Sunday night/early Monday morning. Though I will say that "Cousin Camp" in the mountains is the ultimate in the kind of "slow" childhood I hope for my son. So, tonight, in my Cousin Camp weariness, … [Read more...]

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