We’ve decided for several reasons not to put 3-year-old Bella in preschool in the fall. This has encouraged me to be a bit more intentional about helping her learn civilized skills at home, like hanging up her coat and washing her hands on her own before eating. Acquiring these skills is supposed to be one of the great things about preschool–very young kids learn these habits easily in a group setting with kids their own age, under the direction of... Read more
B-mama, Thanks for addressing this topic and I typed up a very long comment and decided to change it to a post. I’ve had a really busy week, otherwise I would have written about this sooner. I’m sure Kat will have some thoughts as well. For our new readers, this is a topic near and dear to my heart, as I had a daughter Therese, who died of a fatal birth defect called anencephaly in 2002. Kat also had a... Read more
While I have some concerns with The March of Dimes (primarily their goal to have every baby be a healthy baby, a very unachievable objective in our fallen world) I do think The March for Dimes does some great work. They give women valuable information to make wise health choices prior to and during their pregnancies. Having personally suffered the loss of a baby due to a very serious birth defect, I’m all for helping to improve the health of... Read more
Reader K writes: I have a question. How do you all approach the prenatal testing that is available? I got a chill when a nurse suggested yesterday that I get testing done early so that I could “do something about it” before I’m out of the first trimester. I’m almost 37, and this is only my second pregnancy, but there wasn’t this pressure with my first. K, great question. Just to give you some insight into my personal experiences, I... Read more
We’ve moved, and are now officially Texans! I apologize for being so absent recently, but we’re almost out of the last of our moving boxes and I think that we’re on the road to a bit more stability…Hopefully 🙂 We have some very friendly neighbors and have already invited one little boy over to play with C, which was really important for my poor 4 year-old who has spent way too much time with grown-ups for the past couple of... Read more
While pregnancy offers more than a few hang-ups, here are some things I’ve been reveling in as I enter the 36th week: * not ever having to “suck in” * the extra TLC from my hubby (what a good guy he is!) * the excuse of not wearing tie shoes (can you really reach your feet anyway?) * the kind, pitiful glances from passersby (who doesn’t love a little pity? 😉 * the excuse of sitting down and “propping” *... Read more
“Now, if she had been the heroine of a moral story book, she ought at this period of her life to have become quite saintly, renounced the world, and gone about doing good in a mortified bonnet, with tracts in her pocket. But, you see, Jo wasn’t a heroine; she was only a struggling human girl, like hundreds of others, and she just acted out her nature, being sad, cross, listless or energetic, as the mood suggested. It’s highly virtuous... Read more
In the most recent edition of Conceive magazine (of which I am not a proponent in general, but it had some interesting articles) I learned of the potentially hazardous effects on our children’s fertility from certain household cleaners! In short, things to avoid are: fragrances, petroleum-based surfactants, and solvents. You can read more about the results of the recent study’s findings here. To give you a taste, though, here is a tidbit about the dangers of fragrances I found compelling:... Read more
Today I awoke to the not-so-refreshed, not-so-get-up-and-go mommy doldrums. I was tired. Actually, I was pooped. We have been overextending ourselves lately, dashing off to various summer events. This week, our 3-year-old has been immersed in a local Bible school, which meets every morning at a church 20 minutes away. This means the family has to get up, get dressed, get fed, and head out the door by 8:15am (and that’s while lugging around my 34-week pregnant self!) The homeschooling... Read more
Please lift this amazing family up in prayer today as they grieve the loss of their 7 month-old baby girl. Their love of God and their love of baby Cate is a blessing for us all. Lord, May you shower all families grieving the loss of a child with your grace and peace. Amen. Read more
Building Cathedrals
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