motherhood
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family of four.
All around me friends are swelling with pregnant bellies, going into labor, and anxiously waiting adoption placements. Some of my friends are welcoming their third baby, some their fourth, and some are just embarking on this grand adventure of parenthood. I loved taking a “family walk” this morning with one of my best friends in the world and our kiddos, trying to speed up her contractions for this baby girl we’re all dying to meet. I love Instagram photos of brand-new-to-the-world babies with their crumpled faces and tiny fingers and gauzy swaddled blankets. I love baby showers and talking about cloth diapers and I started crying in the middle of…
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mother’s day.
A re-post from here, Mother’s Day, 2012: “What more could a mom ask for?” A mom could ask to be able to take her son to swim lessons each morning. A mom could ask to come home and open the books and teach from the homeschool curriculum she’s so excited about. A mom could ask to not set her kids up at the breakfast table with cereal and then crawl back into bed. A mom could ask to wait on and pamper their daddy after his surgery. A mom could ask to play hide and seek and have tea parties and read books. A mom could ask to be the…
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the non-new year’s resolution.
Happy New Year! At this moment, New Year’s Resolution lists are being posted across the internet world. I love New Year’s resolutions. I love reading them. I love making them. Keeping them is of course another story (I can’t tell you how many exercise and read-through-the-Bible-in-year plans I’ve started—and have kept with until well into February). I already have dozens of ideas brewing for 2013, ideas that involve more early-morning quiet times with God, more made-from-scratch food (which should definitely involve but not be limited to a sourdough starter), less dairy and gluten, better household organization tactics, more creative blog posts, new birthday traditions for our family, perhaps a 10K…
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amie’s big day.
If you’ve spent much time with our family, you know about Amie’s “babies.” These are her little blankies she has slept with since infancy. But the unique thing about Amie is that she doesn’t just sleep with them, she chews on them (or, “eats them,” as she calls it–see below blog post). As a result, these things have gained the nickname “Stinky,” from friends and family. They really are gross. We had two so that they could be rotated out and washed very often, but somehow, since returning from South Asia, we’ve back-tracked, and Amie now sleeps with both. Now that it’s getting cold out, Amie has a red mark…
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homeschooling, take two.
I realized recently that if there’s one desire that’s been broken in me over the past several months, it’s the desire to wait until everything’s picture-perfect in order to live my life. We moved into our house almost two weeks ago, and were just told that our container of furniture and curtains and bedding won’t arrive until the end of November. There was a time in my life when this news would have crushed me. I would have felt on edge with large barren walls and plastic bins for end tables and rug-less floors. I would’ve been ashamed to host my in-laws for Thanksgiving with no guest room for them.…
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sunday.
In a little over twenty-four hours, I will drive to pick David up from the Philadelphia airport. I can’t believe we’ve almost made it! The past twelve days didn’t exactly go the way I expected . . . on day four I got sick, and one of the three of us has been sick ever since. But, that’s life. And I feel well rested, thanks to lots of help from Steve and Linda. Now I’m ready to welcome my husband back and help him to rest. This week Judah and Amie became friends with two little boys who live next door to the Gentino’s. They are the first friends Judah…
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judah.
I feel blessed to be spending today, my boy’s fifth birthday, in the town where he was born. It brings back lots of memories. I’ve never done a blog post birth story for my kids, so my blog is incomplete. Well, there’s no time like the present! We moved here to Lititz in July, 2007, when I was seven months pregnant. We’d both just quit our jobs, David had traveled with the youth group all summer, and we were tired. My parents moved us and our possessions up here in a U-Haul all in one weekend. At the end of which, the seventh Harry Potter book came straight to my…
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first day of school.
At 7:30 on this wet, gray morning in August, I climb in the car, pull out of our borrowed-for-the-month neighborhood, and find myself swept up in a flood of traffic. Today is the first day of school—at least for those in Irmo, South Carolina. My seven-minute drive to Panera takes twenty-five as I inch my way, with hundreds of other cars, past three schools: Irmo Elementary, Crossroads Middle, and Irmo High. I don’t mind the delay though. I love the start of a new school year. I love school supplies and colorful backpacks and reuniting with friends and the thrill of new textbooks and figuring out the semester’s class schedule. …
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my health.
We’ve been home six weeks today, and I know many of you are wondering what the status is on my health. I’ve been wanting to write about it, I really have, but it’s just hard. I apologize in advance if this post ends up being long and super boring. First the good news: I am feeling great! I am now eight weeks sinus-infection-free, and that is a truly wonderful feeling. The harder news is what that possibly means for our South Asia life. My general practitioner here built on the CT scan and blood test results from my specialists in South Asia, and did a few more blood tests–and ruled…
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mother’s day, take two.
“What more could a mom ask for?” A mom could ask to be able to take her son to swim lessons each morning. A mom could ask to come home and open the books and teach from the homeschool curriculum she’s so excited about. A mom could ask to not set her kids up at the breakfast table with cereal and then crawl back into bed. A mom could ask to wait on and pamper their daddy after his surgery. A mom could ask to play hide and seek and have a tea party and read books. A mom could ask to be the ones to take her kids to…