Have you heard of Susan Cain? She wrote a book called Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking. I haven’t read it yet, but I did watch her TED Talk, where she speaks about the book. I realize that’s not the same, but I have a long list of books to read and it only keeps growing. For now, the TED Talk will have to do. Susan Cain provides a great definition for introversion. She says, “It’s different from being shy. Shyness…
One day recently when my kids were hungry (which is almost every minute of every day around here), my husband grabbed the snapea crisps,the raisins and the walnuts. For those of you who don’t know, my husband is a genius at everything… well, everything that isn’t creative. I’m the creative one in the family. The one who makes things pretty. But he is best at solving every problem we come across. Like the one that says, “Mom. I’m hungry.” So…
Do you ever feel so angry that you do something you later regret? Yeah. Me too. Ever with your kids? Yeah. Me too. Actually, most people who know me probably don’t think I ever get angry. That’s because if I’m ever angry I’m probably the only adult around. I’m probably standing right over my kids wondering why they are still fighting, still yelling at each other, still pinching and pushing and taking things from each other. It makes me angry when my…
Here’s how it starts: you have one child who is lovely and amazing and he plays well on his own and he gives you hugs and kisess all the time and he sleeps until 9:00 every morning. Then you decide to have a second child. The second one never sleeps and mostly just cries and when he finally gets over crying all the time, he starts to take things from his brother. That’s your firstborn. You love both of these children…
Lunch is always a little stressful for me. Partly because I have three children who all like different things. Partly because… I have three children. Then there’s me. I often end up with a handful a nuts or maybe a granola bar because, well if you’re a mom then you know. It’s just hard to find time to eat. As Luciano Pavarotti says, “One of the very best things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is…
Does that sound weird to you? It was strange to me, too, when I witnessed two little girls rubbing each other’s earlobes at the playground. Their mom said that she does the same thing. She’s apparently always been obsessed with earlobes. She rubs them all the time without thinking, and now her children do too. She also told me that rubbing earlobes releases oxytocin. That same night, I was sitting at church with my family. Now, you have to know something…
Last weekend I attended the West Virginia Writer’s Conference. It was the first time I’ve been away from my children overnight. And it was actually a two night stay. Did I miss them? I thought I would, but no, actually, I didn’t. And I struggled with that. I know that when we leave our children, we should immediately feel like a piece of us has gone missing. Like we aren’t complete and that if we don’t get home immediately, we might die…
I know that how-to blogs are really popular. We love to be told what to do. We especially love instruction when we are moms and homemakers, when we are women who home school and cook every day. We want to know the best way to do laundry and how to clean our oven in 30 seconds. We want to know how to keep our children from screaming and how to pamper ourselves while also being the best mom ever. We…
When I was pregnant with my first son, I had a lot of mixed emotions, a lot of jumbled up thoughts. It’s okay though. I’m pretty sure that’s normal. Having a life of one’s own provokes a lot of emotion, so it makes sense that having a second life forming in one’s belly would provoke a lot more thought and emotion, right? I’m the baby of my family, six and a half years behind my closest sibling, and until my cousin…