A Dad is Not Babysitter or a Helper. He’s a Parent.
I have to get something off my chest for a minute. And it’s kind of a big something. So I’m sorry for the rant. But we live in a messy WORLD, too, not just a messy world. You know what would be nice? It would be nice to live in a world where men didn’t get pushed up...
Today We Burn the Hurry House to the Ground
I really wanted to walk him to school this morning because I enjoy the conversation that fresh air and exercise unwrap, but here I am, alone, sitting in our car, far away from the mess I left inside. This morning we have bent and twisted around words like, “hate” and...
What Kind of God Takes a Newborn Baby?
The text came hard and fast and early, just before my world would explode into a frenzy of action, kids needing a walk to school, work needing doing. And though the noise did not falter, because my boys brushed teeth and scooted chairs and closed doors and opened them...
How to Turn a Whole Frustrating Day Around
All this day we have bickered and grumbled because little boys didn’t get in the car when we said it was time to leave. Because little boys, in fact, unbuckled and wandered back into the house to pour their own glasses of milk because they just couldn’t wait for us to...
What the Darkness Can Teach Us About Light
The lights flicker off, and the two oldest scramble to parent laps because it’s dark and they are afraid. We hold them, the 7-year-old, all 54 pounds of him, on my lap, and the 4-year-old on his daddy’s. “When will the lights come back on?” the oldest asks, his voice...
To My Oldest Son: You Were the First
“I’m halfway to being an adult,” you said just this morning, and I nearly collapsed with the grief of it, because it feels like just yesterday, because you are my precious boy, because you were the first. And you saw, because your face changed completely, and you...
What Happens When We Try to See Another Point of View
He sits on a rock, reading, and I know already how this will play out, because he’s the one who asked to come here to the library playground, but that book is pulling him deeper into its pages, so my warning, “Five more minutes to play, Jadon,” goes unheard. So when...
How to Turn Your Messes Into Memories
Today we spent three hours cleaning. My husband tidies downstairs, puts every single little stray toy back where it goes, tosses all the left-them-where-we-took-them-off jackets and scarves back upstairs, and walks an endless path up and down the stairs to deliver...
Dear Planner: You Don’t Have to Know Everything
I know how it is. I know how it goes. You just want to know what’s coming. You want to know if there’s something bad around the corner, or something good, because you don’t want to lose your heart to the bad, and you don’t want to lose your hope to the good, because...
Are You There, God? It’s Me, Rachel.
It wasn’t so very long ago, just a little more than a year, that I got the first awful text: She’s in labor. She’s going in. She was only 20 weeks. And I spent that whole day praying for a woman and a man and two baby boys I already loved, because there was still...