Category: Babies & Toddlers
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Not Too Bad
I stood there, snow leaking into the top of my boots and more wet flakes falling, wrestling with the baby who didn’t want to be buckled into her stroller. Meanwhile, my middle child cried because I wasn’t getting him out of his car seat quickly enough. It was 8:35 a.m., which meant my four-year-old was […]
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Grace Comes Quiet
Daddy cradled you in the crook of his arm, cuddling you to sleep with your camouflage dinosaur pajamas on—the ones with stegosaurus spikes down the back of your chubby legs. I turned out the light and left the room, making my way around to every other child’s bed for a hug and a prayer, managing […]
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Learning How to Breathe as a New Mom
I am drowning-in laundry, dirty dishes, sleeplessness, and similarly–in negative self-talk that tells me I should be “further along” than this at 2 months postpartum. I assumed it would be easy to bounce back from a cataclysmic life change like having a baby, but here I am, gasping for breath while my baby cries for […]
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Humble Trimmings
We cheerfully dusted our final batch of Christmas cookies with an array of colored sprinkles, pushing them into position on the counters. Strewn with our morning’s labor, the cookie-laden kitchen testified to the festive holiday baking my daughter and I dedicated to our morning’s activity. She, her eyes wide with the joy of Christmas, was […]
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Bittersweet: The Process of Adopting My Son
In the fall of 2012, our daughter told us of her dream. When asked to share specifics, she said, “I dreamed that you and Daddy went to the brown house and picked out four babies.” She even had each baby named. Then our precocious 5-year old asked a question that still haunts me, “Mommy, who […]
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New Baby, New Mom
The moment she was born, I was born. I recall this moment where I was pushing- surrounded by nurses, legs warm and heavy from anesthesia, bright lights in my face, and realizing this was it. She was coming. I believe this moment stands out so clearly in my memory because I stood at a threshold […]
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The Days Before Birth: A Desperate Rhythm of Longing
Mother is tangled, anxious thoughts sucked to the chest, barely able to manage a full breath before running out of space. Baby rolls and nudges the boundary—tucked as close to mama’s heart as possible—shrouded in the mystery of the womb and nearly ready to behold Mother. Not yet. The time is not yet. She knows […]
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When You’re Not Sure If You Like Your Kids (Guest Post)
I stood in the back of a women’s conference session with six-month old baby (my first) on my hip. A content, but increasingly active baby, I swayed with her and nibbled the side of her neck every few minutes so she’d light up and giggle at me, batting me with her chubby hands. A few […]
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Losing Sleep, Finding Grace (Guest Post)
The lights are out and I walk through the playroom where three of our six kids sleep. I can hear the sound of their breathing, especially the small-framed five-year old whose snoring matches her loud personality but not quite her physical size. It makes me laugh that she has the most commanding snore in the […]
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I am a Real Mom
I felt like an impostor. No one had ever called me “mom” before, and I had no swollen belly, no stretch marks, and no attempts at breastfeeding to prove that I was a new mom. But the hospital attendant insisted that I sit in the wheelchair with this stranger-baby while he pushed the two of […]