It should have been a mother's dream. As I lay in my bed with a book, I could hear my husband starting dinner preparations and marshaling the kids into peeling shrimp, chopping vegetables, and setting …
In Defense of Gift-Giving
Last week my 7-year-old daughter made a sign, "Don't come in, Luke and Ben!" (Luke and Ben are her brothers), hung it on my door, and disappeared inside my bedroom to wrap Christmas presents, emerging …
You Don’t Have to Do It All. Nor Should You.
The night before the first day of school I was lying in the bathtub, indulging in a minor panic attack about all the things I needed to do before everyone headed out in the morning. Someone knocked …
How Not to Be a Crazy Sports Parent
It's been an intense spring with all three kids playing on various baseball teams. Many a Saturday afternoon has seen me scurrying around local fields with one team baseball cap on my head and two …
How to Do Nothing
All three of my kids are now in school (!) and so sometimes I really look forward to Monday mornings, when I can finally GET THINGS DONE. Anyone else relate? Recently, I had a week planned where I was …
My Trick to Banish Anxiety
At times in the past year it seemed like we would all be here in this house, occasionally seeing other people in the yard, forever, and that didn't seem like an entirely bad thing. Life had a peculiar …
Where You Find Yourself
In December 2019, I was talking with my spiritual director about the following fall. For the first time in almost 14 years, I would have no children at home. I thought I was excited about all the time …
Making the Most of Your Family Time
It’s official: online-only school in the fall for all three of my children. So we’ll be spending even more time together. Yay? We’ve had an awful lot of togetherness since this pandemic …
Back to School, Back to Work
Embracing the Rhythm of the School Year As much as I anticipate and love summer, by the time we get to about mid-August I am looking forward to the start of the school year. I don't exactly throw …
When You Feel Like You’re Not a Good Enough Mom
I studied all the wrong things in school. Based on my daily life, I would have been much better off had I studied nursing, nutrition, defensive carpool driving, physical therapy, and child psychology. …
The Three Lessons of Losing
We just returned home from a weekend soccer tournament. Three games and no wins—one tie and two losses. The second game was a bad loss, one where none of us were quite sure what the final …
A New Twist on the Advent Calendar: Celebrating as a Family
Most of my life I've lived in places where the passage of time was marked by the changing of the seasons. As the weather grew warmer and wetter, I would look forward to the flowers and lengthening …
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The Love Lives of Navy SEALs and Why It’s So Hard to Write in the Summer
For those of you who think that fiction writers just make it all up, I'd love to tell you about my friend Michelle Ule! She is always researching fascinating subjects--everything from Navy SEALs to …
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The Joy of Parenting
I've seen A LOT of Shamu shows. Living as we do in San Diego, we often find ourselves stopping in at Sea World to feed the seals and sea lions, check out the sharks, and of course, see the …
Two Gifts of Praying with Children
It's Good Friday today, and my church has a beautiful tradition of a prayer vigil that begins after the Maundy Thursday service and continues through the night until the Good Friday service at noon. …
