The whirring of the sound machine beckons me into my girls’ room. Their beds have already been abandoned, in favor of climbing up next to my husband or I as we sip coffee and read or journal. “It’s bright, Momma,” is Irene’s way of announcing a new day has begun and she is ready to …
Day 30: Bud
I have sometimes wondered Why the pet name for little boys is so often bud or buddy While little girls get one of a thousand iterations of loveliness, sweetness, beauty or preciousness. We want our sons to be kind and We want our daughters to be friends And still, when I see my friends’ boys, …
Vapor and Ashes
It’s as if we were living in a house and it burned to the ground. I’m not sure I ever stopped to make a list of what was left in the house, of what we lost. We moved into a new house, fully furnished -- it was easier just to pretend everything was normal,” I …
Day 29: Dinner
“I don’t like that,” she said as her eyes graze over the food, then turned straight back around to march out of the room. “I don’t need a treat,” she adds from her bedroom. My husband and I exchange looks of unsurprised displeasure tinged with resignation. Despite meals being the way we keep time during …
Day 27: TV
:: an ambivalent haiku:: Oh, television My hero, my nemesis God’s gift to steward
Day 23: Band-aid
Typical of little people, my children have both believed in the power of a Band-aid. Not just for broken skin, band-aids are requested for all kinds of boo-boos. Bug bites, scratches, or burns, and bruises, soreness, or bumps -- the act of adding a bandage has magical powers to soothe. It’s not just band-aids either, …
Day 22: Lunch
As a person who delights in partaking of interesting and delicious food and drink, my qualm with lunch has been that it usually feels like simply a means to an end. When you’re short on time and/or money, lunch becomes merely about filling our bellies until dinner, when the slightly more interesting food can be …
Day 21: Fence
She leaves the paved sidewalk and opts for the grass, doing cartwheel after cartwheel -- her new bodily compulsion. We come to the pedestrian gate of the neighborhood, but she’s off the path again -- running up the hill and climbing over the fence, then cartwheeling some more. She’s gotta do things the most difficult …
Day 20: Trash
A couple of years ago in preparation for a Bible study on the book of Galatians, I read Tim Keller’s excellent book Galatians For You. When he gets to the end of chapter 3, he stops and camps out on how Paul uses the imagery of clothes all over his letters and helps us understand …
Day 19: Mug
Next to my bed lay a stack of books, my phone (I haven’t yet adopted the good habit of “putting it to bed” outside of our room like my husband), water bottle, candle, and some clutter. This morning, I awake with a dull resistance to going to my phone — even for the Lent devotional …
