“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 28: text
The sense of wonder and expectation has been slowly growing in my gut as the weeks have passed. Maybe we’ll all look back at this time and begin to describe stages of grief in a global pandemic: from disbelief to shock to anger to action. Or, at least that’s been my privileged path to walk …
Day 27: TV
:: an ambivalent haiku:: Oh, television My hero, my nemesis God’s gift to steward
5 Ways My Husband Supports My Mental Health, A Family Life Guest Post
“Today was not a good day,” I darkly greeted my husband as he entered our apartment and took in the scene. I laid on the couch while the kids had some screen time in our bedroom. My struggle with anxiety and maintaining my mental health had taken a more prominent role in our lives over …
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Day 26: Walk
I change out of pajamas and into “workout clothes,” grab my hat since the sun already sits high in the sky, and check with Aubrey to see if it’s alright if I go for a quick walk. I slip on my tennishoes, grab my phone and earbuds, and step quickly out the door. I select …
Day 25: Toys
There’s this strange phenomenon where my kids prefer food off of my plate more than their own. And a friend’s toys are usually much more fascinating than the ones overflowing from bins in their own room. How is it that we seem to be hardwired to be discontent with what we have? Or at …
Day 24: Lotion
When we lived in Asia, we would head south to Thailand around Lunar New Year. Where we were, everything shuts down and it is cold and dreary so it was a perfect opportunity to let our souls thaw out with friends, food, and SUN! We would often be gone for at least three weeks, with …
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 …
