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Working & Mom—We All Do It

Posted on January 30, 2015

I don’t want to fight about who works harder—dads don’t have it easier, stay at home moms don’t have it easier, people without kids don’t have it easier. Honestly, we’re all just doing the best we can between screw ups, unexpected wins, and deep heartache. None of that matters though, not in the big picture, or even the little picture. Every damn day I am just trying to not do or say things that will leave me with a hideous pit of, “Why did I do that?” Briar found my blog two weeks ago. Somehow in the time between buying her a phone and her discovering Safari, it never once occurred to me that she would find my blog. I was sitting at my…

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Out of My Control

Posted on January 25, 2015

Last summer we visited a farm in Yakima. There were goats and cows, geese, chickens, horses, ponies, bunnies and quail. The girls poked about completely undeterred by the smell or the heat. Finley picked up a quail egg that had dropped. She looked up at me, the egg cupped in her hands, “Fix it, mama. Help the little baby.”   Parenting is so much like that, parents further along the path know how many times they won’t be able to fix it, people on a farm know that life begins and ends every day. “Oh, sweetie, I can’t,” I said. The older brother of the boy she was standing with said, “Wanna eat it?” I flinched, Finley’s eyes grew wide, then she shrugged and said, “Not really,…

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Prayer for King

Posted on January 19, 2015

I worshipped my grandfather. At first it was the way he looked at me with unabashed delight, later it was for the way his skin creased like a blanket, and whiskers grew, but never hurt my face when he kissed me. Later still it was the careful consideration he gave any topic I asked about—homosexuality, abortion, racism. He listened to me in ways that other adults didn’t. He sent me sermons and passages from scripture, offering religion-based support for my positions or, if not that, then examples of how the Bible did not support the opposing view. Several times a year I search his name, sometimes with a key word, other times not. I take solace in knowing that so much of his teaching and writing…

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Choose Your Own Adventure

Posted on January 18, 2015

I remember when my imaginations about life as an adult pulsed with the promise of choices. I never believed that there would be doubt. I didn’t know about joy’s undertow of regret and guilt. I also didn’t realize that the difficulty of some decisions would bring unexpected rewards. My younger self doesn’t need to know things and this isn’t something that I need t condition the girls to know. The awakenings and compromises that come with being an adult aren’t to be feared or warned of, they are an exquisite privilege of living. I wrote about conflict and peace this morning. You can read it over here.  

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Marriage, Hurt Egos, & Good Intentions

Posted on January 14, 2015

Last year Sean and I collaborated on several posts about marriage—it’s been a while and it felt like it was time. Here is how I introduced this 2-part, I write/he writes approach before: I usually keep marriage along the periphery of the stories I tell. The silos of parenting and life are not as concise as they can seem in storytelling, they aren’t silos at all; they’re brush strokes sharing space on one canvas. Marriage, two sides, a post in two parts—first, what you’ve come to expect here, my words and emotional take on something that happened; second, words from Sean, his perspective on the same thing. It’s personal and revealing.    T he fresh snow squeaked beneath me as I walked to the back of the…

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