Archive for the ‘Family’ Category

Learning to Swim

May
2013
20

posted by on Family, Parenting, Self-improvement

5 comments

Swimming lessons did not go well last week. My daughter loved every moment of them until last week.   She would skip around the locker room with freshly-toweled hair, pausing to say that she couldn’t wait till swimming again.  But after weeks of kicking and paddling, the teacher decided they were ready to paddle by themselves.  [...]

Palms

Jan
2013
28

posted by on Faith, Family, Parenting

2 comments

Last week, my daughter brought home a coloring page from Sunday School.  On the back, she’d written her name in crooked preschool letters.  She’d flipped around the Ds to Bs, so her name was a different name entirely.  Underneath, her teacher had written capital and lower case Bs and Ds, and then my daughter had [...]

Beeutifl

Jan
2013
11

posted by on Family, Parenting

4 comments

  My husband is traveling this week.  We miss him, so as my daughter spins around the living room in her princess gown, I snap a photo and send it to him.   He texts back: “So beautiful.” She changes from her gown to her footie pajamas and heads for the computer, asking if she can [...]

Lavish

Jan
2013
05

posted by on Family, Friendship, Parenting

5 comments

My daughter’s favorite coat is long and minky-soft, zebra print with a ruffle around the bottom.  The inside is lined in hot pink.  Last week she wore it with big white furry boots and a red boys’ snow hat that looked like a race car.  She carried a fluffy white stuffed cat in her arms.  [...]

Whirling

Aug
2012
05

posted by on Family, Friendship, Parenting, Remembering

No comments

It’s summer.  We do summers especially well here in the north, where snow may fall in October or May.  Even early June sometimes keeps us in the occasional sweatshirt, so when summer really comes it’s like cracking an egg, sunshine and warmth running thick and golden across our town. I take the kids to the [...]

Imprints

Jun
2012
29

posted by on Family, Parenting, Uncategorized

1 comment

During my early years of teaching kindergarten, we had an incubator in our classroom.  A local farm gave us chicken eggs, and we placed them inside, rotating them a couple times a day.  One Saturday, when I stopped by to turn the eggs, I noticed one was rocking a little.  There was a tiny triangle-shaped [...]

posted by on Family, Parenting, Remembering

8 comments

To My Daughter Dear daughter in the future, You may be a mom someday.  (No pressure on this.  That may not be God’s plan for you.  I am very glad that you have examples in the strong, nurturing, loving people around you who are not parents.)  But I am a mom, and you may be [...]

Units of Survival

Apr
2012
18

posted by on Family, Parenting

3 comments

I haven’t traveled abroad since my children were born.  Even so, I often struggle when cultures collide.  Today, it’s within the borders of my own home, when my own values conflict with the cultural microcosm of my preschool children.  Wearing pants, for example, is a value that is not shared by the youngest members in [...]