Points on Parental Publishing
When I was around five years old, I remember helping my mother make chocolate chip cookies. I so badly wanted to add the eggs to the batter, and I remember thinking so hard about the correct way to ask my…
Fighting Fairly with Your Spouse
“Fight.” “Disagree.” “Discuss.” Call it whatever you want, but if you’re married, it happens. And that’s okay! I’m not saying we should unleash our anger and let careless words fly whenever we feel like it. We can, in fact, still…
Making Marriage a Priority When You Have School-Aged Children
Remember when you were newlyweds and just couldn’t get enough of each other? Spending time together was never a question; the question was more What else would we do BESIDES spend time together?! But as so many of us have…
Please Listen
Parents, this poem might resonate with you, as it did with me when I read it today. Actually, it felt more like a big brick dropped on my head, because I very much struggle with jumping right into advice-giving when…
Setting Sail
This month my firstborn child will graduate from high school, and, as all parents of seniors, I am wondering how we got here so quickly. In lieu of sadness, though, we are choosing to celebrate Callie’s graduation, so she and…
Trust: We’re Either Building It or Breaking It
We talk about trust a lot around our house. We believe that, pretty much all the time, we are either building or breaking trust with one another through our words and actions, whether we realize it or not. We stress…
Hard Conversations
Hard conversations are part of life. And for those of us who really don’t like confrontation, these conversations can be extremely taxing. The easy way out would be just to avoid them altogether–to “keep the peace”–, but we all know…
Teacher Appreciation?
It’s May, which means the end of another school year and time to thank all the teachers for another job well done! These men and women play such a vital role in our children’s lives that no thank-you gift or…
The Note
I don’t know about your children, but mine seem to think that going to the bank is all about getting suckers. One day a few years ago, my son Caleb was going to accompany me on one of these trips…
Nose-to-Nose, Heart-to-Heart
Recently I had to have a difficult “nose-to-nose” conversation with my daughter. She was having a lot of trouble admitting that she was wrong about something, and Kevin and I had been noticing that this issue with her had been…
