By Mary This afternoon I sat in my shady corner of the deck next to our pool, and watched my kids splash into the water one by one. With only one child in the water, waves were small. But as more kids splashed and leaped their way in, the water got choppier, the waves bigger,…
Category Archives: Mary
Great Books for Parents
By Mary If you’re a book-lover like I am and still have a bit of Christmas shopping to do, might I suggest a few of the best books I’ve read over the years? Parenting with Love and Logic by Foster Cline I read this book years ago when I was dealing with 2 year old…
Your Inner Child
By Mary Yesterday while reading the blogs of friends, I came across this lovely post by Journey Mama, Something I Know Is True. If you haven’t read it yet, do, OK? Often in the midst of my busy list-filled day, I forget the playful side of myself, the little girl. The one who wants to…
Empty Spaces
By Mary A while ago a friend and I were talking about balance in life, and the curse of busyness. She was gently suggesting that perhaps my life would be easier if I left some open spaces in my schedule, blanks where nothing needed to happen. I knew that she’d learned that wisdom through her…
Don’t Forget The Funnybone
By Mary The other day my nine year old was having one of those terrible horrible no-good days. He was picking fights with everyone in sight and complaining about everyone, whether they were in sight or not. I grabbed him and playfully wrestled him over to the couch to sit snuggled against me. He put…
Family Game Night
By Mary One of our favorite morale boosters is family game night. We’ve discovered a bunch of games over the years that are fun for large numbers of people. Some games are totally chance and can easily be played by people of all different ages. If there is an element of skill involved, you can…
Soaring
By Mary The other day my oldest daughter taught my four year old how to say the letter C. Now she can say ‘cat’, among many other useful words. When I heard her say it, my heart clutched up. I didn’t want her to sound so much like…a big girl. But one look at the…
A Roomful Of Hope
By Mary Written October 5, 2008 in the Dominican Republic This morning as I walked up an uneven set of stairs and stepped into the hubbub of my third Compassion project of the week, I didn’t know that this was the project that would touch me to the core. Kids jostled in rows of white…
Celebrating Our Successes
By Mary A while back something ‘mysteriously’ got broken at our house. I narrowed down the suspects to two, but could not get a confession out of either child. This was frustrating for several reasons: first of all I wanted to know who the culprit was, but even more important, I want my children to…
Because I Am Becoming More Enlightened By The Day
By Mary Confession time. Today, sadly, one of my children could be seen walking through the store with his/her coat on INSIDE OUT. And yes, I was aware of it. And no, I did not say a word to the child. If I had seen a kid walking around like that in my less enlightened…