In the past few weeks, my church has been slowly and cautiously resuming in-person worship services. In an effort to love and protect attendees, and out of deference to authorities, there is a litany of strange, “never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine this” precautions. Once everything started shutting down, church was the
Several times a day I reflect on how different I am with my fourth child than I was with my first child. A friend of mine just posted a video of her firstborn — a two-year-old — drinking out of a normal cup for the first time. David didn’t drink out of a lid-less, straw-less
Sometimes I wish I could teleport every now and then, to be lifted out of a particularly draining moment of monotony and placed into a different phase of life. Maybe if I spent a day or two as the elderly lady in the grocery store, telling young moms to “enjoy it because it goes so
For ten weeks I faithfully documented our quarantine. I published week 10 just after Thomas’s birthday, and after that I started wondering how long I’d keep this up. See, when I started, I thought the quarantine would be temporary. And I thought that it would end with us flinging open the doors and returning to
If you’d like a quick lesson on the lunacy of Confederate monuments, you should explain them to kids. Pare it down as much as possible, don’t let your bias cloud the water. There was a war — the north versus the south. The south lost. These statues are to commemorate the soldiers that fought for the
I am always hesitant to write about current events. I go for it every now and then, but I do so tentatively, knowing that I (usually) don’t have any expertise to offer. Also because it’s easier for me to just sit inside the four walls of my quarantine and write about my vegetable garden and
Are you planting a Quarantine Garden? Or, to use the more hopeful name, a Victory Garden. A few weeks ago I packed up my face mask, hand sanitizer, and my best “don’t you dare come within six feet of me” glare, and went to a local garden center. At that point, I hadn’t been out
What do you miss? This is something I think about a lot. We’re 10 weeks into this and I’m no longer even considering things like soccer practice or our gym membership. It occurred to me this week that the thing I miss is being in relationship without fear. Remember running into a friend at the grocery store
Note: This is Mary’s second blog. You can read the first one here. I took these photos about two weeks ago, when the chicks were still cute little balls of fluff. They’ve feathered out a lot in the past two weeks and look a lot more reptilian, but the kids adore them all the same.
Every morning, Thomas starts his day by slipping out of bed and silently making his way through the house. When he gets to my room, he opens the door without a sound and tiptoes to my side of the bed where he whispers, “Hi, Mom. Do you want to Beyblade with me?” That’s how I