A friend of mine is pregnant with her second child and she asked me for advice on handling two. I drew a blank. After all, we’re still taking it day by day over here. Then it hit me, start praying for their sibling relationship now. Before Mary Virginia was born, I was mostly worried about how
The other day we went to Target and left with ANOTHER new toy car for David, and ANOTHER doll for Mary Virginia. If you know anything about gender stereotyping and how toys perpetuate gender roles, then my shopping trip is grooming David to be an engineer at Ford Motor Company and Mary Virginia to flunk third grade math. If
For a very long time, if I was in another room and I heard Mary Virginia start crying, I’d run in, prop my hand on my hip, raise my eyebrows, and say, “David? Why is Mary Virginia crying?” And then, because he is only three years old and needs a bit of time to come up with
Mary Virginia is just at the very beginnings of being interested in coloring. She’ll hold a marker, draw a few lines on the paper, and a few moments later try to climb on the table. The only reason I’ve even started “coloring” with her is because she wants to do whatever her brother is doing, so
There are times as a parent when you feel like you’re the first parents to ever do something, even though you know it’s not true. Tom and I weren’t the first people to have two children, but when Mary Virginia was born, the waters were so dark and uncharted, that it felt like it. Maybe we weren’t the first
Tom recently had to replace one of the poles for our clothesline, and after the project we had a wheelbarrow full of dirt and gravel in our back yard. And. Well, my kids would sleep out here if I’d let them. David asked me if he could put water in the mud. This kid just
Mary Virginia goes down for her afternoon nap about thirty minutes before David, and she wakes up about thirty minutes before he does. Those two thirty-minute periods are her favorite parts of the day, because while David is sleeping in his room, his toys are all in the living room. Unattended. She always goes straight
Hippity hoppity, Easter’s on its way When I took these pictures two years ago, I thought it would be the last time I’d be able to convince David to wear bunny ears. What I didn’t know then was that my little boy loves accessories. He doesn’t mind — and even requests — hats, sunglasses, suspenders, and
Not every day is all rainbows and shamrocks around here. But today? (Aside from the snow and sleet outside.) Today that’s all it is. Happy St. Patrick’s Day. Hoping your day is filled with pots of gold and blue-eyed leprechauns, and reminders that we have a God who lavishes blessings on his people. “In him