Tag Archives: Photo Quote

10 Ways To Feel Miserable As A Parent

23 Feb

10 Ways to Feel Miserable As a ParentI came up with this list of ten things I’m learning to avoid in order to feel happier as a parent. However, I would like to clarify a couple of things that came up when I shared this image on Facebook.

My children are young, four and under, and this list applies more to this age. If your children are not showing age-appropriate public behavior then you may need to consider how to best approach those lessons with them.

I think having such young ones in my home, it’s nearly impossible to keep my house tidy all the time. A kitchen sink full of dishes and fish sticks for dinner (again) is not (what I consider) a reflection on how well I love or care for my children. 

On the other hand, living in filth and serving junk food every day of course is another story and needs to be brought up to a higher standard of care for our children. 

I hope that everyone reading this takes a common sense approach to these ten statements and evaluates them according to their children’s ages and needs.

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The Birth of A Mother Quote

3 Feb

The Birth of A Mother
Editor’s Note: This quote was taken from a blog post I wrote in July of 2010 called, Making Room For Love. Below is an excerpt from that post. You can read the post in its entirety here.

It is because of my own experience with the difficulty of motherhood that my heart is so tender towards new mothers. With deep conviction and experience, I know that the hardest part is not the 40+ weeks of pregnancy, and it is certainly not the average 12- 24 hour labor.  The most difficult part of birth is the first year afterwards.  It is the year of travail – when the soul of a woman must birth the mother inside her.  The emotional labor pains of becoming a mother are far greater than the physical pangs of birth; these are the growing surges of your heart as it pushes out selfishness and fear and makes room for sacrifice and love.  It is a private and silent birth of the soul, but it is no less holy than the event of childbirth, perhaps it is even more sacred.

With great reverence and awe at the journey of becoming a mother I hold my heart up and offer thanks in learning to make more room inside my soul for love.

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I Didn’t Have A Voice

11 Nov

This is a reflective piece that I wrote on August 7th, 2012, my 35th birthday. I’m finally feeling ready to share it.

There was a time during my early to mid 20s that I suffered with a recurring dream. In the dream I was chewing an oversized piece of gum. The wad of gum was so large and bulky I could barely chew it; it filled my mouth to the point that it prevented me from speaking. The gum was so painfully crammed in that I couldn’t even open my mouth wide enough to spit it out. I remember waking from those dreams with a sense of regret and remorse. What was a I doing with a piece of gum that large in my mouth and more importantly why didn’t I just simply reach in and take it out of my mouth?
….

I know a woman who recently for her 50-something birthday got the Hebrew word “voice” tattooed on the inside of her wrist, because she told me, as she held her arm up in the air showing me the dark inked-in word on her skin, “I didn’t have a voice when I was young, but I have one now.” I was left with chills. What a powerful statement.

Perhaps that’s what 35 is giving me, a voice. Perhaps, after living life a little more the lessons I’ve learned from being worn down and broken in by love have brought me the bravery I’ve needed to reach up and take that oversized piece of gum out of my mouth and really speak my heart.

(Cue Alanis song here…okay not really, but I just thought I would make the comparison before you did.)

Thank you life. Thank you age. Thank you struggles and heartbreak and victory. Thank you faith and floundering. Thank you disbelief and questioning. Thank you cynicism and hope. Thank you messed up emotions. Thank you burned down bridges. Thank you friends who held me to it. Thank you marriage. Thank you motherhood. Thank you brazenness. Thank you strength to choose gratitude. Thank you persistent spirit of love. Thank you forgiveness. Thank you anger. Thank you healing. Thank you mistakes and lessons. Thank you experience. Thank you unpaved roads. Thank you music and song. Thank you childbirth and rebirth. Thank you compassion. Thank you earth and sun and sky. Thank you voice that hovered over the waters of my soul and said let there be life.

May 35 bring life and more life. May I live abundantly with hope and perseverance, may I reach up and place my hand on the harp that I hung on the Willow. May 35 be a year of getting my groove back on.

May my voice speak with love, gratitude and wisdom. Thank you 35 for giving me a voice. I hope to use it.

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Breastfeeding Drama in the Animal Kingdom

12 Jul

I am visiting my childhood home in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. Each evening I look out the window and see the cows grazing lazily in the field. Seeing these dairy cows grazing brings to mind plenty of memories of growing up of watching sweet new calves nuzzle and feed from their mammas.  In light of those memories, I was inspired me to create these two new breastfeeding memes:

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