Of course I could relate to the particular excerpt I’m about to share with you. Motherhood surprised me in so many ways, and for so many of us it is the very way that we come to the end of ourselves to begin again. Especially if our babies come along with needs beyond what we had imagined, only feared. Please welcome my friend, Gillian… ::::: An adapted excerpt from Sun Shine Down, a memoir, about a pastor’s wife and missionary’s human reaction to having a baby with Down syndrome: One night after four or five glasses of wine, I climbed upstairs from the basement in search of Polly. The house seemed to be in a dream state. My head was swirling, and I swallowed often, forcing the acid from the wine crawling up my esophagus back down. The light above the kitchen sink highlighted my path into the living room; the glow […]
Matt Mooney is here today and I hope you’ll take a moment to read his words. The message within this post is something near and dear to me. Escaping pain will steal joy. Please welcome Matt, the author of A Story Unfinished–99 Days With Eliot: Ginny & I found out at 30 weeks pregnant that something was seriously wrong. Everything up to that fateful ultrasound had been normal- well, when you’re having your first child you probably stand in no position to define normal. But it seemed that way to us. All of a sudden, the doctors trudged back into our room with heads down, and now it was anything but normal. We were told that the baby had some serious complications and problems that needed addressing. In hindsight, I cannot say what stuck out to me in the precise moments that they relayed this information to us. But I do know what […]
Pretend with me a moment: I’m standing here with my friend Emily, at a microphone and I’m introducing her to you. You may know her, or maybe this is your first chance to say hello. If so, I must tell you that Emily being on this stage is SO important, especially for those of us with daughters. We also need to hear from Emily and her co-author because we struggle to like ourselves in our own skin, especially if doughy under the surface. I keep trying to tell myself that my body has done miraculous things, but I see other women and compare me to them and wonder how they look “better” in so many ways. I admit that, even though I know it’s not making me sound all that confident. How do we “get there”? To the place where we learn to love all our parts, doughy or not? I give you, […]
My friend Yael Saar (who I had the honor of meeting last year at BlogHer) is a mama on a mission to remove guilt and shame from parenting in order to make room for joy and love. She is the Founder and Keeper of the Mama’s Comfort Camp, a Facebook community that functions as a safe haven and refueling station for hundreds of moms from around the world. This community is free and open to moms of kids of any age, and we share our laughter, tears, and triumphs, all the while normalizing motherhood struggles and bridging the gap between expectations and reality in a uniquely nurturing environment. I’m honored to be one of the Campers, and I would love for you to join us. The Mama’s Comfort Campers will be having our first Twitter Party to celebrate the group’s first anniversary on Sunday March 10 at 8:30pm. You can join us using the hashtag #mamascomfort I’m sharing some […]
I shared some words about the struggle, over at Literary Mama today. Maybe you can relate. “One of them is talking about life and she said, You struggle and you struggle and you struggle and you make some mistakes and then you’re okay. I have to tell myself that. It might not be true, but I have to tell myself that…” It would be really cool of you to go on over there and read my guest post, if you’d like. Literary Mama is a place soaked with words for the mothering heart. Especially for those that have a mad passionate love affair with reading and/or writing. Happy Monday! (I’ll be back with Just Write this week! I’m so glad!)
Do you wonder sometimes if the next generations are going to live in the movie Wall-E? Everyone will just float around in their isolated little transporters sipping Big Gulps and staring at screens? And everyone will be unhealthy from never standing up or going outside to walk around and we’ll just make beeping sounds to communicate, but only when we have to and we’ll open everything everywhere by having a little thingy read our fingerprints. People won’t even procreate anymore, but the human race will only continue because babies will be made in labs and then they’ll be raised by robots cause we’ll be too busy with our screens… okay no really. I really really have to believe it won’t be that bad, but if I’m being totally honest, I get sad when I think about the future and community and connection. I wrote about this at Owning Pink and you can go […]
Kelby at Type A Parent has a new series going called We Still Blog. I’m all pink in the cheeks with the news that I got to be the first blogger featured there. My post is about something new we have on our family plate, something unexpected and medium hard, which is hard, just like all the hard parenting things are. If that makes any sense at all. Maybe it will make more sense if you head on over there to read it. Thank you. ::::: Also. I had the honor of being interviewed over the phone by a smart and kind woman named Debbi. She laughed at my jokes, so yeah, she’s pretty kind, right? Well, anyway. The interview is going to be shared as a part of a FREE series Debbi is doing. This Telesummit is for every woman that feels she has to compromise to “do it all”. Which is […]
Remember when I said we were doing the hydrocephalus association’s walk? And that I wanted to raise $1,000 for Asher’s Noggins!? We totally did that! Isn’t that the best!? I learned a lot that day, and I’ve been wanting to sit down to write about it, but again, time keeps on slippin’ slippin’ slippin’…into the future. Today, by a random twist of Internet Fate, or Serwebdipity, I’m over at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital blog. There’s a wonderful woman there that uses words like penultimate in conversation and then I look up the word and I’m all, OHHHH and then of course I just SAY that I didn’t know what the word was and had to look it up. I’m a pleasure to work with, I tell ya. (Also. Serwebdipity is obviously a word that should be in the dictionary with a meaning like; a serendipitous or fortuitous meeting on the world wide interweb.) So […]
My friend Gi at Sweet Peas and Buddies asked me to come on over there and tell a story. I’m so happy to oblige. I’m sharing a post from before I stopped drinking. Re-reading some of those posts so often makes me shake my head. Not in regret or shame or some such thing. Just in wonder, I guess. That I could see my unhealthiness, but I wasn’t really willing to see it. Rewriting My Name is a story about Miles and being haunted by your history and learning to start again. You can read it at Sweet Peas and Buddies if you’d like. Peace. Comments are off.
I received an email from a mother struggling with her drinking and it inspired my last post. I wanted to share her story with you and she gave me permission to do so. Please offer her some support by reading her words. I remember so clearly exactly how it felt to feel what she feels in the fight to get to 5 o’clock and the fight to stop. We all need a better understanding of this very personal and painful struggle. Thank you. I’m keeping this mother’s identity anonymous: (sorry for the really small text at the beginning. I just can’t seem to get it to get bigger.) You are almost 2 and 1/2. You are a good – sweet – amazing girl, but today – this week – you have been extremely emotional and aggressive. I myself have been feeling the same. The weather is turning, you are growing and I am […]
{Hi there, you! If you’re stopping by from Danielle’s place, the quickest way to learn about this place and this person is to clickety-click on the “Best of” or the “About” click-ables up there. So happy to have you!} I was invited to tell the story of Ryan and Heather in the a love story series with Danielle Burkleo and I said, Why yes, I’d be happy to. (Psssst! Danielle is so totally rad and so is her blog, Take Heart.) So anyway, if you head over there you’ll read about a moment in time that was all of our moments… My heart and soul were pulling past my ribs and reaching for him, that’s what it felt like and it was so palpable it was playing from the stage and in my mind, bringing the questions… You can read the rest over at Take Heart (I think that post will be my […]
It’s Friday and do you know what that means? My husband will come home from a work trip to Texas and find out how cold Minnesota has gotten. He’ll also walk through the door and then I’ll fall on the ground and roll around for a while. What a week, friends. If I added up the hours of sleep I’ve gotten the entire time, it might might equal about one night’s worth. (cry you a river) So let’s just say I’m relieved that it’s Friday and I’m going to get through today with all of its Things. I’m going to do that by coloring the walls. I hope. Heather, what do you mean, coloring the walls? Good question. I’m over at Just Be Enough today to tell you that the walls are closing in and so are yours and what should we do? Well, try to paint, of course. See you there.
Today I’m sharing the one thing that keeps me semi-sane. When I have a lot on my mothering plate (i.e. all the time) (don’t we all?), I tend to get that caged animal/buried feeling, you know? I try staying on top of things with tools for organization and I try finding time for myself and I try taking deep breaths…but sometimes there’s only one thing (besides praying my face off) that works for me. To read about that, please visit the Bravado blog… and then have a really good weekend, okay?
Today I have the honor of sharing some words with you that are not mine. Words that tell the story of what it feels like to helplessly witness the spinning despair of a loved one that is also an alcoholic. This post was written by one of my favorites: anymommy ::::: May he turned twenty-one on the base at Fort Bliss “Just a day,” he said down to the flask in his fist, “Ain’t been sober since maybe October of last year.” Here in town you can tell he’s been down for a while, But, my god, it’s so beautiful when the boy smiles, Wanna hold him. Maybe I’ll just sing about it. ——–Anna Nalick We want it to be someone else’s cousin. Someone else’s sister. Father. Brother. Husband. Wife. But there’s a great big target on all of our backs and it comes home to us eventually. It has to. The odds […]
Posted on Sunday, January 4, 2008Yes. I have Ice Ice, Baby stuck in my head. No idea why. It can be really annoying to have this song in your head, so I’ve been trying to use it to my advantage. Like when I want to get all impatient and frustrated with all the fussing and fighting between the boys, I say to myself “Stop!” Then I collaborate with the patient husband by saying, “LISTEN, you need to take over for awhile or I’m gonna hurt somebody.” This way, I don’t make a fool of myself by yelling and waving my arms around or bursting into tears. I just stop, collaborate and then I say listen. You should totally try it. Stop. Collaborate and listen. Ice is back with a brand new invention. Somethin‘ grabs a hold of me tightly….” Speaking of songs in your head. Miles and Asher and I were grocery shopping […]
Click on Suburb Sanity below people! You’ve got to see what she put up today. :)How can one person be this funny? That’s what I ask you. When I came across Suburb Sanity;laughing…and still going insane, I knew I’d found a blog to love. Debbie is one of the smartest bloggers on the web, in my opinion. And my opinion counts! And I don’t mean smart like, tricks you into reading her blog no matter what she writes. I mean smart like, she’s that good. Just the right humor with just the right well-written words. Her posts leave me hiding the giggles from my husband every day. (Because it’s kind of weird to laugh hysterically at your computer all by yourself, right?) Go over there and check her out (if you’re WAY behind and haven’t already). She’s just simply excellent! Thank you for being here today, Debbie!__________ I’ve decided one of the hardest […]
Today’s post is brought to you by my real-life friend, Kelly. She blogs over at Waiting for a Little Vlachster. Kelly’s blog has a growing following for good reason. She thinks of the most hilarious things to write about, which means her posts are always loads of fun. She and husband Kyle are waiting for their daughter, coming (hopefully soonish) from China, and Kelly blogs about their life “in the meantime,” while keeping us all up to date on their adoption process.It is because of the way she looks at life that Kelly can turn everyday adventures into great stories. She has a positive perspective and an inspiring attitude. She is one of the most accepting and genuine people I know. I’m so happy she’s posting here on the EO today. Thank you, Kelly!_____________ I am really excited to develop our own Christmas traditions when our daughter from China arrives, in hopefully a […]
Do you read Write Stuff? The woman behind that blog and this guest post, Melanie J, is so much fun to read! Get over there and “follow this blog.” Melanie is an excellent writer. (I suppose that’s why she writes books.) Every post is more than interesting and always either funny and/or thought-provoking.(Do I put a hyphen between thought and provoking? I’ll have to ask Melanie.) In all seriousness, I love this lady. There’s just something about a girl who has an intimidating talent for writing and keeps it real and hilarious at the same time. Thank you for being here today, Melanie!___________ I’m not socially awkward. I just act like I am 90% of the time. Take the last two days, for example. I have been wandering among the ranks of dozens of New York Times bestselling authors and hundreds of wannabes—like me. Much like lipstick on a pig, I packed my […]
Ladies and Gentlemen, I am humbled and honored to present The Happy Geek! I don’t remember how I found her, but it was love at first post. The Happy Geek has one of those blogs that you just have to keep reading. It’s insightful and hilarious. HG is honest, smart, and really attractive in a rarely worn black dress. I love a blog that can make me smile and burst out laughing while teaching me something, all at the same time. The Happy Geek is the perfect place for that. So enjoy today’s post from the hilarious and humble, Happy Geek. And don’t forget to visit her. Every Canadian needs some American visitors every now and again, don’tcha know? ___________________________I get to be on Extraordinary Ordinary. How very cool. I have been reading EO since the summer. I love Heather’s thoughtful reflections on motherhood, personhood and finding balance. She has talked a lot […]
Today’s guest post comes to you from the brilliant Tonggu Momma of Our Little Tongginator. Her blog is always a joy to read as she chronicles daily life with her Little Tongginator, sharing their stories with wit and wisdom. Tonggu Momma often has me in stitches. (She gets herself in lots of trouble-accidentally flashing the babysitter for example. Or almost scaring off trick or treaters with a dead bird.) This lady knows how to tell a story. She keeps it real, expressing the difficulties of grief after the recent loss of a dear friend, and sharing the trials of the bumpy road to adoption. All the while, she sprinkles her words with humor and expresses a great love for her family. She’s an inspiration! So go over and experience the talent of this lovely friend of mine. You won’t be disappointed!___________Hey there, y’all. This is Tonggu Momma here, filling in for Heather during […]
