Tag Archives: tweens

when you set a goal and God throws down

Posted on by

“When it comes to technology and the kids nothing promised is permanent, nothing is etched in stone.  We try something and if it works, great.  If not?  Well, we try something else…

Which brings us to our latest shift.  It seems even our best efforts can’t get the kids enough non-screen time altogether, so BrightSide came up with the radical idea of no screens on Sundays.  I’ll repeat that.  An entire day without technology.  None.  At all.  Every single week.”

The goal of Friday’s post, basically, was the hope that sending good thoughts out into the universe might bless us with a semi-peaceful attempt at living tech-free for a day.  I wasn’t looking for Ghandi-like enlightenment, just sixteen or so hours with limited squabbling.

Here’s how it went.

Continue reading →

gratitude: when the marathon becomes a sprint (aka: the Nike Hallelujah)

Posted on by

My shopping experiences with Bear have born a greater resemblance to marathons than sprints.  The girl’s never met a store she didn’t want to browse, and the concept of window shopping eludes her.  Every aisle, sometimes twice, running commentary the whole time. 

What can I say?  The girl loves to shop.

Except a single glorious experience when it came to back to school shoe shopping.

Continue reading →

a dozen middle school nuggets

Posted on by

Well, we’re in the deep weeds now.

We’ve officially completed our first full week with two kids in middle school.  They have 22 months between them but are in back-to-back grades at school.  They walk the same hallways, have (some) of the same teachers, and aren’t the least bit afraid to express opinions about rules, staff, and dress code.

Here are a few nuggets I’ve gleaned from the first week of school.

Continue reading →

the blessing of boys (and how we’re failing them)

Posted on by

Our boys are such a gift.  Seeing the world with new eyes each day.  Laughing riotously, about everything, anything, and nothing at all.  Full of big dreams and even bigger imaginations. 

But in many ways, we fail our boys, too. 

We don’t do enough to encourage their sensitivity.  Middle school students mock boys for crying, and there are still too many parents who reinforce that message at home.  I don’t want my son falling apart over a paper cut (my daughter either!), but our boys need to know that it’s okay to cry.  That sometimes, sitting through the really hard stuff and letting it out is the only way to move forward.

Continue reading →

“My girls make piranhas look downright vegan.”

Posted on by

Advice from the battlefield.  With a seriously funny edge.

“Teenagers are like those cool tropical fish you get after you’ve mastered goldfish.

Who am I kidding?  No one can master the keeping of goldfish.  Or pre-teens.  Or teenagers.  You graduate only to bigger kids, but with bigger issues and bigger appetites.  God help us all.  Especially me?…

Keep your head up – here are tips I offer from years of battleground experience.”

#AtoZChallenge: T is for Teenagers – Coach Daddy

Forever Family: from the inside out

Posted on by

If you’ll bear with me for one moment, I’ve gotta do a bit of shameless mama bragging on these kids o’ mine.

These babes are the bomb diggity.  They’re smart, funny, talented, and beautiful by any measure.  When they’re unhappy it’s palpable. When they’re happy, joy radiates from them like warmth from the sun.

Continue reading →

Forever Family: what to do when the KKK walks out of the history book and into your lives

Posted on by

If you visited the blog yesterday you know this has been an intense week.  Frankly, I’ve downed a lot of Advil and done more than my fair share of stress eating, neither of which really fixed what ailed me.  Beer didn’t help either.  That’s what I get for trying to self-medicate.

Bee recently talked about what it’s like to live in redneckia and it made me laugh.  Then it made me cringe.  Then laugh again.  Because sometimes the world is so freaking distressing, so overwhelmingly frustrating and infuriating, that my only coping mechanism is to find humor in the macabre.  Which is certainly how I categorize the racist sh*t we’ve run into over the last three years or so.

Continue reading →