I wrote on Tuesday about missing Penny's Halloween party. She was very forgiving, but I also agreed to come to her school to read a book to her class. As soon as I showed up, she came to the door and said, "Mom, you missed the Halloween party."

I nodded. "But I'm here to read a book to your class."

She ...

My husband has a new job. It doesn't start until July, but he was recently appointed as Head of School at a small boarding school in Western Connecticut. In the early summer we will move to a 4,000 person town and settle down for the foreseeable future.

The job is exciting. The people up there are lovely, ...

Halloween. Never a holiday that brings out the best in me. Last year's Halloween post included my admission that I generally lean (heavily) upon my mother for costumes and decorations, including many a year where even the trick or treating occurred in her neighborhood. I remembered the conversation ...

Marilee and I just returned from a 5 day road trip to Richmond, Virginia. We had a packed itinerary–two book readings on Wednesday night, talks to a women's Bible study on Thursday morning and a church forum Thursday night, participation in a "Maker's" series with other artists on Friday night, two ...

My mother-in-law used to have a list of "feeling words" on her refrigerator. They were accompanied by a fill-in-the-blank statement, "I feel _________ when you __________." The idea was that you separate the way you feel from the person's action instead of blaming them directly for your feelings while ...

Yesterday should have been rough. Peter was away, and I had gotten about five hours of sleep. But then, Marilee signed "eat" for the first time. William prayed, "Um, God, please help Dad get home safety with no accidents." Penny got frustrated as she tried to hang a photo on the refrigerator and said, ...

I have a post on Scot McKnight's Jesus Creed blog today that discusses a recent survey comparing Protestant Christian schools to their Catholic, public, homeschooling, and private non-religious peers. As someone who attended a private non-religious boarding school, worked for a parachurch ministry with ...

When we sit down to dinner as a family, we often go around the table and share one good thing about our day. But last night I decided, on the suggestion of a book I'm reading, to ask everyone, "What's one mistake you made today?" The idea is that we start giving our kids freedom to admit their mistakes ...

I've been thinking about comparisons. We do it without thinking–compare our waistline to the person next to us, notice what car he drives, what bag she carries, what beauty they possess. And once children are a part of the equation, it all steps up a notch. We compare everything from developmental milestones ...

Tuesday morning started at 5:30, with a text from our babysitter explaining that she couldn't come in that day due to a death in the family. I got up shortly thereafter, made breakfast, got myself and the kids dressed, packed Penny's lunch, made sure everyone had clean teeth and brushed hair, and then ...

I have a new post on her.meneutics about the near-destruction of our family's summer cottages during Hurricane Irene. It begins:

For New York City, Hurricane Irene was largely a non-event, an unnecessary nuisance with unprecedented action. For me and my extended family, Hurricane Irene was a life-changing ...

I didn't really want kids for a long time. That's a story for another day, but I might as well admit it. I thought they would slow me down. I worried that I wouldn't be able to achieve my own goals. I thought I might not know what I was doing as a parent. And I was right, on all fronts. ...

Penny's first words when I picked her up from her first day of kindergarten: "I didn't miss you, Mom!"

That probably says it all.

I missed her. William missed her–he spent the morning asking when she would get home from school. But she was ready. She marched right into that big school and lined up with ...

Last Friday, Family Life broadcast a conversation between Martha Manikas Foster and me about why Christians should consider sending their children to public schools, even "failing" public schools. It was based on a post I wrote for her.meneutics, the Christianity Today women's blog, last year, "How ...

A few nights back (in fact, in the midst of Hurricane Irene, an inauspicious choice) William said, "Mom, can you take my passy away?" (He still uses a pacifier to go to sleep, and if I were to let him walk around with it all day long, he'd carry it willingly.)

"Sure, William," I said. "Why don't I put ...

Who knew that a tropical storm could do this much damage? So here I sit, by candlelight, eighteen hours after we lost power (I'm writing this at 9:00 p.m. on Sunday night, but I can't actually post it now because we don't have Internet capabilities at the moment), wondering what the week ahead will ...

William

Penny is sitting on William's face.

He pushes her off. "Penny, my head is not a playground."

She nods. Good point.

Marilee

Marilee wakes us up at 1:30 a.m. Peter attends to her. From my half-awake state, I hear her say "Ha Da Da." It may well have been a loud exhale and then some babble, but it kept ...

Peter sometimes points out that we tend to do things with an extra level of intensity. Sometimes that's intentional–when he runs 16 miles in the sand, for instance, or when I decide I need to make sure that unusual words aren't repeated more than twice in the course of my book. But we also seem to attract ...

I'm all for retirement savings and life insurance policies and buying shoes that our kids can grow into and planting trees with the hope that they will grow larger in time. There are times, of course, when planning for the future is good and necessary and right.

But I've had a number of conversations ...

I ran a series of guest posts in early August surrounding the topic of adoption. In one, Ellen Painter Dollar delineated the problems inherent in the question, "Why Don't You Just Adopt?" I recently found out that Melissa Florer-Bixler, blogger at Sign on the Window, responded to Ellen's post by distinguishing ...