He asks me, with his big blue eyes and those long eye-lashes, while he’s laying there on his pillow, about my first mommy and daddy. “You know, your bad mom and dad?” And I don’t like to call them bad, because they did some stupid things and some wrong things, but I just don’t believe they ever intentionally meant to hurt me. I have all this compassion for them, so I try to explain that they just didn’t take care of me very well.“Oh,” he says quietly, “they just left you alone.” I cry a little and try not to let him see. Because years have passed and now that I have a little boy and a little girl, I can see how a mama or a daddy has to be pretty messed up, and pretty darn wrecked-up to ever leave their babes alone. “But why did they not take very good care of you, Mama?” Now, I’ve got all [...]

Little boy, did you see the ants today? Those ones in the long crack in the driveway, that just keep on keeping on, even when you leave tire tracks, right smack dab through the middle of their hill? All their hard work? They're busy little creatures. They don't seem to let defeat discourage them. They just keep building.Enjoy your life, my son.Little girl, did you see that one sparrow? Who built her nest in mama's peat moss basket? She flits off to bring more food to her babes, being careful not to swoop too close to the kitty. Her little ones are growing up so fast. Come hot summer, they'll be grown and gone. For now, she just keeps singing and filling up their bellies.Enjoy your life, my love.Little boy, do you notice the way your sister sees you? Like, you're her bestest buddy-chum pal?[...]

See these two little twirps? I love them with everything that's in me. I love them so much, it actually pains me. When they're fast asleep and I go in to peek at them, with their soft skin, and that little peach fuzz still on their cheeks, and their little beating hearts and their sweet hands and those cute toes, I sometimes just cry because of how much I love them. Every bit.  And golley, how I want to protect them. There's not a doubt in my mind that at any sign of trouble, I'd scoop them up and run to keep them safe, or I'd lay down my life right then and there just to keep theirs going. I'd suffer anything for them. And if they ever got lost, I'd spend my life searching the world for them. I just love them so deep.And I think they need that kind of love. We all do. We need someone[...]

Today had a lot of good in it, but there was a lot of hard, too. The waking up, knowing that there would be dishes to clean and loads of laundry to wash, and bins of clothes to sort, and a kitchen floor that desperately needed swept. I felt like I was wading through cereal crumbs and dried up mac-n-cheese and broken crayons and lost pieces of art. When you walk around hearing crunching noises, you hope to goodness that nobody pops in for a surprise visit. You just gotta set your nose to the grindstone and get crackin', Jackin. So, I made my mental list of all the need-to-dos and told myself that I should keep trying to teach Gideon to read today, and that I should potty-train Hope, like for real this time, and before I knew it, I was over the stove, scrubbing gunk off the burners, wonderin[...]

Dear husband of mine,I'm wildly crazy about you. Still. And when a girl is wildly crazy about a man, it's hard for her not to shout it out to the world.There are these moments, in the parking lot at the grocery store, when I look over at you, clutching our little kid's hands in yours, letting them jump and skip, even though it's hard to hold onto them and keep them from getting run over when they jump and skip, that I want to shout it out right there, underneath the blazing sky, for all the parking lot pedestrians to hear, that you are indeed an incredible man. I restrain myself. Because I've seen how you blush. Like, the time I put the peat moss basket on my head in the home and garden aisle and pretended to be asian-of-sorts and nodded and bowed at all the folks we passed. Or the time I [...]

Sometimes, when I'm afraid, or stressed out, or a bit discouraged, I hear God tap, tap, tapping on the door of my heart. Or, He just peeks in through that little window of my soul and I look up to see Him smiling kind, so I invite Him in. I invite Him in because He won't stand there long, for He's not the sort to pester. He's quite respectful that way. I mean, I could easily choose to ignore His gentle rapping, and off He'd go, down the lane. He never barges in. And He never huffs and puffs as He turns or guilts me through the window with a glare. And when I invite Him in, He comes in cheerfully and He's a little chatty so we sit at the table and I pour up the tea. He's got this smile as He waits for me to catch His gaze, and then He leans back in His chair and says it tender, between gulp[...]

 If you ever happen upon a bullfrog, don't be skeered. He's nice.Now, he might try to intimidate you. He might look you straight in the eye and croak. Or he might rare his back and bloat out his belly and puff out his legs, but it's all just a joke. 'Cause the truth is, you're awful big to him so he wants to be big too. He wants to make you think he'll zap you up with his ginormous tongue and swallow you right down. But, he's just plumb terrified that you're over there sizing up his hind haunches and that you'll cook him up in a frog-leg stew. So, don't let his silly tactics fool you. He's actually just a nice guy. Really. If you're easy-going and gentle, and don't scream like a girl and high-tail it the other way, you can make friends with him. You can even pick h[...]

I didn't know how being a mama would change me. When I quit the work at the office and wondered if I'd miss all the grown-ups, I didn't know how much I'd really be okay. I'd be just fine teaching a little boy his letters and how to make friends and a little girl how to nurture life and run fast and wild and free.My email box got a lot thinner, after the walls of my belly grew out and people weren't writing, needing me to do all these "important" things, but somehow I found all this delight in scrubbing mac-n-cheese off plastic Thomas the train plates and changing little people's britches for the umpteenth time.I really, really like being a mama.I like the part where you cuddle up next to the little boy who grew big inside of you and gave you your first stretch marks, and continues to stret[...]

I haven't written much in a while, mostly because we were gone on a long trip to see family and friends and I wanted to focus on the folks right in front of me. I wanted to really enjoy them. And I did. But, before we left for our trip to Arkansas, I had prayed this little feeble prayer. Sometime in the middle of all the packing and the scrubbing of toilets and carrying out the trash, I had asked God if He would please heal me from fear. I had asked Him specifically if He'd do it while we were in Arkansas, of all places, because fear had begun consuming me again. I struggle with this, and I knew God wanted me to be free but I also knew He had to help me because I was sort of drowning. Fear does that--it has this way of making you feel like you can't breathe, though you're standing in [...]