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Why I Disappointed my Daughter for Christmas
BYes, I disappointed my daughter for Christmas, and I think it was the right decision. But it was so hard to stick to my guns. Why would I deliberately disappoint her for Christmas? When she was five, she had asked for a $5 set of orange and blue ponies with hair to brush and braid, a minion toy, a Barbie that rides a horse that really walks, and a big white horse like her friend has. Every night for a week before Christmas, she reiterated her list. I had shopped for her gifts months ahead of time. All the gifts sat tucked away, all ready for Christmas. There would be…
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A Change in Perspective
Heaven Not Harvard started with my acknowledging that all the world’s pressure on my parenting was creating unnecessary stress, weighing on me, pushing me to be cranky and insistent with an incorrect perspective, trying be a perfect mom based on imperfect standards. Inside my head, I yelled, ‘stop!’ And I shifted my parenting away from a generic “Harvard” goal and prioritized my focus on a “Heaven” goal. Over time, that mantra has shifted my focus in a myriad of ways, including my goals for myself, including my perspective on my marriage, and including events like Thanksgiving. Today, I simply wanted to focus on being thankful, with a peaceful attention on…
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Fairy Tale Proposal and Happily Ever After
It didn’t start as a fairy tale proposal! It started with a traffic stop. April 6, 2006, I got pulled over by the sheriff. Alarmed, I couldn’t imagine then how this event would change my life. But it did. In 2016, I was so excited to sit in the very spot of this momentous encounter with our sheriff with my daughter and watch this video of her daddy’s surprise return from Iraq which had a bigger twist than I realized. I was stunned. I had no idea what was happening. Until I watched the reply, I wasn’t even sure what I said – on NBC, MSNBC and now YouTube! Now…
