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Reaction Time
This morning my daughter kept getting distracted from making her bed. She’s four. I expect a certain amount of distraction. First, she had to potty. Then, she found a piece of paper on the floor. Around the third time, I said, “Ok, it’s time to set the timer.” We’ve been using a timer to encourage her focused attention on a task. I always set the time to be several minutes longer than I anticipate a task requiring. The goal is to help her focus, not make her rush. But this morning, when I said I was setting the timer, she squealed and began to get upset. “I can’t do it!”…
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The Butterfly Effect: Handling Rejection as a Christian
How are you with handling rejection? I’m not very good at it. God has shown me better how to handle it, but it always hurts. When someone I care about rejects me, my first reaction is intense hurt and sorrow. I want answers. What did I do? Am I not a good person? But . . . not every rejection is about me. If it is, if I did something unwittingly unkind, then I need to own it, but I have had to learn that sometimes the conflict is not about me. Sometimes, they are rejecting Christ in me. So what should we do when people reject us because of…
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Winning the Mommy Wars
The term Mommy Wars refers to the contentious relationships between mothers over real or imagined slights, insults and thinly veiled criticisms over individual parenting choices. It is the high school mean girl, cafeteria sagas for “adults.” Moms criticize or judge based on their ideas of a perfect mother (which usually looks a lot like them, ahem). What would a “perfect” mom look like? We certainly get bombarded with all sorts of messages, don’t we? Based on today’s parent media standards, she might look a little like the list below. She would always be patient, kind, fun, and funny, never yelling or letting stress get to her. She would not work,…
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Swimming Lessons
“Mommy is right here. You know I won’t let you get hurt, right?” “Right . . .” Tiny arm wraps around my neck, clutching me in a death grip. “You know that I will be here the whole time, right?” “Right . . .” Little fingers clutch at my hair. “You’re going to have to trust me.” “But I don’t trust you!” she wailed at a paint peeling decibel. I’m sure the neighbors were quite certain I was committing various acts of torture instead of just trying to get my child to float in the pool with her life jacket on. This is the child I have doted on since…
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Watch Me, Daddy!
This entry will post a day after Father’s Day because having just posted a long entry on Saturday, I hadn’t prepared an entry about Father’s Day. I only write posts when God prods my heart, and despite not planning on writing today, I spent quite a bit of the day being emotional. I prayed a lot for comfort today. My father-in-law passed away a few years ago and the last time we saw him was Father’s Day when my daughter was just born, so Father’s Day is hard for my husband in a way that I can only imagine even though I grieve for him as well. We knew he…
