We are entering week two of quarantinacation with our two young children, and it is hard. Initially I over-functioned. I spent an obscene amount of money on books and art kits. I set up a printer so we could have actual math worksheets. I yelled the “F” word while trying to set up the printer. […]
Another Week Ends: Behavior Modifications, a Developed Buffer, Performance Parenting, and a Marriage at the End of the World
“Man, I sure pity whoever has to do the weekender today,” I thought to myself earlier this week, only to check my calendar and see it was me! If we’re connecting the Christian message to everyday life, for just about everyone, everyday life has, er, gone viral. Here’s our roundup of the best of the […]
If You Sat in Front of Me at Church, I Apologize
If you sat in front of me at church this past week, I apologize. The song we were singing was “Hope Has a Name,” by River Valley Worship, but my version sounded more like this: Hope has a name, His name is Je… shhh, I’m trying to sing the song My Savior’s cross has set […]
Mr. Archie and Waiting in Advent
Every month, we pay a certain sum of money for music lessons. In theory, this is so that our children will learn how to read music, perform in front of a crowd, and take direction. In reality, they learn so much more than that, and that music tuition is worth every penny. Our youngest, Ben, […]
From Mary’s Womb
My son was being showered with attention and shouts of “Happy Birthday!” when another mom leaned over to me and quietly said, “Happy Giving-Birth-Day to you!” And I thought, “Yeah! Why is he getting all of the attention? I’m the one who went through childbirth!” Soon of course that attitude passed, and I continued celebrating […]
Middle School, Santa Claus, and the Love that Surpasses Understanding
I’ve written a fair amount about Christmas, and how our family celebrates Christmas. We honor Santa with a nod to the big guy, but we don’t go all-out with lumps of coal and threats of surveillance. Santa was one of those things about parenthood that I put entirely too much thought into at the beginning, […]
The Quiet Dances and Grace in Jojo Rabbit
Loud and rambunctious: a couple words that might describe the trailer for Taika Waititi’s satirical new film Jojo Rabbit. We might also add to those: crass, audacious, daring. After the release of Joker a couple weeks prior, the world needed a film that would be a little more light-hearted and encouraging. This is where I […]
Classic Jazz, Pinot Noir, and Law/Gospel Couplets
He had ice water, I had the remnants of a large bottle of pinot noir. We clinked cup and bottle in a toast. He had been invited into the fellowship of the fellas — my exclusive man-cave or rather man-dungeon (I’m poor after all). It had been a long weekend filled with parental demands and […]
Lie Down and Die: The History of Miserable Motherhood (and an Unmapped Plug)
“I declare if I tho’t I was to be thus occupied for the rest of my life, I would — I was going to say — lie down & die.” So wrote a new nursing mother Laura Wirt Randall in 1828, as quoted in the book Scarlett’s Sisters by historian Anya Jabour. To which we reply, […]
Another Week Ends: Aging Presidents, Reusable Grocery Bags, the Soul of Pixar, Zero-Sum Happiness, Bad Good Books, Bomb Threats, and the Joy of Being Cancelled
1. There’s much ado about cancel culture going around the web these past two weeks. The New York Times has a pair of profiles on the new morality forming in certain circles of left-leaning activism, though to observe it on the political left is not to say that it doesn’t happen everywhere else, including the […]
“Ad Astra” and Dad
Usually I disdain movies. But aesthetics can seduce, and I am a sucker for dystopia, and, well, last night I was beat. So we went to see “Ad Astra.” I had heard of the sublime art direction and the contrast between the full-on space travel and the intimate subplot of the father/son relationship. You may […]
When the World Calls Them Otherwise, God Calls Them Good
It is a scary time to be raising children. But boys come with their own narrative of misbehaviors. Boys are deemed too intense, too loud, too active. They misbehave earlier and more demonstrably than most girls. They have a much higher rate of diagnosis for challenges like ADHD and mood disorders. They spend more time […]
