THE AWKWARD MOM

because uncomfortable conversations are the ones worth having

Category: love (page 2 of 11)

A Christian Home: Wondering Where to Start?

Reading Time: 3 minutes

christian home

Question: Where did you get your mental/emotional/spiritual/social blueprints on how to build a Christian home?

A friend of mine is a first-generation Christian. Aside from a few moments in college, a week of VBS was about the extent of Christian education–there were stickers and crafts, she remembers. read more

Parenthood: There Will Be Scars

Reading Time: 4 minutes

scars

Months ago, I stumbled upon what I thought was an epiphany: silicone scar strips…which promised, with 4.5 stars on Amazon, to fade stretch marks, people.

My heart lifted. My first child ballooned my belly like a watermelon, complete with stripes. When another mother asked to glimpse my stretch marks after I mentioned their severity, she gasped aloud with some equivalent of Good golly.  read more

New Year 2021: Ideas to Put the “New” Back In

Reading Time: 4 minutes

New Year 2021

While living in Uganda, my language acquisition developed to an equivalent of that drunken-sailor lurch of a new toddler. That is, my ability to speak resembled lurching, grinning, and occasionally falling on my rear.

And of course just because you can speak a language doesn’t mean you use it in the same ways. I’d occasionally get weird looks for wishing someone Merry Christmas (Seku Kulu enungi!) in December. Apparently Ugandans keep this phrase pretty much for Christmas day. read more

Free Printable Postcards for Kids!

Reading Time: 3 minutes

free printable postcards for kids

Anyone else–after Thanksgiving away from family–feeling a little sad?

My kids have cousins and grandparents they won’t have seen for a year. Though I obviously hate this pain on a number of levels–I love that my kids (including three teenagers!) were visibly bummed when Thanksgiving was canceled with their grandparents, and cousins half their age.  read more

Christian Mindfulness: How It’s Changing Me

Reading Time: 7 minutes

Christian mindfulness

My father is the broad-shouldered, strong, internal teddy bear type, with fingers like sausages. In my childhood, he was a Midwestern farmer.  In his spare time, he donates his mad skills to car repairs of missionaries, single moms, people like that. He’s that kind of guy.

And it’s common for him to come back into the house with blood zigzagging down his leg or seeping through his shirt. read more

On My 20th Anniversary: An Open Letter to My Kids

Reading Time: 4 minutes

anniversary

This week it passed rather quietly, thanks to quarantine: our 20th anniversary. Holy moly, it’s weird to be this old. (Though yeah, marrying at 19 and 20 years old–that happens.)

But this is what I loved, guys. Even as I typed away at work, as you woke up and poured cereal and forgot to put bowls in the dishwasher, my insides felt like I was bubbling over with liquid gratitude. read more

This is Your Soul on Rest: Memos to Myself

Reading Time: 7 minutes

rest

This week, my family and I shoved in the car ski boots and a sled and carefully calculated food to feed a family with three teenagers. In the 2-hour drive through the mountains, cell service dropped abruptly about twenty minutes in. Our friend’s cabin, swaddled in 3 feet of snow, has no internet (brilliant!), no reception, and is primarily heated with a potbelly stove.

The plan originally seemed dicey. My friend with cancer is declining. And after this trip, my husband leaves for two and a half weeks. read more

2019 Best Posts of the Year!

Reading Time: 3 minutes

2019 best posts of year

Sitting with my daughter yesterday, she expressed she had a little fear for 2020. It’s a big year, she explained, with some personal stuff, plus elections and Olympics and what-not.

My first inclination–in light of how young she is, of course–was to brush away her fear. read more

Spiritual Life Skills: 10 Ways to Teach Compassion (with book list!)

Reading Time: 6 minutes

I don’t know about you, but back-to-school prep is real, folks.

Your kids are asking if they need shots (which makes you, in turn, ask if they need shots.) You’re buying 8-packs of dry erase markers, enough pencils to take the SAT every day for an entire year, and wondering if you could still repurpose that lunchbox with the barbecue sauce stain on it that looks like Ronald Reagan. read more

All There: Tips on Being Fully, Powerfully Present

Reading Time: 5 minutes

present presence being there

Ever get that feeling the person in front of you is there-but-not-there?

I’m totally guilty of this–those moments my kids are telling me something and they’re like, “Mom.” Because I’m too often multitasking–probably for their sakes, but still: not present in the moment they care about. read more

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