“What’s one word you would use to describe your 2020?”
I heard someone ask this last week, and was a bit stumped. How do you shoehorn this year into a word?
THE AWKWARD MOM
because uncomfortable conversations are the ones worth having
Tag: fear (page 2 of 7)
Reading Time: 5 minutes
Reading Time: 6 minutes
First week of COVID-19 closures: a week of strange dreams.
Once, I dreamt I was driving in the dark, but my headlights kept flipping off. I kept protesting that I could hit something.
Another night, I was unprepared for a trip to a writer’s conference I wasn’t sure why I’d signed up for–but my editor was there, anticipating I would have great things to say. I’d forgotten shoes, blouses, my computer charger.
Reading Time: 5 minutes
So maybe like me, you got the automated notice from the school yesterday that your kids–surprise!–have an extra week of spring break next week, because #coronavirus.
And maybe like me, a member of your family braved Costco this week. Or maybe you now possess a weird amount of toilet paper–which according to a meme I saw yesterday, is now the bottom rung of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
Reading Time: 7 minutes
My daughter’s headed to winter camp soon, which she adores. This morning, over an increasingly plain-looking Greek yogurt parfait, she gushed about camp’s breakfast buffet. She loves the free time, the reconnecting with old friends.
But in light of her anxiety issues, and apparently a night last year when she laid awake till 2, she’s already nervous about getting to sleep.
(All those suggestions in the Help! My Kid Can’t Sleep post? Those are hard-won, peeps.)
Reading Time: 4 minutes
For most of my life, I’ve been one of those people who could fall asleep anywhere. This is both a rich blessing and potentially a mortifying curse, of course.
Airplanes? Hotels? Weird bedrooms? Check.
Reading Time: 3 minutes
I could tell you my son has energy. But that would be kind of like me telling you Bill Gates is kind of good at computers.
We’re on a sports rotation at my house. It is not because we love to be busy (we try not to be?), or love getting up on Saturdays for games (nope), or think he’ll be a star someday (odds are pretty slim).
Reading Time: 4 minutes
People think of sleep as one of the easiest things in the world. Babies can do it! (Though as one woman wrote, “I don’t want to sleep like a baby. I want to sleep like my husband.” Hear, hear.)
But I’ve noticed a weird amount of people around me now who have serious issues getting to sleep and staying asleep.
Reading Time: 6 minutes
My thirteen-year-old and I sat across a sticky table from each other at the local donut shop. If I remember right, he had this maple-frosted thing that was the size of a small planet, totally at my permission (unusual for my Sugar Nazi tendencies). His tears had dried by now, leaving a whisper of salt on his cheeks.
“I just feel like I have more setbacks than wins,” he shrugged, so clearly in pain.
Reading Time: 5 minutes
I woke early on Easter morning. It was not the kind of, “Oh! I get, like, an hour more of sleep! I love this feeling!” But more, “Hey, there is absolutely no one else up! Listen. Hear that? It’s the sound of NOTHING. I think I will wake up and enjoy it.” This was before I knew the kids drank the last of the milk = no coffee for me.
Maybe because the light in our bedroom felt hopeful and springtime-ish–and because I wanted to make the most of this day–I thought of the light in the garden, that morning Jesus rose. Yes. I am totally #thatmom.
Reading Time: 5 minutes
Parenting has this way of exposing a part of who you are in ways both beautiful and terrifying.
As in, Wow! Who knew I had this gift for creative teaching? Or, Who knew I could handle this amount of laundry and still emerge with enough panties to fight the day?
But also, as author Elizabeth Stone has written, Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.
Pull up a chair for practical ideas and discussions on the parenting, relationships, and spirituality we're all army-crawling through every day.
After five and a half years in Uganda, my family and I returned to the U.S., where I write and speak professionally, and we continue to work on behalf of the poor.
My first solo book, Permanent Markers: Spiritual Life Skills to Write on Your Kids' Hearts (Harvest House), released October 2021.
#instagoodness
Most popular: Shame-parenting vs. Guilt Exposure
Popular: When Your Help Makes Kids Helpless
Spiritual Life Skills for Kids
Popular: What does God think of strong women?
Popular: 11 Ideas for Emotionally Healthy Parenting
Popular: Am I Judgmental? Judgment vs. Discernment
Popular: Complaining vs. honest expression
On God and the dreams of women
20 Practical ideas for every love language!
![Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language](https://www.janelbreitenstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/love-languages-text-1.jpg "Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language")
Ideas and Questions to Take Your Relationships Deeper: Click here!
© 2024 THE AWKWARD MOM
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑
