Last week my kids loved water. I couldn’t keep them out of the pool. This week, I can’t get my daughter Adelaide into it. Earlier this summer I signed up (and paid for) all three of my girls to go to swimming lessons. They started this week. The older two are learning different strokes, how to dive and things of that nature. Adelaide, who is four, was all gung-ho to start lessons so she would no longer be shamed by the dreaded "wearing of the arm floaties.” But something (I don't know what) happened between last week when we were in the South visiting family - and swimming - and this week …

My girls love anything that pertains to water: buckets, squirt guns, ladybug raincoats, rainbow-patterned rubber boots and umbrellas with handles shaped like My Little Ponies. They love to ride their bikes around in the rain, squirt each other (and me) with the water hose, run through the sprinkler and play on the Slip-n-Slide. No, it doesn’t matter how big or small the pool (or puddle) is. If there is enough to splash in, it’s enough for them. I guess this is good news, since our "beach fund" is pitifully insufficient this year. Take the tiny pool in the photos, for instance. It was the main…

Time is going by fast. Remember when you were a kid and it seemed like summer lasted forever? And Christmas seemed like it would never come? These days it seems like my birthday is every other week and that my kids are somehow growing through time-lapse photography. Sometimes when I’m out with my kids, an elderly person will chuckle at my harried expression and stained shirt and say, “You’ve got your hands full!” They’re right. I do. And sometimes I feel like I’m not enjoying my life enough. Like I’m not grateful enough or happy enough. It bothers me that I am not always experiencing an “…

I haven’t had a garage sale in about five years. Since my two older girls were at camp last week, I seized the opportunity to purge my entire house of clutter. You wouldn’t believe the pile of stuff that I ended up with. Usually I sell at the Kids’ Stuff Sale at Garfield Park, so I had lots of kids' clothes and toys and books saved up. When I brought all that up from the basement and added it to the “purge pile,” I ended up with a virtual mountain of stuff. There was so much of it that I decided to have a garage sale. When the kids got home, the first thing Sadie (the packrat) said was, “Why …

Raising girls is a mystery sometimes. That’s pretty bad news for me, since I am one (or at least I used to be several years ago… now I'm getting kinda old.) There are so many things I need to teach my three girls about life and about being women! It’s intimidating, since sometimes I feel like I haven't really grown up myself. They are growing up fast. Though I look for helpful hints everywhere I go, I'm still happy to accept new advice into my parenting arsenal. Here is the second installment of tips that I've collected (see numbers 1-4 from last week here), just in case you need some help …

Lately I’ve been thinking about all of the things that I need to teach my daughters. I have three of them, and they are growing up at the speed of light. I read parenting articles, books, magazines and the Bible. I listen to sermons, go to conferences, attend a small group book study and visit any other place I think I might be able to glean a bit of mothering wisdom that I may have missed along the way. Don’t get me wrong – in no way am I claiming to be all-knowing – I’m stumbling along the road of motherhood just like you are. But just in case you’re always looking for a second (or 22nd) …

Around here, someone is always in the bathtub pretending to be Ariel. My girls have always loved the Disney version of The Little Mermaid. We have Barbie mermaids, Playmobil mermaids, My Little Pony mermaids (perhaps those are classified as sea-horses), mermaid shirts, mermaid books … you get the idea. Now, my girls don’t scare very easily. They love to play outside in the dark, run through the woods and go fishing with creepy crawly things. They love to watch shows like River Monsters, Man vs. Wild and Shark Week. They don’t blink an eye when learning about mummification or Medusa or the …

“What did you do all day?” my husband asked. It’s an innocent enough question – I don’t think he was implying that I didn’t do anything. The emphasis was not on the word “do,” as in “What did you DO all day?” But as I thought back about my day, I found it hard to remember exactly what I did do. How did the entire day slip past without me being able to get anything done at all? This was food for thought. I decided (as often is the case with me) to make a list. The next day I put a pen and some paper next to my planner and as the day went along, I wrote down the things I did. Well, I wrote them…

"A grandpa is someone you never outgrow your need for." I don't know who said that first but isn’t that true? I still miss my grandpa and he’s been gone for more than eight years. My children, though, are blessed to still have three grandfathers in their lives. There’s Grandpa, their dad’s dad, who lives on the other side of town. There’s Papaw, my daddy, who lives in North Carolina. And there’s Grampie, my stepfather, who lives about 20 minutes from us here in Ohio.   Grandpa is at our house pretty much on a daily basis. He is a tall, imposing guy with a quick wit and a whacky sense of humor…

“Mommy, sometimes you are allergic to fun.” This is what my child tells me when I’m on a cleaning binge and can’t think of anything but getting rid of junk. You might not know it these days but I am actually a closet packrat. Not with everything – I have no problem getting rid of Tupperware containers or magazines or old clothes. No, I mainly want to keep sentimental stuff that pertains to my children. I keep the usual things: the hats they wore at the hospital, the first lock of hair, the baby footprints, the first drawing – but I have a hard time getting rid of the not so usual things. …

My grandma’s house isn’t the fanciest place in the world. Nor is it the most comfortable. There are potted plants everywhere. Knickknacks cover every available surface. Family photos are on every wall and a Bible is on every table. It’s definitely a grandma house. But according to my kids, you would think it was the Promised Land. On their calendars, they mark off the days until we leave on our trip for North Carolina. They give me an update every single morning until the day finally comes when they can “pack.”  I handle the clothes – otherwise we’d show up for our 2-week stint at my …

In the middle of the night, I hear a thump upstairs, then a pair of bare feet clomping down the steps as fast as they can clomp. “Mom! Mommy! Josie threw up all over her bed and she needs you!” And so it begins. My husband and I divide and conquer (and yawn.) “Which one do you want?” I ask him. “Laundry or hard surfaces and the kid?” He chooses laundry and we both sleepily traipse upstairs. We find poor Josie sitting on her bed in a mass of puke-covered Tinkerbell sheets, her hair sticking out wildly in all directions. I chalk the hair up to regular bed-head until her big sister knowingly …

As an 18-month-old, the world stretches out before my son Jedidiah, beckoning him to all of its wonders. Here are a few of the things that he’s learned in his short (but exciting) life. When it’s time to eat, EAT. Don’t let anything stop you. Also, any kind of fruit is worth squealing over. Whipped cream, however, is worth crying over. Books have multiple uses: reading, chewing and throwing. Sisters are funny. Sisters who dance around and then fall down accidentally are hilarious. Moms are the best thing ever. Potential friends are everywhere. Most are in the form of dogs. The human body is …

I remember the very first time Sadie, my oldest daughter, picked a flower to give to me. It was, of course, a dandelion. In her chubby little childish fist, though, it was special to my “mother’s heart.” As a matter of fact, it is currently pressed and dried and residing in her baby book. Back then, her newfound flower-picking ability was especially noteworthy. (Her usual toddler behavior was eating sand out of the sandbox.) A fistful of wilting daisies, a gloppy mess of congealed finger-paint on construction paper, notes with a scribbled “I (heart) Mom,” a wide baby grin, a slobbery good …

Every once in a while, I try to have Special Mommy Night with each of my children. One-on-one time is a rare commodity in a busy house with four children. The parents are outnumbered. But last week, Josie and I went out for a special date. Josie is six years old and she is my adventurous eater. She will try (and like) pretty much anything. This is a great change from her early beginnings, when she would only eat strawberry-apple fruit poofs, watermelon, yellow cheese, graham crackers, yogurt and the occasional meatball. Now she loves things that most kids would turn their noses up at: …

I put it off as long as I could. But when 17-month-old Jedidiah sported butterfly hairbows and a pony tail last weekend, I finally gave up and decided to let his dad do what he’s been begging to do for months: Cut my baby’s hair. Now, as a mother with three other children who are older than my “baby” is, I’ve been through this before. I know that once you get that wispy baby hair cut, your baby does NOT look like a baby anymore. It’s that simple. So it’s easy to see why I wanted to put it off as long as possible. Though I was in denial about him growing up, I couldn’t help but notice the …

I was one of those strange kids who never cared about Star Wars. I never even watched it until a few years after I graduated from college; even then, I couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. It’s strange how this has come back to haunt me now that I have kids. Against my (better) judgment, my husband (a self-proclaimed Star Wars aficionado from the time it came out in 1977 when he was a year old) let my girls watch the trilogy with him. It was kind of a big deal for him – he wanted them to like it. Let’s just say he was not disappointed. There has been an on-again, off-again (mostly…

When I became pregnant with my first child at the ripe old age of 26, I was all about going “all natural.” We signed up for Bradley Childbirth Classes. I read a book about natural births, one about breastfeeding and all of the parenting magazines I could get my hands on. Since I planned to forego any pain medications, I was a bit concerned when we asked the doctor if he could tell how big she would be from looking at the ultrasound. He looked at me (tall, big-boned and gigantically pregnant) and then at my husband (6’2” and 230 pounds) and dead-panned, “Well, you are not small people.” Just …

My kids love spring. One of the best things about living in Northeast Ohio is the very prominent change of the seasons. In the south, where I grew up, winter turns to summer almost immediately. First you have on your winter coat, then suddenly you’re sweating and you have to turn on the A/C. Living here -- where the seasons change gradually -- is nice. When the first crocuses burst awake from their winter sleep, my girls get so excited. They run inside, grab my hand and haul me out to the flower bed to see what they call “an amazing, wonderful surprise!” I love the way they are thrilled by …

Have you ever heard the jokes about the men who refuse to pull over and ask for directions? The ones who are never “lost," no matter how lost they are? How about the parents who never stop and ask for directions with this whole parenting thing -- ever heard of them? That would be me. As a general rule, I would rather drive to Montana on the way to Florida (metaphorically) than admit I need help with my kids. I mean, I’m supposed to be the expert on my own kids, right? Parenting is like any long journey, though. You hit speedbumps. Sometimes you need some insight from people that are further …