Category: parenting
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Raising Individuals in Community: Leading/Parenting in the Tension
Today I’m just trying something new: sharing a few of my thoughts (from a conversation earlier today) in an audio post! Just 9:51 for your listening enjoyment. xoxo Jocelyn
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Hearts Swelling with Love
Every day it seems I notice my boys swelling a bit. Don’t worry – they’re not sick. They’re just growing. Their bellies swell with the fullness of a simple meal. Their calves swell with overuse in reckless play. Their language swells; new words and more correct pronunciations and verb conjugations are on the rise. Their…
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Mother-Son Book Race 2017
One of my sons and I are having a 2017 book race: We’re competing to see who can read the most chapter books this year. We’re making a stack on the fireplace mantle in our living room of the books we read (using some stand-ins for the library books) and then at Christmastime we plan…
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Code for “Mom, I’m more important than your phone.”
I have an iPhone. It is mostly a very good and useful thing. Overall, our family has good boundaries with screens of all kinds. But sometimes, my phone will latch itself onto my eyes and brain and unsuspectingly absorb them entirely into its magical screen to the detriment of the actual humans around me who…
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I Stand Amazed (How Marvelous)
Do you know any hymns? In my growing-up years, my dad would sing us to sleep with the hymns. I’ve done the same with my boys, committing more and more to memory over the years. Admittedly, a few of the hymns have some wonky theology, but overall they are a rich genre of Scripture set…
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New Parents! Diapers or Deadlines: 7 Things to Consider about Staying Home vs Going Back to Work after Baby
The decision of whether or not to go back to work outside the home after maternity/paternity leave is nothing short of a difficult one for many. There are so many factors to consider: Who will go, mum or dad? If both, how many hours should one go back to work? Will going back to work affect the…
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How many kids should we have?
The whole issue of choosing whether or not to have children, when to have children, and how many children to have is extremely multi-faceted. It is an issue that has preoccupied recent generations far more than the generations preceding us simply due to the sponsorship of its patron saint: birth controls.* I know you know…
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A bow & arrows. Oh, and a quiver.
Howard spent his birthday gift card on something he’d wanted for a really long time: a bow and arrow set. And, so, of course, during this very slow, not-much-to-do-anyway month of December, I dropped everything that afternoon and made him a monogrammed quiver out of felt to hold his arrows. Actually, I really didn’t have…
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From Barren to Happy
This morning I read: “He settles the barren woman in her home as a happy mother of children. Praise the LORD.” Psalm 113:9 I’ve never been barren in the infertile sense. But I look back on my life before I had children and can easily see how barren I was — barren…