This post was co-written with my wife, Jessica
“Mommm!”
“Daaad!”
2am. One of us stumbles out of bed. Again.
“….yes?”
“I can’t sleep. I’m afraid.”
What if there are malarial mosquitos in the house? What if I have a heart attack because I ate too much butter? What if I get skin cancer from being outside today? I can’t stop thinking about the bad guy from the cartoon, or the child-snatching monster from the fairy tale, or…
Continue reading Malarial Mosquitos And The Power Of A Good Book
Last year on our flight to America, my boys were looking forward to the Pac-Man knockoff game on the in-flight entertainment system before we even boarded. My daughter remembered which movies she had watched two flights before. She had just turned six, and was about to take her fourth trip over the Atlantic.
This was not my childhood.
This week twelve years ago, we should have been welcoming our firstborn child, but she wasn’t here. I’ve written about the day we found out about Hannah’s death in this post. This week, in honour of the daughter we haven’t met (yet), I’m sharing a poem I wrote shortly afterwards to process my thoughts about God and the death of a child.
It’s no secret that two of the most dreaded words in the usually carefree world of childhood are Homework and Chores. In the long run, we know that homework actually helps our children become successful adults. We also know that we’ll get in trouble with the school if we don’t enforce it. So homework is a given.
But chores are different: As parents, chores are our decision. On the surface, the choice seems obvious: if we want a conflict free home full of happy people, we’ll forget about the idea as quickly as possible. The children don’t like it, and it’s not always helpful for parents who have to remind, supervise, and sometimes redo the whole job anyway. Continue reading Happy Chores
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