Today’s Great Giveaways! The Plan A MOM in a Plan B World By Debbie Taylor Williams Do you ever feel like throwing your hands in the air and saying, “I can’t do this”? Being a mom is hard and life is filled with Plan Bs. Whether your Plan B is a strong willed child, a rebellious teen, being a single mom, a chronically ill child, or a tot’s tantrums, God doesn’t want you to live in Plan B despair. Join Debbie, mom to two adult children and Mimi to three grandchildren, as she walks you through 18 parenting land mines …
To Count or Not to Count
It was hard not to notice her struggle, since she and her husband sat across from us while we all waited to board our flight. Her little princess was Pottery Barn catalog pretty, but she had an attitude that shouted “Diva!” With a patient voice and bottomless bag of tricks, the mom was trying to work her magic (emphasis on “work”) before we ever approached the plane. Nothing worked. Just then, she found hope in the form of another “traveling mommy.” Different kinds of moms Traveling mommy #2 took a different approach. She was streamlined. She was in charge. She …
Responding to Disasters
Every vacation has the potential for disaster. As a mom, every DAY has the potential for disaster! Instead of being paralyzed or panicking, we can focus on what matters most in such moments and chalk it up as a “victory” for motherhood! Here’s how to respond in a moment of mayhem. Half chewed blue gummy sharks flashed before my eyes and pooled into my lap, as my husband swerved to stop and get the van door open. Our four year old sat limp in his car seat. With all my planning for our mountain vacation, I wasn’t fast enough for …
Flying with Mom – Airline Travel with Kids
It’s dark and quiet as hundreds around me sleep, now that the small passenger in row 35 has given in. His mother looks relieved, but cautious, slumped under a blanket beside him. Airline travel with small children is not easy, but it can be done well. Before the flight attendant closed the overhead bins, the elderly lady in row 35 found a way to move far from the little wiggling person making demands before we even pulled away from the gate. Early indications showed it would be a long overnight flight with this half sized, yet powerful, passenger. His mom, …
Summer: Season of Friendship
Growing a friendship makes me a better mom. Toddler moms may be tempted to think they will never have time for a friend again, unless they happen to be named Dora and wear a backpack. Teen moms may be tempted to think they’ll only have time for friends who cross paths on sign up sheets at sports meetings. But our children and our husbands can not meet all our relational needs, and it’s unfair and unrealistic to expect they will. Even a mommy, especially a mommy, is meant to have a friend. Mom-friends grow in summer In addition to the …
Glimpses of Graduates and Goals
Parents and teenagers gathered around the pool, balancing plates of hamburgers and desserts, over napkins in school colors. The graduates splashing and playing looked a lot like the little boys of ten years earlier. My oldest teen congratulated her friends, her own high school graduation still a year away. It was just a glimpse of what was to come, a glimpse I imagined long ago while pushing her stroller draped with a diaper bag in nursery colors. The decisions we made while she was still buckled in have determined where she is now. It’s the glimpse of graduation, while still …
Summer Reader Guarantee
It doesn’t matter the age of your child; every mom hopes her child will spend more of the summer reading than channel surfing. On the same day school ended in our city, an email arrived from the Superintendent of schools. “Please remember that reading is a great way to keep engaged and learning over the summer. I encourage you to sign up for a Summer Reading Program at one of our local branch libraries – it’s free and for all ages. I invite our students to read consistently each day, and for our parents of younger children to make sure …
Plant a mentee, watch her grow
As the weather warms and growing seasons take root, are you planting anything? If you want plump, juicy tomatoes, now is the time to plant. If you want bunches of cilantro for guacamole, now is the time to sprinkle seeds. If you want to have a mom with her ear turned to the Lord, now is the time to plant a mentee and watch her grow. While soil is soft and sunshine frequent, lovers of all things veggie carefully dig and plant and water. Summer is the perfect time to nurture a mentoring relationship that will take root, sprout new …
Making Mentoring Personal
Mentoring only makes a difference if it gets personal. The way most of us live life today insulates us from getting very personal. In fact, there are more ways than ever to create the profile that we want the world around us to see. A status update and profile picture present the “me” we choose to show our family and girlfriends. If all else fails, we can add highlights, polish, Spanx, or Photoshop to carefully craft our avatar (That’s the little picture that represents “you” online). But a mentor gets past all that. A mentor gets personal. The arrival of …
Facing our Fears
What’s a mom to do when her child who never minded being passed around a room of eager relatives freaks out at the sound of a flushing toilet? Are childhood anxieties real? The day my four year old screamed from the back of our mini-van in the Hobby Lobby parking lot, I hoped everyone around me believed childhood worries are real. Fears are not because of anything moms do wrong; childhood fears are part of being a child. Instead of finding the quickest way to squelch a panic, a wise mom knows fears are not only normal, they are the …