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Recent Posts
- 61 Psaltery & Lyre: Kay Porter, “Mother Mold”
- Ride to Church in Hyderabad, India
- 60 Psaltery & Lyre: Jeremy Windham, “Goliath in Love”
- Flooding the Book of Mormon with the Book of Mormon
- Battle Hymn of My Mormon Mother
- A Celebration of Motherhood
- Motherhood Is Not the Essense of my Personhood
- 3 Little Gurus
- 59 Psaltery & Lyre: James A. Clark, “Elegy for a Stranger”
- [Mormon] Mother’s Prayer for Its Child
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Tag Cloud
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kids Archive
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Guest Post Invitation: The Parenthood Juggle
I want my daughters (and my son!) to be able to read about other women’s struggles. How did they go about deciding what to do and when? -
Shielding Children from our Emotions
I’ve read some really sad things lately and have been experiencing some of my own sad moments (hey, I’m 39, so it’s time, no?), so I’ve been thinking a good... -
Ebony and Ivory: discussing the politics of race with young children
In the post-Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday period and in the midst of Black History Month, my kindergartner has had a lot of questions about race. Not particularly about... -
Roller Coaster
A year ago, I was living in a daze. I was spending most nights curled up against my 11 year old daughter’s back as she lay on her... -
Santa and I
The year I turned four or five, we drove to my grandparents in central Wisconsin for Christmas. Actually, we did this for most years of my early childhood- until I... -
Prodigal
Last week, at a familiar intersection, the sign a man held up said, “It doesn’t take much to be kind.” -
Bonfire of the Vanities
The idea of a bonfire to rid ourselves of vanity sometimes has it’s appeal, especially on mornings when I’ve braided my 12 year old’s hair three different ways and she’s... -
The Feast of St. Francis
This year, our family observed General Conference by attending the local Episcopal church. -
Family Ties
Where is the line between serving your family and loosing yourself in it? -
Finding Peace
Forgiveness. As babies and young children, we can’t help but forgive those that wrong us. We have no choice…. we are too dependent. But somehow along the path to adulthood... -
Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren . . .
Every once in a while, I meet someone who is just plain old good. Without guile. My friend Rebecca is one of those people. And so are her kids. Rebecca... -
The Wish Tree
I had my five year old daughter with me and I was a bit disappointed that I couldn’t get her very interested in the bronzes. Then we turned the... -
Crash Test
The thought of any inexperienced driver in charge of a 4,000 pound machine makes me very nervous, but anticipating my own flesh-and-blood inexperienced driver sends me almost into a panic. -
Window to Utopia
What would heaven be like, for a teenager? -
The Nursery Window
“Long ago,” he said, “I thought like you that my mother would always keep the window open for me, so I stayed away for moons and moons and moons, and... -
We Are Pioneers
As I was telling my Kindergartner earlier this month that we’re all pioneers in some way. Whenever we stand up for what we believe in or do something because we... -
The Gluttonous Baby
For as long as humans have made objects, there have been baby dolls. It’s an almost universal phenomenon that young children play with dolls. Especially if they have younger siblings... -
Operation Stop Arm
My neighbor Sheri and I watched motorists pass our children’s school bus for years. We took video, called the police, reported tag numbers, complained to the public school department of... -
Kids, Bootleggers, and Diviners
I read a fair amount of young adult fiction—both as part of my job as a professor of secondary education and as a parent of two girls ages 11 and... -
You Can Recognize Them by Their Hand-Carved Daggers…
I love memoirs. And I love Tina Fey. So I was just salivating as my friends and co-bloggers raved about Bossypants when it came out. Finally, on Mother’s Day, I... -
Park it!
Children can only write so many letters to full-time missionaries. Or out-of-state family members. They can only color so many pictures destined for the walls of the local hospital. They... -
Delousing the Kids
This beautiful poem was written by my dear friend, Dayna Patterson, after patiently listening to me whine about our 2010 lice-capade. It will be published later this year in a... -
An Unlikely Prayer of Thanksgiving
Last summer, Brent and Stuart went to get a haircut. While there, the stylist discovered that Stuart had lice (gasp!). We soon discovered that Marin also had it (double gasp!).... -
Kids and Calamities
I watched the Twin Towers fall on TV, my oldest child safely ensconced in her kindergarten class. My toddler was playing with blocks nearby…. building towers and knocking them down. ... -
“Do you want to end up living under a bridge?”
This is, reportedly, what my daughter’s second grade teacher asked her class during a fit of frustration over their less-than-enthusiastic preparation for the looming standardized testing. Several other parents and... -
Celebrating the Man As Well As His Cause
A guest post from a reader, Debra. Names matter. They do. My life experience has taught me this. Names are important as they are references – signs — that direct... -
Hate
As an antidote to all the love around here lately, I thought I’d offer up a little bit of good old-fashioned hate. I grew up in a very low key... -
Memories
A grateful resident presented me with a chocolate turkey, wrapped in beautiful multicolored foil. Then she looked around her room, reached over to her bedside table, and... -
Let My People Go
My little Stuart has a bleeding heart. He is unusually quick, I think, to identify a person or an action as being unfair or unkind and to want to right... -
Lunch 5- Out of the Comfort Zone
We (and our children) have had to learn to be gracious guests at both cockroach infested decrepit apartments and mansions where we are served by The Help. -
Fei Hua (Chinese for “wasted words”)
I got to my office one morning and this cartoon was taped to my door: I knew right away who had put it there. It was Co-worker A, a man... -
Anticipation
We were on our way to church as a family, and I thought it would be a good opportunity for everyone to share in the ‘lunch experience.” ... -
The First Lunch
A middle-aged Hispanic man is walking past the car where I pull up to the light. He sits down on the curb two cars behind us. He has a sign,... -
Around the Dinner Table: What’s a family?
While digging through the pile of papers in my seven-year-old’s backpack, I came across a copy of a page from the district reading curriculum that includes the weekly spelling words...
