As we celebrated moms yesterday, and anticipate celebrating dads next month, I reflected on my own journey of parenting and how my expectations and anticipations have been thrown off course. There is a lot to love about being a parent, and a lot of awesomeness that comes from kids. However, there are sides to parenting …
Category: Parenting
Social Distancing: I’m FINE
How are you doing with all of this social distancing? I imagine if I were to ask a random selection of people, the most frequent answer would be, “I’m fine.” Honest answer from me? I saw a meme (created from a comic by KC Green) of a dog sipping a cup of coffee while everything …
Theological Musings
Sometimes when I observe my kids, I wonder if God ever muses over us in a similar manner as parents watching their children. For example, kids can be incredibly trusting even in the most precarious situations. My daughter is quite daring and fearless. Last summer at the playground, she wanted to follow her brother onto …
Finding Self-Compassion Through Truth
I recently read Brene Brown’s book, The Gifts of Imperfection, where she wrote about the ten guideposts to whole-hearted living. As I was reading, I found myself relating to many of her approaches. I was particularly drawn to her discussion on vulnerability and shame. Her writing provided helpful language I now use when I talk …
The Never Expected “Unexpected”
In the introduction to our blog, Wendi and I wrote, “While we continue to celebrate with each other all of the amazing things that happen in our lives, we have found that the times when we most need our friendships is during the unexpected detours that are inevitable in life.” When we wrote these words, …
The Birthday of Unexpecteds
Another round of birthdays is currently in full swing at my house. As I prepared gifts, cakes, and decorations to celebrate my kids’ birthdays and make their days special, I reflected on my own birthday and how the past few have been filled with unexpecteds. I don’t usually make a big deal out of my …
Messy Everyday Life
Exciting new, The Unexpected Ever Afters, now has a pinterest page! You can find us at https://www.pinterest.com/theunexpectedeverafters/. We are excited to have another way to reach readers and to share our stories and experiences! As Wendi and I were putting together our Pinterest page, we added a brief description of our blog: “The vision behind …
Wandering Thoughts of a Semi-Bored Mom
This past weekend, I played the game Hungry Hungry Hippos with my kids. This is the exceptionally straightforward game with four colorful hippos and a ton of marbles which create a lot of noise and chaos for about a minute while each player tries to gobble up marbles before the game comes to an anticlimactic …
Just Do the Best You Can – A Bad Day in Parenting
I had one of those days where nothing was going as planned. I had already shouted at the kids more times than I could count, and the tears from both of them seemed endless and unnecessary. I literally spent 15 minutes with a mini screwdriver and a light-up car trying to fix a piece of …
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Time to Be
Entering a new year offers a ceremonial opportunity to initiate change and establish new habits. Visions of goals and new routines fill our minds and planners and many of us will enthusiastically pursue our resolutions, at least for a time. In our pursuit to make our lives more healthy and balanced, while simultaneously less stressed, …
the unexpected ever afters 