Motherhood

I love October, but admit I don’t get into all the spooky and haunted hype around Halloween. When my husband and I first had our children, we discussed what level, if any, our involvement would be in the holiday. He grew up the son of a pastor who did not take any part in it. I grew up having the fun of dressing up, trick-or-treating, and going to parties, even though I was never attracted to the darker side of the celebrations. Our solution? We landed on the choice to allow our family to take part, but with a certain perspective and set of guidelines in place. Many houses in our neighborhood go above and beyond with Halloween décor, incorporating gory scenes,

Every foster or adoptive parent understands the extreme need for control that our trauma-surviving children often exhibit. Arleta James, the author of The Science of Parenting Adopted Children, describes this battle for control, writing “We really aren’t going to ‘out control’ these kids. They have an advanced degree in control, a Ph.D. We are undergraduates!” My husband and I found this to be so true as we parented our foster and now adopted daughter. We understood her need for control came out of a necessity of surviving her early years. However, she also needed to know we were in control in order to feel any kind of stability in our home. Using an airplane metaphor, we maintained control as pilots, but brought

I feel like this can’t start without a full disclaimer: The decision to have kids, become a mother or start a family is a call you should ultimately make yourself with the kind support of your husband and Lord’s guidance. Personally though, I was able to identify several things along the way that I would call my guiding lights. They were signs to me that the time has come; that I am ready to be a mom, and that the Lord’s plan for us is to start growing our family. You know, even as a very blessed woman living in a loving marriage, there were times when I still hadn’t been quite sure if the time was right—and then it clicked and

When looking for Mommy and Me books, typically people are talking about titles that can be shared aloud with children. But as a mom of four daughters and grandmother to two grandsons, award-winning author Kathy Izard had a different idea.  “I started thinking about how great it would be if families could be sharing books on the same topic by the same author, written for different age groups,” she said. Her first pairing was her memoir about homelessness, The Hundred Story Home, along with an illustrated book for children, A Good Night for Mr. Coleman. The books were published three years apart, but families, schools and churches have used them to discuss homelessness and how one person can make a difference. Mommy