Sometimes Alex gets short shrift on this blog. At the moment, he’s the easiest of my kids; being toilet trained, talking, obedient (mostly) and in school, I don’t have to agonize over parenting him nearly as much as the younger two. But I adore my firstborn. I love teaching him. I love his independence. I…
Read MoreAll articles filed in motherhood moments
It Takes A Village…
Yesterday morning, after the big ones were off to school, Nicholas and I walked up to the neighborhood playground. I leaned against the stairwell of the tiny climber and tried to work on my Advent article for Liguorian magazine (don’t knock it; it’s due in four weeks) while Nicholas spun the steering wheel and used…
Read MoreHis Pain is My Pain
At the end of another busy day, it was just me and Alex coming home from choir practice in the truck. When I’d picked him up in the playroom, he’d been on a play high, but as we swooped down the entrance ramp to the interstate, homeward bound, he crossed his arms and said in…
Read MoreThe Defection of Mama’s Boy
It’s a truism of parenting that no two children can be treated the same. But what’s equally true, but not thrown around so freely, is that no parent is the same from one child to the next. I think it’s been well established that Nicholas is a mama’s boy. But something strange is happening in our…
Read MoreBest Buddies
They bicker all the time. Julianna takes Nicholas’s toy. Nicholas falls apart. Nicholas decides he wants what Julianna has, and she gives her howler monkey imitation. Sometimes it doesn’t even require that the toy be taken. They screech so much and so often at each other that in those moments when they forget they are…
Read MoreSometimes, Motherhood Ain’t Pretty
I had intended to piggyback on my Tuesday post, and wax sentimental about the reaction of my children when I walked in the house after a two-day absence. But my final parenting moment last night involved Nicholas screaming…yes, screaming…in my face for ten minutes straight because he dropped a squishy pool ball on his way…
Read MoreChange Our Hearts
Last weekend, as I was assembling Alex’s backpack to put it away in preparation for mopping the kitchen, I discovered this: I wonder what my practical, superhero-enamored, imaginative little boy actually understands about faith, at this early point in his journey.How much of what he draws at school is simply because he’s expected to, and…
Read MoreMoments With Nicholas
There’s only one rule on a day when the weather hits 65 degrees: whatever work is on my to-do list, I must go for a walk with Nicholas. We left home an hour before Julianna’s bus was due, headed west around the circle and up the punishing hill to the main drag—my usual 20-minute exercise…
Read MoreKindergarten Demystified
One of the most unsettling things for a stay-at-home parent is that once your children go off to school, you no longer know every single thing that happens to them. Suddenly they have all these rituals that have nothing to do with you; you don’t even know what they are. That’s okay with me; I’ve…
Read MoreSo Much Trouble In Such A Cute Package
I guess I got spoiled. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this, but often, parents of kids with special needs say that their special needs kid is the easiest one to parent. Well, each child of mine presents unique challenges to my parenting prowess, but I have to say that until now, I’ve never…
Read More
Kathleen M. Basi 