It was fun, at first. Hundreds of pictures are stacked in piles and lined up in chronological order: the highlights of 2018 spread before me. My gold striped picture album lay open, and the coordinating scrapbook paper is standing at the ready. I’d missed papercrafting and so I dove right in, arranging pictures, writing a […]
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It’s the fresh start of a new school year. Last week, we caught a whiff of new beginnings as we milled about the school for Meet the Teacher night. It smelled of fresh paint, rubber blacktop, and dry erase markers. The nervous excitement among the Kindergarten parents was mirrored back to us by the Kindergarten […]
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I’ve heard it said that when you’re traveling with young kids, it’s best to call it a “trip” instead of a “vacation.” Parenting is parenting even when you’re in Hawaii or on an African safari. If you’ve booked a vacation somewhere and you are bringing your kids along, don’t expect to be swinging leisurely in […]
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After two months in Michigan, we are back in San Diego. When a friend asked me if I was excited to come home, I told her that I was looking forward to being settled in. Settled means feeling comfortable and established. It’s what I want to feel immediately after coming home from a trip. But […]
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There are times when I am mentally overloaded: I have so much on my mind that I can’t seem to focus on what’s right in front of me. It’s at these times that I have the attention span of a gnat, and the most innocent and reasonable request from one of my children threatens to […]
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Before I became a mother, if someone would have told me that having a baby changes the way you relate to God, I would have scoffed. I’ve always been a creature of habit, and I still envisioned that my quiet time would stay unchanged after my baby was born. I could not foresee the sleepless […]
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One of my favorite sounds of summer is my husband playing his guitar. He’s so busy as a professor during the school year that it’s rare he has the time to pick it up! But when we spend our summers in Michigan, he makes up for lost time. The other day, we were both out […]
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I left my beloved boarding school in Germany and my parents’ home on the field in France when I turned eighteen. I was headed to college in a new state in my passport country: Michigan. I was a little excited, but mostly terrified. I grieved my high school graduation like it was a death: never […]
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Many years ago, I had a summer job as a night nanny for newborn triplets. The parents hired me to help with night feedings so one of them could sleep! Two girls and a boy… these were this couple’s only children. I remember one morning, in the moments just as the sun was beginning to […]
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Now that summer is here, I have to do my grocery shopping with both of my boys instead of just one. Besides the obvious fact that it’s much easier to run errands the fewer children you have, I’ve learned something else from observing my kids. When I push the cart through the aisles and Henry, […]
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Sarah K. Butterfield 