When my kids were little, we used the nets hanging from the ceiling to pile in the stuffed animals.  However THIS idea is so much better. It’s creative, beautiful, and FUN for kids.  Way to go bloesem kids,

Love!

I got to hold a three-month old baby girl today – she was so tiny it seemed more like she was a month old.  She smiled at me and at another colleague.  Her eyes look just like her Momma’s eyes.  It was wonderful.

Then I saw a whimsical piece of writing on Beauty and Dreams titled, “Little Girl, Fluffy Hair.”  It’s beautiful, it’s sad, it’s heart breaking.

I know it’s wrong. Maybe she’s ill. Maybe somewhere in her icy, little heart she loves her. I should have compassion, reserve judgement..

But I wanted to climb in her lap

and slap that

screeching

mouth

shut.

Little girl, fluffy hair

Round cheeks and

tummy

and sad brown eyes…

If I had all the right words, I would write

a poem for you, a real one.

Photo by Adaggio Art.

This is a nice little post from a couple of years ago, but I just saw it on pinterest and had to share it here!  Is this not THE coolest pregnancy photo ever?  How I wish I’d done it with my daughters.

This little baby is such a blessing to us already during an incredibly dark time in our lives.  And God does not call us to live in fear.  Will you pray for us as we take this next step forward?  It is probably silly for me to even ask because I know you have been so faithful to pray for us already.

Go on over to the macs site and read about their latest addition AND Cora’s story.

As a seasoned real estate agent, I mentored several new agents when they first started out.  I loved being able to extend a helping hand as people figured it out and got their feet wet.  I also served as a mentor to at least three dozen girls as a Girl Scout leader.  Mentoring can be extremely fulfilling, frustrating, joyful, and worrisome.

But when you mentor, it’s not just for you.  It’s for a child who needs encouragement. For a teenager who needs an extra lift every now and then.  For someone like Angie got,

Megan was not exactly what I expected.

I expected to walk in and see a teenager flip me off. 

When I picked her up, she immediately divulged how excited she was, how she’d been thinking of it all day.  She was beaming.

I expected a teenager who spoke in code, grunts and only on the subject of hairspray.

We went to a coffee shop and she talked so fast my ears bled.  At one point, she interrupted herself to tell me how nervous she was.  Then she laid out all her “issues” for me like an open book.

Such a sweet story, this one. Consider becoming a mentor.

Guilty.  I’ve compared the behavior of my kids in the past.  But I’ll tell you a little secret.  Sometimes the kid you might imagine as the good kid goes bad. And the bad one goes good.  It’s a cyclical thing, the behavior dance.

Amber, author of Parenting: Illustrated with Crappy Pictures, reminded me of my own shortcomings when I compare my kids to each other,

It is wrong to compare your kids and stuff. You know what I mean. Saying “little Johnny is a being good but little Timmy is being bad today” type comparing. I never make this mistake. In fact, I have never even thought this.

But that is because my kids’ names aren’t Johnny and Timmy.

Amber’s pizza and tooth brushing examples are hilarious. Be warned that there is some strong language, though!

This is too cute!

While my idea of a scary toy is one colored with lead paint and/or having small, loose parts for kids to choke on.  However, this inflatable bear is not something Jeremiah Graves’ sweet dreams are made of.  From Blank Stares and Blank Pages,

If you were able to look at that and not wet yourself, you are a much better, stronger, braver person than I am, my friend.

My niece got this thing for Christmas and at first (read: when it was still flat and harmless) it seemed like a pretty innocuous child’s toy.

Then we blew the sumbitch up.

Hahaha… I think, however, the clapping monkey is pretty frightening.  Or the shave the baby doll toy.  You can see both of them here.

Photo by Alan Reeves.

The understatement of the year could be that picking a baby’s name is tough! My oldest is 21 years old and I’m still trying to come up with a name for her.  She gets mad when I make suggestions:  Elizabeth!  Hailey!  Maggie!

Yet with all the superb baby names around, I’m still kinda digging Ivy Blue – the name Jay-Z and Beyonce gave their newborn girl. Others don’t like it so much. From PopFi,

So why Blue Ivy?  I’m not sure, but I’ve heard the Ivy part is related to the way both parents love the number IV (or four for normal folks).  As for the blue, I guess they like the color?  There’s no telling why people do things like that, but as bad celebrity baby names go, it’s a far sight better than Apple and Pilot Inspektor.

Ivy is the name of one of my favorite people.

When we lost our cat Pootster a couple of years ago when she began having massive convulsions.  My own kids were – at least – teenagers, so while they were sad they understood that she was no longer in pain.  However with younger children, saying goodbye to a pet is a lot harder.  My friend Les just had to go through this with his daughters,

Felix was from a litter of kittens found at the Knoxville zoo. He was diagnosed with diabetes around five years ago. Since then we’ve been checking his blood glucose and giving him insulin and he outlived all predictions. We buried him in a wooded section of the yard and marked his grave with a stone. The girls took it pretty hard, so we had a little ceremony and everyone said something nice about Felix.

I think the best advice is to tell children that of course it hurts to say goodbye.  Then having a memorial and burying the pet can also help a child transition with this type of loss.

We’re sorry, though, for Felix.