A Dad, A Mom, and Three Little Heathens

It's a long haul, education. Especially for those who decide to make a career of it. (I'm not pointing any fingers, but if I were, they would be at me). Yesterday, a coworker showed me pictures of her daughter dressed up in a pretty blue dress with a big-girl smile on her face. She was going to preschool and her excitement shone on her little face from the cell phone I was looking at. Sammy also is entering her last year of preschool with the same beaming smile of a little girl trying to be a big kid like her older brothers. Little do they know. Sarahmay and her bestie and cousin, Forrest  Just yesterday, I sat in a chair that was too small for me while my daughter read one of her princess books to a couple of plush toys, who were tucked into a doll's bed, and me. I played the part of the child receiving the story, and from her imagination and her knowledge of the story, she told the key moments of the plot well in her sing-song voice trying to sound so grown up. ...

Originally Posted August 2017 Traveling with children is always an adventure. The part that lies under the surface of every parent’s mind is the inevitability of the unforeseeable event. Usually, this is the fear that your child will injure themselves in a strange place that might have a quack doctor or that you will have to go the hospital and use practitioners outside of the domestic insurance plan. My great fear is my inability to soothe one of my children when they are hurt. I get all panicky and completely lose my cool when my children are hurt. I don’t excel in trauma based situations, situations where my children’s blood is copiously leaving their body or when they are screaming loudly because of some hurt like a barked shin or a bee sting. I don’t know why I do this. Maybe I just want the pain to go away for them. I would gladly take the pain for them in most situations. Since I can’t absolve pain by vicariously experiencing it for them, I just panic. Panic mu...