Learning to Leap

I've been thinking about this girl a lot lately.  Meet little girl Sharon, age 8. The year was 1986 and although this picture may not look like anything special to you, it was a big deal to me at the time.  You see, I've never been an especially spirited or adventurous kind of gal. I like to play it safe. You won't find me on an extreme snow boarding show or extreme makeover shows or extreme...well, anything.  Nope. Not this girl. I like to keep my feet on the ground and my path straight ahead. No twists, no turns, no unexpected risks or uncertain outcomes. The safer, the better, actually.  So that brings me back to this picture and why it caught my eye the other day.  I had been trying for a while to get up the courage to hang upside down on our little metal swingset in my backyard. I remember marching myself out there with determination and courage, grasping tightly the metal bar while lifting one leg and then the other up and over tha...

Y'all, I'm failing at this parenting thing.  Really. The story I am about to tell you is 100% true, not embellished in any way, and ironically is a story about 100% lies.  I had to look up the official diagnosis for someone who is a compulsive liar just to see how many of the characteristics lined up. This is what I found: " Pathological lying can be described as a habituation of lying. It is when an individual consistently lies for no personal gain. The lies are commonly transparent and often seem rather pointless." Now I'm just downright frightened. But read for yourself what transpired and you be the judge.  The girls and I attend an awesome church. We've been there about a year and a half and I could not be happier. The people are warm, the teaching solid, the music exactly my preference, and heart of the church to be outward focused spot on with the call of the Gospel in our lives. Like I said, I love it and am so happy to be there. We...

No one ever mentioned to me that being a mother would mean having to master the art of hiding things from my children. And I'm not talking about Christmas gifts or special birthday surprises. I'm talking about plain, ordinary objects that for some reason my children have shown some kind of weird fascination with and either use for purposes not intended or magically touch them and lose them instantly. Case in point: One school morning a couple weeks ago I found a lone razor on the bathroom countertop in my daughters' bathroom.  This was obviously an immediate red flag in my mind. I do have one daughter who has expressed some interest now and then in shaving her legs, but just like all the female population, she quickly figured out it's not nearly as much fun as she'd hoped so she abandoned that idea pretty quickly. Knowing that it was not likely her that had been using the razor, my suspicions were raised all the more. I was soon to find out th...

There are some nights when kids just go absolutely bezerk. Nobody really knows why this happens. Maybe it's something to do with a full moon. Maybe it's changes in air pressure. Maybe it's Al Gore's global warming. I don't know. But whatever it is, it applies to dogs, too. We had just such a night this past week.  Honestly, I had to let the details become just a little more blurry in my mind before I could look at it as remotely humorous. Here, in no particular order, are some of the events of that historic night… Earlier that morning, I had discovered one severely dead rat thanks to an effective trap being set in my family room. You can read about it here if you missed it: http://webberstories.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-rat-race.html Anyway, it had already been kind of an abnormal day by any standards (thank goodness it's still abnormal to have rats in my house). I got the kids from school and we got started with our evening routines of homework,...

There are a few words that come to mind when I think about this first full week of 2014. Unfortunately, if I say them out loud I have just broken my resolution to cuss less. Besides, this post would be too long if I share with you the events of today. But it was a doozy for this mama. It was the kind of day that makes you want to go picket outside Babies 'r Us and protest the blatant false advertising and propaganda they produce concerning the continual bliss of parenting. Despite it all, I adore being a mom. I love my kids more than my own life, but today they significantly shortened my life. But that's a post for another day…. It all began last Thursday when I began noticing what can only be described as droppings here and there downstairs in my house. I began to get a little nervous. As I looked around a little more closely, I moved from nervous to sick. Mouse droppings.  I immediately called our pest control company and within a few minutes our regular guy ...

There is no better way to recognize the reality that you are awfully prideful than by motherhood. I am convinced that every single politician out there should be forced to experience motherhood 24/7 for at least three months before assuming any position in public office. You want to see humble leadership? That would do it. Yes sirree. No hiding little areas about yourself that would be best undetected. Not with little ones around to proclaim your failures and shine the light on your pride. I can't even remember the insane amount of times my kids have revealed my flaws. It's uncanny, really. I am not Catholic, but if I were, I would just send one of my kids to confess my sins to the priest because they sure do know them inside and out. Actually, there would probably be a long line of preschoolers and young elementary kids lined up to speak with the man of the cloth about the sins of their mothers. They know us pretty well, after all. One such instance of being humbl...