None of this was in the baby books or my English books or the novels and poetry that had formed the substance of my thirty years of existence. But the great thing about being a parent, especially to a child with special needs, is that it makes you a lifelong learner. It redirects your attention in all manners and at any given time. It makes a right-brain like me a little more of a lefty. …

“I don’t want you. I don’t want you. I don’t want you.” It’s the phrase we fear in the deepest darkest pit of our psyches where junior high dates and first periods go to die. It’s the phrase that spills angst all over our best laid plans for autonomy. Now put that on repeat and blast it on your biggest 80s boom box and you’ve got a sense of my current mental state. No woman …

JOHN 14:27 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. I had something else planned for this week, but I cannot shake Parkland from my heart and mind. And I do not believe God wishes me to. A friend of mine shared Saint Francis’s “Peace Prayer” and so I am passing it on …

“Did you just feed the dog broccoli? The broccoli I told you to eat before you could have dessert?” “No,” she says. Dog is under table licking something. “Did you?” “No.” “Yes, she did!” her brother howls. Siblings are really just vigilantes fighting for justice, truth, and equal consumption of vegetables. Without her brother as testifying witness, I would probably still be having the broccoli discussion. I am not a proponent of lies. Generally speaking, …

As a kid, I loved the snow—the wet magic of it that made the world brighter and cleaner and got me out of school. When you finally trudged in, it made hot chocolate that much sweeter and the house that much warmer and the snowman in the front yard that much more awesome when everything else melted and still he remained, a stoic companion. But as a parent, my view of snow gets more complicated. …

ROMANS 1: 14-15 I am obligated both to the Greeks and non-Greeks, both the wise and the foolish. That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome. The one thing being both a child and a teacher has taught me is how to be a lifelong learner. As a kid everything is new. It’s why you ask so many questions. Why does the moon look like …

 February 14, 2012. We’ve been through so much by this time that I’ve grown outwardly unresponsive to calamity. To an observer, we are just a happily married couple on their way to parenthood. Our faces flicker gently in the candlelight. This is the Valentine’s Day I will always remember as the before part of the “before and after”. Click the picture below to read the full story on Scary Mommy.

It is 3:37 a.m. and I am holding my five-year-old in my lap in the dark of the living room. He is shirtless and shaking. His birdwing shoulder blades rub together when he signs “more” to my tuneless song. It is Paul Simon, “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes,” in the off key of half sleep. But it makes him smile, which is all I need at the moment to keep me from dialing …

GENESIS 8:22 “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” I’ve been tired lately. The kind of tired that makes you feel like you’re moving under water. I feel like Dustin Hoffman in “The Graduate.” I’m at the bottom of the pool. Above me, people are living life and being productive, but man, the inertia’s a killer and I just can’t summon …

Valentine’s Day is truly the perfect kid holiday. You’re not old enough to be jaded by the “most romantic day of the year” and you get piles of candy and actual mail. It’s cold out but you don’t care because you’re all sugared up and shuffling through candy like a blackjack dealer. Consider these 11 lovely books on love the nightcap to your Valentine’s Day. Snoring Beauty by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen Fractured fairytales are the best. …