THE AWKWARD MOM

because uncomfortable conversations are the ones worth having

Month: April 2018

Memos from an Asian Arrival

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Asia

This morning (or was it yesterday morning?), snowflakes were seesawing down on my hair–and there I was wearing sandals. I kissed my family goodbye and loaded myself and an overstuffed hiking backpack into a friend’s Prius.

And so began my two-week trip to Asia (via plane, not Prius). After about seven years of not really being together, spread out all over the world, my sisters and I are converging in Thailand to celebrate a big birthday of my youngest sister’s. She works with migrants, and she and her husband are treading through the adoption process. I get a kick out of bragging on the two of them because their work is long, slow, hard, terribly important, and literally stuffed with blood, sweat, and tears. read more

Get the Dog: The Importance of Your Little Piece of God’s Heart

Reading Time: 4 minutes

get the dog: unique

Yesterday, my friend got a dog.

Now, for most of you, you’re thinking, this is not an auspicious start for an insightful blog post. But then I would tell you that she literally has teared up when reading airline rules about transporting a pet. I’d mention that when she was grieving a major transition in her life a year and a half ago, she brightened at thinking she could finally get a dog. She’s researched shelters extensively, and talked to me about the benefits of getting a dog from a no-kill shelter, and about how pitbulls are discriminated against.

10 Dashboard-light Questions: The Stressed Version of Myself

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Late one night last week, my husband arrived home to tell me we needed to get the car in the shop pronto. I decided to take it in after my dentist’s appointment the next morning (y’know, all the things I love at once: the dentist’s chair, taking an ailing car to the mechanic). As I pulled up to the stoplight, there were indeed some alarm bells going off in my head. You know it’s bad when the engine light is on. But what about when it’s, uh, flashing?

Well. Now I think it’s a little bit like the “blue screen of death”. The engine was shot. And when I say shot, I mean shot. As in, oil pumping out of a broken piston, etc. Even I, with my wee knowledge of mechanical workings, know this is bad.

So that happened.

The Happy Gardener

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Last week I told my husband, “We may need to make a bit of a budget in springtime. For your wife’s happiness, in the form of plants.”

I started a few seeds, truth be told, in January. And then there was the twenty-cent seed rack: Canterbury Bells. Snapdragons. Moss roses. Sugar-snap peas. Petunias. Jalapenos. Basil. Coleus. Zinnias in these explosive colors. (I am an equal-opportunity planter.)

That was next to the display of blueberry plants (perfect for pollinating the one I got last year at the end of the season!), and one of my favorites: pink, globe-shaped peonies. Two of those, please. (I took them out of the package and actually heard myself saying to these stumpy, brown roots, “Come here, you beautiful little things.”)

Wanted: Friends Who Know Darkness

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Recently I went to a friend’s house on a dark day. (Even now, it is hard to type this. I might be crying a little.)

I’d been hanging out with her and her two-year-old son, Henry, every couple of weeks or so as they got their feet back under them after his chemo. Which happened after his brain tumor. Which happened after a life-threatening bacterial infection. Which happened after he was born prematurely. I’d arrived from Africa a little late to the scene, when they’d gotten the happy MRI’s with a healthy brain.

Until. read more

Freebie Fridays [INFOGRAPHIC]: Helping Kids Deal with Their Fears

Reading Time: 2 minutes

We were on our way to the local aquatic center with friends in my trusty, dented little Subaru. We passed a few yard signs for our small town’s upcoming election. I was listening to my 10-year-old chat with her friends about how excited they were about summer’s approach. Of course, right? But get this. “Yeah, I can’t wait for summer, with all this election stuff and the school shootings.”

Well. Is that how you know that your daughter is growing up in a different world?

I eventually talked with her about the local election: That despite she and her siblings’ wide-eyed ingestion of the scrolling newsfeed in 2016, elections are not usually scary things in our country. (This was less so in Africa, where she grew up, so I get that, too.) read more

What Ails You: On the Drive for Healing that Propels Us Forward

Reading Time: 3 minutes

run healing propels forwardI talked to a man a few weeks ago whose perseverance I’ve gotta admire.

He was in a bad place–really hurting. So he called a local support group (get this!) six times, when his message wasn’t returned, to get connected to the help he needed.

It’s a light-bulb moment for me. read more

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