by Janel Breitenstein | Feb 10, 2025 | challenging, children, difficulty, discouragement, enduring love, failure, kids, Parenting, relationships, true success
I woke up angry. And underneath it, sad. The night before, I’d felt so unseen by my kids. I’d been hammering away at our taxes until seven p.m., after walking the dog in freezing temps. Tell me you’ve been there in some form or fashion. At at 9:30 that night,...
by Janel Breitenstein | Jan 24, 2025 | children, Family, kids, time together, true success, tweens and teens
rQuestion. Are you the “fun” parent? Spoiler: I am not the fun parent. I am the you-had-your-medicine-on-time-and-had-clean-underwear parent. Well, I was fun in the educational sense; I was, to be fair, a really engaging and creative homeschooler. But if...
by Janel Breitenstein | Dec 28, 2024 | Family
If you’re like me, by the time New Year’s Eve with kids rolls around, your bag of holiday-magic tricks may be a little exhausted. (Or is it me who’s exhausted?) Fear not: It can be easy-ish to create memories with a few (metaphorical!)...
by Janel Breitenstein | Dec 20, 2024 | closeness and intimacy, closeness; intimacy, difficulty, discouragement, Holidays; Occasions, relationships
Last week I took my perky puppy on a walk, breath pluming before us as I pulled my scarf tighter. Charlie daily pulls us along on his own way to the park, where that night, the sky-high pines were strung in circles of lighted color. The pond stood still, congealing in...
by Janel Breitenstein | Dec 6, 2024 | children, difficulty, discouragement, encouragement, enduring love, faith, Family, grief, Holidays; Occasions, Humor, kids, love, time together
The Christmas blessing on your wish list: May all your kids come home, and may they get along with each other. Or at least fake it. May you have a white Christmas to the point that you feel Christmas-y and can say no to an activity you didn’t really want to go...
