Sami After Three

I don’t know how to start this. I guess it is mostly about my mom-pride. We all have it for something. Some of us have it for enduring childbirth without drugs, some of us for breastfeeding exclusively for an entire year, and some of us for going through all of our pregnancies without welcoming a single stretch mark. I fall in none of the above pride-categories as I took ALL. THE. DRUGS. during labor and then instead of spitting them out my vagina like you’re supposed to I ended up having three c-sections. My third child literally NEVER breastfed...not even in the hospital...not even to get the “liquid gold” stuff that comes out before the milk. Nope. None of it. It’s probably why she has to wear glasses now. And as far as stretch marks go...let’s just say you could play a rousing game of tic-tac-toe on my belly. The horizontal lines are from the c-sections and the vertical ones are the stretch marks. But don’t pick the middle square in that game because that would be ...

Today marks the first Sunday in Advent.  It is when the Church does this sort of "leaning in" to the mystery of the birth of Jesus.  We await this New Hope--the answer to our ancestors plea for God to show up...and He does...as a baby in a small village born of a virgin.  Our Prelude and our Encore is born in a manger and we are invited to make ready our hearts and homes for this exciting event.  I've been doing a lot of thinking this year about how our expectations of Christmas can sometimes be far from the reality that we find around us.  So here's what I'm thinking: I'm thinking that this year we really try to remember that everyone gets invited to the manger.  That we all bring our brokenness and our pain, our baggage and our carry-ons, and we lay them at the feet of the King of Kings.  Then, we look around to our neighbors, even the ones we don't really know or like and especially the ones we are always judging and we thank God for them and s...

Following what some have called "the greatest wedding ever,"  my new husband of 48 hours and I arrived at the Port of Galveston to start our Honeymoon Cruise.  It was March of 2007 and being such a young lass, I did not have a passport yet.  But I was assured by the helpline of Royal Caribbean that so long as I had a birth certificate, I would be able to ride the seas with class.  So, five hours before the boat left, decked out in a white baseball hat with a veil of tulle trailing and a flowery top, I walked up to the counter, first in line of about more than a thousand people, to get my ticket. For the regaling of this tale we are going to call the woman at the counter Silvia.  Because she seemed like a Silvia.  First, she checked Joe in.  He brought his passport (show-off) and was immediately approved to board the majestic boat of love.  I, on the other hand, had a little more to do.  It's important to note here that the last name on ...

I don't like Haiku It is difficult to do counting syllables I like poetry that has no regulations no rules to follow I like poems that go on and on or ones that stop and don't have points.

We went to an amusement park!  Just Kidding-it's a horse that you can ride for 1 cent at our grocery store-Happy Summer, Three Birds! It's 2:00pm on Day 2 of our Summer Break and I am ready for a drink.  My older girls have classmates who are in England and Russia and Disney World and an all-inclusive resort in Mexico.  I have a friend who has already done 3,429 summer themed crafts with her kids.  They basically Martha Stuart-ed their entire house.  Another friend bought a boat.  Like a good one-with life-jackets and everything.   It's hard not to be jealous of all of this.  Especially since our morning consisted of a visit to the chiropractor and a grocery store run.  My middle child spent a few minutes crying because the wrong Taylor Swift song was playing on the radio.  My oldest can't read ANY of her library books because she didn't realize they were all parts of a series and she (spoiler alert) didn't check out the first o...

Bachelorette night manscaping, spray tanning, wine trash t.v. at its best  Chris Harrison hosts limousines, tears, drama, wine kisses all the time I hope there will be  a hot tub, a unicorn and a lot of wine