On New Year’s Eve, 2014, our daughter Hazel was born at Wellington Hospital, by emergency caesarean section. Gosh, we were lucky. ‘You must be disappointed,’ a healthcare assistant commiserated with me the next day, assuming I would be sad that what started as a straightforward, natural labour had ended in the most dramatic of all […]
Welcome! This is a reworking of an earlier post, from March 2013 (just so I’m not soliciting undue sympathy: I’m fine now!). Being a woman equals being in community. The same might feel true for men (I hope it does), but I can’t write that blog post, being in possession, as I am, of two […]
Why a ‘sacrament’? The church has long taught that there are certain special moments where God is particularly present in our world. The ritual of baptism, the sharing of a communion meal. Different church traditions have argued about how many there are, but that seems to me to be a nonsensical question. God is particularly […]
A warm welcome today to my good friend Rob Kilpatrick, who wrote this reflection on Facebook yesterday and let me filch it for the blog. You’ll be glad you read it. I’m incredibly lucky to be granddad to 11 wonderful kids. I don’t deserve to be but there you have it, grace upon grace. I […]
A toddler is a miracle. A hurricane of synaptic activity. A tropical bud blossoming in minutes. The centre of gravity of any room. I know the idea of things growing ‘exponentially’ is often misused (from the perspective of a mathematician), but I think it might apply to the learning that happens as babies become toddlers. […]
This handy rule for when to complain and to whom has buzzed around my Facebook feed this week, with lots of passionate commendations: When Susan had breast cancer, we heard a lot of lame remarks, but our favorite came from one of Susan’s colleagues. She wanted, she needed, to visit Susan after the surgery, but […]
The disclaimers and hedges can wait. I just feel like saying how much I like my job as SBJ’s mama. Here are six things I love about my job. 1. He loves me It’s really nice to work for someone who likes having you around. There’s nothing quite like hearing a heartfelt ‘Mama!’ from another […]
Being a woman equals being in community. The same might feel true for men (I hope it does), but I can’t write that blog post, being in possession, as I am, of two X chromosomes. One of the virtues of the mind-bending, paradoxical, beautiful, tricksy Christian doctrine of the Trinity (God is Three and One […]
If you have kids and if you are lucky enough to have someone in your life who can look after them beautifully for a whole day (in yesterday’s case, my kind husband), you can: leave the house lightly laden think jaywalk have a leisurely breakfast over four courses at the cool new café down the […]
In Steve Biddulph‘s new book, Raising Girls, he apparently calls for an army of aunts to take their place in helping parents to raise resilient young women in a difficult era. The Guardian reports: It is a view about to be revived by bestselling author and psychologist Steve Biddulph, who is calling for an “aunties […]