I grew up with Father Christmas visiting each December. We had a particularly awesome system, in fact, that involved pillowcases instead of stockings (primarily so a board game could fit, I think). As I got older, I became aware that Father Christmas from the adult point of view was part of our family history, too. My […]
A warm welcome to Stacey, who wrote this excellent guest post – thanks so much! Stacey is a meat-eating, raw-milk advocating, pro-vaccine-ing, long-haired, homeschooling, MSc-degree-holding, quilting, left-voting, mystery-novel-loving, arm-chair-permaculturing, chicken-owning, fair-trade-chocolate-eating, hippie-ish Christian mother of 3 (going on 4), who just had fish and chips for dinner and whose children are, (right now as I […]
Even if youâre little you can do a lot, you Mustnât let a little thing like âlittleâ stop you – Matilda the Musical, ‘Naughty’, Tim Minchin Changing the world is a hard job. Best to start early, donât you think? Here are a bunch of ways you can help your kids live a life […]
Oh, the shame! I love the days when my 2.5 year old son gets mistaken for a girl (Yus! No arbitrary gendered fashion advice for us, thanks!), when he plays with a tea-set, or when he says his favourite colour is pink (just the once, and I’ve seen no actual evidence of this, but it’s […]
The latest booklovers’ chain-letter going around Facebook seems to be a challenge to list (without too much agonising) your ten most ‘influential’ books. Heavens. To stay in the spirit of the challenge I’ve tried to write this in one sitting, presumably missing a lot of worthy contenders, but hopefully capturing some kind of truth. And […]
It’s not that this ‘health and safety’ advice from Wellington’s Massey University isn’t sensible, it’s just that it is absolutely insane that we live in a world where the solution to rape is female university students being advised to carry a whistle and wear running shoes. University spokesman James Gardiner said … “If students don’t wish […]
This is part of a series aiming to help us all go easier on ourselves and make our parenting lives more enjoyable and satisfying. The whole series list is here and more links are at the bottom of the post. [Update: 2.5 years later I’ve revised this and added some stuff in. Feel free to suggest […]
We don’t know for sure that Mary was a breastfeeding mother, but it seems a reasonable inference. In a time before formula and modern medical care, she would have had few other options, and if she or someone else hadn’t breastfed Jesus he would almost certainly have died in infancy, from malnourishment or water-borne disease, […]
Yet again a post in this series is purely about pointing you to someone else’s cool post. Glennon Doyle Melton writes at Momastery about the difference between feeling like saying ‘no’ to someone or something and finding the words to actually say it. Even harder for teenagers, in endless intense situations with friendship capital at stake […]
This is part of a series on the experience of re-reading LM Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables books as an adult. This one focuses on book two, Anne of Avonlea, so you may want to wait till you’ve read the first book to catch up here, though it’s not really full of spoilers if you’ve read […]