Posts tagged ‘mothering’

Blog book tour: Boy-sterous Living

By Monica Brand, 11 September, 2009, 2 Comments

I am a mom of two boys (two girls, too, but this book isn’t about the fairer gender, so I’m not going to mention their antics. To be fair to the boys, my girls have their moments of bizarre behaviour.) These sons of mine – let me show you recent pictures so we’re all clear as to whom I speak:

The First Boy (alias Peter)

and Second Boy (alias Edmund)

See? See what I’m dealing with? These two rapscallions are BOYS among mere wanna-be boys. My boys could win prizes for boyish behaviour (don’t you like the way I keep typing the British behaviour rather than the bland American behavior? Maybe there is an English mother of boys blogging about their behaviour who thinks she’s so clever with her use of the American spelling?)

In honor of Ms. Blackmer’s book of how to thrive with these goofy, messy, loud, muddy, make-you-wanna-pull-you- hair-out boys, I’m linking to my all-time favorite post about mothering boys. It’s at New Jersey Moms Blog. Here is a tease:

My boy peed on the gas grill.

That’s a true story. If you have more time to read, here are more real-life boy posts.

I love my boys. Really! I swear I do. Life would be rather dull without them.

And I will have my revenge.

They’re called grandsons.

Click here for more of the Boy-sterious Living blog book tour.

Click here to enter a contest based on the book.

Seen and heard: Mind police?

By Monica Brand, 28 August, 2009, No Comment

“Mommy, he’s making fun of me in his head!”

Book tour: Blue Like Play Dough by Tricia Goyer

By Monica Brand, 30 July, 2009, 3 Comments

Woohoo! Time to giveaway another book. Aren’t you excited?

The book: Blue Like Play Dough. Author: Tricia Goyer, whom I happen to follow on that crazy time suck machine Twitter. Trisha is always tweeting mundane bits of her life, how she hates to cook and go to Walmart.

Er.. Monica those are your tweets. Tricia lives to shop at Walmart, is a great cook and has three teenagers, so her life isn’t boring. In fact, she’s like a Super Woman – she’s a teen mentor, novelist and missionary. Why can’t you be more like her, huh? Huh?

Oh, shut up.

That’s lovely. Tricia Goyer would never say shut up. She’s a PERFECT CHRISTIAN.

Wait a minute, Crazy-Monica-Voice-in-My-Head, I’ve read Tricia’s book and she’s not a perfect Christian! I have the proof – her book, Blue Like Play Dough – very encouraging to folks like us. You know, Christ follower, wife, mom, home schooler, and writer. Sometimes she screws up, but she keeps on going, letting the Lord mold her like a lump of play dough.

You do love those dashes, don’t you? You need an editor. Maybe you could hire Tricia.

ARGH!!! Go away, Crazy Monica!! I just want to tell my friends about Tricia’s book, how encouraging it is and to leave a comment if they want a chance to win a copy.

Whatever. Aren’t you going to start dinner? I bet Tricia can cook, write a smashing good blog post and lead an expository Bible study all at the same time. And her kids would never interrupt.

You’re not listening to me, Crazy Monica. Weren’t you paying attention when I read her book?

Uh. What book?

***

Leave a comment to win Blue Like Play Dough. Use the Tweet This for an extra chance (and because you love me!) Then go follow Tricia on Twitter cause her tweets are really much more entertaining than mine.

Dinner with the fru-fru family

By Monica Brand, 24 July, 2009, 6 Comments

Had dinner at a local casual restaurant last night. Casual as in they supply crayons and a kid’s menu with word puzzles. It could have been fast food and I would’ve been thrilled. Let’s hear an Amen for no cooking, no dishes to wash. The trade off is a public outing with the kids and since we were basicly housebound all day – except for the ten minutes they ran in the pouring rain – the kids were indoors lazy all day.Lots of pent up energy waiting to come out.

Great time to go to a sit down restaurant with no Play Place, right?

So all the energy started coming out in the car. The four and seven year old leading the charge. It came out in the restaurant over boneless chicken nibblets that we’re not spicy enough (boo). And it continued to cause me mild embarassment throughout their chicken fingers and ice cream dessert.

I had the Cowboy Burger, thanks for asking. Why does the bottom of the bun always fall apart? Had to finish it with knife and fork. How un-cowboyish. My British grandfather used to eat pizza with utentils. Odd, those proper British.

We sat in the bar area. I always feel a bit strange sitting four feet from all the bottles of alcohol and the folks drinking it, since we don’t drink (booze: no, various forms of caffeine drinks: yes). New flat screen TVs in the bar area too. Lots of ESPN. Monster trucks on one screen. Bike race on the set behind me. Baseball highlights on the TV over the bar. Some guy pitched a perfect game. Doc and I discussed what entails a “perfect game.” I said no hits, no man on base, foul balls are okay. Hubs said all strike outs. Uh, no. Love you, babe. Love your muscles, but it’s just wrong that I know more baseball than you do (thanks, Dad! thanks, big bro John!)

We survived dinner next to the bar without spilled drinks, no loud cries of “He punched me!” We are improving. Only had to tell the preschooler not to jump on the seat half dozen times.

Then in the car on the way home the fru-fru started. Or is it spelled froo-froo? I started with the first fru-fru comment. A huge house with a brick half wall, shrubbery, and decorations at the end of the driveway. Too much fuss. Too much fru-fru. Well, the Doc and the kids thought it hilarous. The rest of the drive home everything was fru-fru.

The fru-fru trees. Fru-fru church. Fru-fru deer. Fru-fru pond. And so it went.

I’m thinking it was the fru-fru sugar and fru-fru restaurant that sent us into the fru-fru laughter. But what do I know? I’m not even sure how to spell fru-fru.

Yet more thoughts on contentment

By Monica Brand, 11 June, 2009, No Comment

Thanks for the encouraging words this week, friends. It’s nice fantastic that so many of you would miss my contribution to the blogosphere if I were to drop out. Thank you.

I’ve been thinking more about it and here’s what I’ve come up with: my problem isn’t blog influence, it’s me and mothering (Or mothering and I? Umm. Not sure.)

My youngest daughter has a friend who calls me, “Lucy’s mommy.” Never Mrs. Brand or Mrs. B like I tell her to when she comes to play. It was cute at first, very preschooler speak, but the more it continues, the more it makes me want to grind my teeth. Future play dates hang in the balance because of it.

Why does it irritate me so much to be labeled by an innocent 4-year-old?

Then there was the time our Pastor referred to a woman like me as a housewife.

Again: why am I so freaked out by another label given with the best intentions.

I don’t write much here about my previous life, my existence before kiddos and homeschooling. BC (Before Children), I was a newspaper reporter and traveled to the other side of the world. I met a slew of interesting people. Nowadays, I hang out with all these people much shorter than I who all require various degrees of daily care.

Patience, Monica. They are only young for a moment, really. Then they are grown and gone.

I know it.

My head does anyway.

My heart?

Guess not.

Surfing contentment: confessions of a Christian mommyblogger

By Monica Brand, 5 June, 2009, 3 Comments

I keep trying to write this post explaining my thoughts about why I would consider deleting the past four years, but it’s been so difficult not to not sound like a whiner. Let me see if I can do this without the Internal Editor.

Contentment. I’m not too good with all the verses telling us to be content with where we are, with what we have, who we are. I feel like I’m on a cyber surfboard on my little blogging wave. I’m doing okay. I’m in the water, the sun warm on my skin, the water salty on my lips. The surfboard so familiar to me now as I’ve been at this blogging gig for so long. My balance is good, it’s a nice rhythm.

But then I take my concentration off my own modest sized wave and look to the other surfers around me – their waves are so much bigger than mine. They are faster, bigger. People on the shoreline are impressed, clapping, pointing to her. I think to myself: Cool. I want to try riding those big waves.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

Contentment.

I’m just a mom. One step further in – I’m a homeschooling mom. My wave is scattered with a tween, a preschooler and two inbetween. It’s a day full of little people.

That mom over there on that other wave, she might have her kids in school or they’re older than mine or she only has one. Her wave is hers. That’s her blog. My wave, for what it is, a mix of family stories, homeschool reference points, book lust or just cyber goofiness, is mine.

But dang it, friends, I sure do want to catch that other wave. All those “Hey, Lord, what about me?” prayers.

So that’s where I am: struggling to learn contentment – seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever been good at it, even before blogkeeping.

***

Okay, I just reviewed what I wrote and this is the way I feel. I’m writing in my journal, that three ring notebook I keep next to the bed so I dont’ have to get out of bed to record thoughts (often, it’s the only quiet place in the house.) After breakfast… no, tween Susan cooked breakfast muffins, all I have to do is tidy up. After that, I’m going to type this up, tweak the paragraphs, and punctuation, but I’m not going to touch one word of it in order to save face. I may change the title. Right now it’s Confessions of a Christina Mommyblogger, but that sounds too sexy. Maybe some nod to surfing or contentment. Not sure yet.

So now you know why I questioned Monday as to the future survival of this blog. I don’t want to delete Paper Bridges. I want to write, post videos of my kids doing kidly things and continue to be me. But me better – content with what the Lord has given me.

Okay that’s all for now.