Returning with class

We’ve traded white and yellow cockatoos for leathery fruit bats, air conditioning for the occasional sea breeze, indoor church for outdoor church, restaurants for home cooking, and suitcases for closets. There are certain aspects of Cairns we sorely miss, and I briefly adorn my “going south hat” when I see the morning and evening flights […]

How vomit led to self-awareness

You quickly find things out about yourself when your shirt is dripping and your hands are sticky with the evidence of your child’s illness. I was never the girl that played house and dreamed of the day I would have kids. I never believed I would be okay with having another human’s bodily fluids all […]

Love and peace. And probably war later.

There’s a video on YouTube of a young girl reacting very strongly to meeting her new sibling. I’m sure lots of people think it’s hysterical, but I found it horrible. It would be a nightmare for me. It looks like the girl and her father are at the hospital, he’s filming, and each time he […]

Lessons from a singing snail

I learned recently during an ill-advised Google search that when women say they’ve been in labor for 48 hours it doesn’t actually mean they’ve been red-faced, sweating, cursing their husbands, and in unbearable pain for a straight 48 hours. That’s what I always assumed and it sounded horrific. But those hours encompass all of it; […]

My enemy, God’s strength

When I was in high school we lived in a house that sat between a lake and a golf course. I grew up skiing, tubing, knee-boarding, and generally getting in the water as much as possible. My parents were never golfers, but the proximity of the course lent itself to some fun family runs at […]