Parenting

Identity lessons from “Angelina Ballerina”

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 3 Comments

I happen to be quite well-versed at kids’ cartoons these days.

I’m not generally a huge TV fan myself, but when it comes to needing 30 minutes to _________ [name sanity-restoring task here: clean, prep a meal, shower, take a phone call from your BFF/etc.], I am not above putting on some kids’ TV which almost perfectly guarantees freedom from interruptions. Today the girls were watching one of their favorites, “Angelina Ballerina.” I love this show. The characters talk in British accents, families are portrayed in a favorable light and the kids actually seem fairly respectful and kind to one another. Plus there’s ballet dancing, and becoming a professional ballerina is a secret dream of mine (that I’ll never realize since I get dizzy when attempting to pirouette). 

I overheard an episode today that connected with this morning’s discussion of the book of Colossians. One friend summarized the main message of this book as: “Who you are in Christ, and how to live according to who you are.” In a word, identity. A favorite topic of mine as one who can easily forget who God’s created me to be, and/or doubts the identity that’s already been given to me and so tries to prove myself through 1000 exhausting enterprises. (“Like blogging daily?” you, my kind reader, suggest. “Well, yes, now that you mention it.” But enough about me – on to Angelina …)

Enter Angelina. It’s her first day at an elite dancing school, and she’s becoming insecure about dancing ballet when she observes her friends doing Irish dancing, jazz, and other modern dance. In a last minute practice, she asks her friend to accompany her by playing any music other than classical. This practice session ends with Angelina in tears, and her accompanist frustrated as he shifts from one musical style to the next to try to keep up with her dancing. Angelina is the next one up after lunch, and the audience feels her despair as she cries.

Enter mom to the rescue. Her mom shows up unexpectedly, asks Angelina why she’s been crying, and reassures her of who she is: a great ballet dancer. She encourages Angelina to be who she is, not try to become someone different to impress her new friends. She’s a ballerina, and she dances best to classical music. This also in fact makes her unique. Being different isn’t any cause for alarm or change, but it’s reason to celebrate her distinct identity. 

We then see Angelina move confidently to the stage and request “a classical piece, please,” to her relieved accompanist. She dances beautifully as she stays true to who she was created to be. A pleasant result is that the other dancers also admire her style, and Angelina walks off the stage smiling.

A few observations about identity come to mind:

1. We get confused when we compare ourselves to others, becoming either prideful if we seem to be “better than” and despairing if we feel we are “less than.”

2. We need others to remind us of who we and that who we are is beautiful and unique.  Do you have friends, family, co-workers, neighbors like this? And when’s the last time you reminded someone else of his or her God-given identity? Do you as a Christian remember who you are? Spend some time soaking up the first few chapters of Ephesians or Colossians for a crash course in your identity in Christ.

3. Being who we are will bring joy and confidence. Living according to who we are means we say “yes” to some things and “no” to others; that we live out of who God’s made us and not who we think we should be. As a mom, the book Desperate has been amazingly helpful to remind me of this in terms of living as who I am as a mom v. “the ideal mom” I have in my head.

 

Mundane Monday

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 2 Comments

There are days that are mundane and then something surprising pops out along the way and you feel like the day is now glorious. Like the proverbial sun after the rain, or an extra-long nap time to enjoy some mid-day quiet as a mom, or a breathtaking sunset that you catch in your rearview mirror.

And then there are those mundane Mondays like today where nothing extraordinary happens and you don’t wake up as early as you’d like to so you can start your day “ahead” (meaning all exercised-up and prayed-up and caught-up and READY), and instead your first sound of the morning is the piercing cry of one twin after she was bitten by the other. You take a deep breath, sigh, and answer your abrupt wake-up call. Trying to comfort the one who’s hurting and appropriately mete out consequences for the aggressor. All before coffee and a shower. Yikes.

If someone had told me this would have been my life 10 years ago, I might have run away to the middle of nowhere, hid under a rock with a few favorite books, and asked God to let me know when it was all over. I don’t mean to be dramatic, but this is a girl who continued to enjoy sleeping in late in the mornings long past the time when it was probably ok or socially accepted (i.e. – long past college graduation). I’m an extroverted introvert who always scores down the middle on the Myers-Briggs personality test. What that means is that I am energized by time in a group of people, but I am also drained without regular intervals of solitude. My ideal social setting is a deep conversation over coffee with 2-3 good friends, and then a quiet evening at home afterwards journaling or blogging or reading.

I’m with two little people 24/7 whose depth of conversation has dramatically expanded to include sentences like, “I want to eat cookies NOW!” Tantrums aren’t more frequent with either of my twin two-year-olds, but there’s a higher frequency of a tantrum occurring since there are two tantrum-prone kids. They rarely both have hard days, but there’s rarely a day where one of them isn’t having a hard day.

What am I trying to say? Well, that today was a day where there honestly didn’t seem to be a lot of “glory” out there waiting to be found. I’m sure it was there, but I just couldn’t see it for whatever reason. And maybe it’s the ordinary and mundane days that make us appreciate the days that are special or the moments when glory catches us unawares. After a very busy last week, there was something good and refreshing about a day filled with our “regular” activities like laundry and neighborhood walks and a visit from a friend and an afternoon of work and a quiet dinner with my husband post-bedtime.

Perhaps I just found today’s glory after all.

When Father’s Day is painful

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 1 Comment

Before I delve into this topic, let me begin with a disclamor: I was blessed to be raised by a Dad who loved me well as his daughter and cherished me and led me to Jesus over and over again and proudly gave me away to the man I married almost 7 years ago. This man has been a father for three years to our twin daughters, and I daily thank God that my girls have such a father to call, “Daddy.”

This isn’t a post about my pain, but it’s a post about the pain so many of you carry on this day. God calls us to bear one another’s burdens, and in my calling as a counselor and friend, I have heard your stories and I hurt for you today. And I wanted you to know that someone notices, sees, and acknowledges today’s pain.

Today may be painful because you’re grieving the father you never knew. The father you wish you had known, but whose absence leaves a hole in your heart and your life. A hole that you’ve tried to fill a thousand other ways but it always comes up short.

Your pain may be the absence of a father you knew and loved dearly and who is now gone. Whose death you grieve today most keenly. I’ve written about grief here, and I pray the God of all comfort will meet you in each avenue of sorrow you will walk through today as you know Him as Father and the ever-present one.

Or maybe the pain comes from a father who violated the protection and trust meant to be inherent in your relationship. Abuse of any sort – emotional, physical, or sexual – breaks boundaries established by God and leaves indelible pain, confusion, and deep wounds. Your journey feels long and hard and impossible and dark. You may not even be able to speak of what happened, and so you have to fake a “Happy Father’s Day” to the man who violated you and did what should not be done. And this only adds insult to injury. I hurt for you and with you, and if you need a safe place to talk about this, find a trusted friend or counselor or pastor and begin to share this pain. Speaking about such things feels as if it will multiply shame, but that’s the kingdom of darkness trying to keep you from coming into the light. When light shines in the darkness, the darkness cannot overcome it (John 1:5).

Then there are those of you who long to be fathers, and whether the delay is due to waiting for marriage or waiting through infertility, this day is a painful reminder of what you (or your spouse) are not yet.

Some of you have a combination of what I’ve mentioned already, and so the hurt is multi-faceted and often complicated grief. Such as grieving the death of an abusive father. Or a feeling of fear and dread as you watch your husband becoming abusive in ways your own father was to you. Or celebrating a wonderful father while wondering whether you or your husband will ever become one.

And then there’s the frustration of waiting for your husband to step up and be the kind of father you had or that you pray he would be for your children. Perhaps you found yourself reading the greeting cards and wishing they were actually true. You feel disappointed and you wonder if and when he’ll ever change.

As you grieve today, I want you to know that you’re not grieving in silence and you’re not grieving alone. Not only do I (and many, many others) acknowledge your pain, but we want to walk with you through it. And even if today passes without any other acknowledgement of the burden you carry, there is One who sees. Who meets you even now, carries your grief for you; atones for the sin committed against you; is the perfect and present Father you long for or miss or never had. He is the one who met a slave-woman and her son when they’d been cruelly abandoned by her mistress and were languishing in the desert, expecting to die. Hagar’s name for this God in Genesis 16:13?

You are the God who sees me.

On this day when you will see all of the Facebook and Instagram posts celebrating fathers and painting pictures of beautiful Pinterest-worthy brunches and picnics and barbecues; on this day when you will feel as if you are not seen or known; take comfort that there is a God who sees you. Who sees your pain and your grief and your brokenness. He sees you, and his seeing brings healing, comfort, and light into darkness. I can’t promise the pain will be less, but I know a God who promises his presence with his people in times of distress. And he is the one from whom all the best earthly fathers derive their name. He is the one Paul speaks of in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 –

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies
and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction …

And here’s one last thought. All of the images of perfect families with perfect fathers you’ll see today through posted pictures, at church or the brunch restaurant or your next-door neighbors – well, they’re not as perfect as they seem either. And in fact they could be well-constructed masks to cover pain that might be more similar to yours than you know. Take courage to tell your story, whether beginning today or tomorrow; whether with one friend or in a more public sphere; whether in person or email or a blog. Your story will remind others that they, too, do not grieve alone. And you may even be able to put words to what someone else could never express until they read or hear what’s on your heart.

The one voice that matters most

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 2 Comments

Today I had a conversation with an old friend who’s a new mom, and something she said really struck me:

You know, I’m learning to listen to my intuition. That I really do have a mother’s instinct that I can trust.

Two things struck me about this: (1) How I wish I had begun learning this as soon as she is (her baby girl is 5 months old) (2) Why on earth are we as moms so quick to listen to other voices and opinions on how to parent our child(ren) and so slow to listen to our own? Before you classify me as some motherhood mystic telling you to tune in to your inner voice, let me pause and say that I believe as people created to be like God, He is the one who is the ultimate author of this inner voice. He’s the one who gives us as moms the ability to nurture helpless babes into mature, independent adults (or so we hope and pray).

I’ll go a step further and say that for those of you who call God your Father through faith in his son Jesus Christ, you and I are promised that we will have all that we need for life and godliness. This isn’t found in myself and my own resources, but in the life of Christ living within me through the Holy Spirit. It’s in being connected through vibrant relationship to God that I will have the love and patience and grace and forgiveness and, yes, even mother’s intuition, that the journey of motherhood requires.

But I get distracted so easily. I tune in to 1000 other voices, and I can’t hear the one voice that matters most because I’m listening to all the wrong voices. The guilt from the voice in my head that says I’m not living up to my image of “ideal mom.” The experts offering their research on every topic from nursing to sleep training to discipline to creative development and everything in between. The well-meaning friends who give unsolicited advice when what I really wanted was empathy and support. [And I have certainly fallen in this category myself – forgive me, please?]

Another good friend who does in-home counseling for troubled families was teaching about discipline and said,

Let me start by reminding you that you are the top expert on your child.

I forget that, and then I go frantically looking for someone else to share with me something that may or may not fit my particular situation with this specific child who lives with a mom and dad with our distinct set of strengths and weaknesses. I’m not saying that I am stopping my research. Far from it. I am saying that I want to trust God and His Spirit at work in me shaping me and giving wisdom that I’ll need for parenting. This wisdom certainly includes the humility to learn from others who have gone before, who are walking alongside, who may even do it differently from me. But it’s a wisdom growing from within, supporting and bolstering my God-given shape as a mom and the one Voice that matters most.

I am deeply indebted to Sarah Dunning Park, who first began me on this journey of realizing I was listening to all the wrong voices as I read her beautiful book of poetry, What It Is Is Beautiful. Specifically her poem, “Book Learning.”  If you don’t own this book yet, order one now – and go ahead and order 5-10, for the reasons stated in my review below:

In reading through this poetry book, I literally couldn’t put it down because what she’s writing is my story. I saw my frustrations about motherhood in black and white, as well as the tender moments, and the trying, and the grace. You will be refreshed as you savor the language and the topics, ranging from a hilarious piece entitled “Mom Jeans” to “Book Learning” that will move you to tears – and everything in between. It’s a book you’ll return to again and again to make sense of your daily ups and downs of motherhood, and you’ll want to share it with all your friends.

 

 

 

 

My favorite birthday gifts

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 1 Comment

Today I creep closer into my “mid-30s” as I’ll add another candle to my birthday cake. And this year more than any other, God has reminded me of the two gifts that are my favorites. My twin daughters who are closely approaching 3-years-old in early fall.

As I began my birthday morning with my daily devotional reading from Psalm 127, it was as if God was speaking right to my heart – reminding me of these two beautiful gifts that are straight from his hand. I so often forget, and I complain that mothering is hard and difficult and discouraging. And of course it is all of those things, but it is also a privilege and a deep joy to have these two girls call me “Mommy.” Psalm 127:3 (ESV) speaks of this so clearly:

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward.

So how am I celebrating my birthday? With these two girls and my husband. We had breakfast bagels and coffee at Yorgo’s, and then hung out at the mall play area together and browsed books at Barnes and Noble. Just to keep it real, I’ll also tell you that we had a major chocolate milk spill in the car in which said Mommy-who-loves-her-kids got pretty upset with the offender (who did it on purpose to her twin sister’s great amusement); that we had a major diaper change in Barnes and Noble; and that I was pretty glad for naptime once we got home. I love my alone writing/processing/reflecting/reading time.

But these years of naptimes and tantrums will pass quickly (so I’ve heard), and before I know it these two will be in preschool, and then I’ll blink and they’ll be graduating from high school and I won’t know where the time has gone.

So, God, give me grace not to miss your daily gifts to me in the two sets of blue eyes who greet me each morning (ready or not).

When you regret yesterday

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 1 Comment

I should have known that beginning the day with a blog post entitled “Waiting for perfect,” would have been a sure-fire guarantee that the day ahead would give me challenges to that effect. And it did. I got frustrated with my kids because of trying to focus on adult conversations with friends who came over. They, in turn, responded to my frustration and lack of attention with (predictably for 2-year-olds) more acting out and clamoring/clingy behavior. Which frustrated me more, and I pushed them away, and then was so very glad to be leaving the house at 7pm for a meeting.

But this morning I feel it. That lingering sense of regret and guilt over yesterday. I awoke feeling a vague burden, nameless but very present. Then I reached for today’s devotional reading from a wonderful book (Grace Through the Ages) written by a good friend, former colleague/professor/counseling supervisor, Bill Smith. It met me exactly where I am, reminding me of truth and grace. Which is what my heart needed today, and what I will never outgrow my need for as long as I live.

Each time you sin against an infinite being you incur an infinite debt. How many lifetimes would you need to pay off just one sin? Little wonder people find so many ways to distract their minds and harden their consciences. Who could live with the enormity of that crushing debt?

Hence the psalmist’s conclusion [in Psalm 32] that you are blessed when God chooses to cancel what you ow (Psalm 32:1-2). You are so blessed that, despite the troubles of life that come even to God’s people (Psalm 32:7), you have more than enough cause to trust this God (Psalm 32:10), to run to him (Psalm 32:7) and to rejoice (Psalm 32:11).

The problem with self-pity

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 5 Comments

In a conversation with a friend and mentor earlier this week, I was talking about some of the frustrations of this season – the tantrums, power struggles, whining, endless picking up and cleaning up and food preparation for toddlers who on a whim decide not to eat, etc. She patiently listened, offered sympathy and the hope of one who’s been there that it won’t last forever. And then she shared a quote with me from John Piper’s “Desiring God” epilogue. A quote about self-pity and pride. The pride part is obvious, but the self-pity part caught me:

Self-pity is the belief that you should be admired because of how much you have sacrificed.

Ouch. That can sum up many of my struggles of this season. In self-pity, I am actually asking for admiration. And admiration based on my level of sacrifice (which I self-assess as much greater than what anyone else has been through). Self-pity is insidious, and it creeps into a heart unknowingly, disguised as something good – a little reward for all your hard labor, “I only want to be thanked for what I do,” “If only they would notice what I’ve given up for them!” But of course, when you are thanked and appreciated, it never feels like quite enough. It never equals your level of self-assessed sacrifice, and you’re left wanting more. More recognition, more appreciation, less need to sacrifice, more comfort, less hardship.

The good news is that I have a Savior who did not succumb to self-pity, and who went all the way in his sacrifice for me – laying down his entire life for me, dying for me. He doesn’t ask for admiration in return but for faith. A belief that I need his sacrifice because of my struggle with self-pity. A day-to-day trusting hope that turns my perceived “sacrifice” into love for him and those around me, which does not ask for admiration in return. Faith that is expressed in love; faith that empowers me to lovingly lay down my life for my friends (starting with my whining two-year-olds) – not for the purpose of earning salvation or admiration, but because I am loved like this every day.

Sabbath rest for a mother’s heart

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 1 Comment

If you find yourself in need of rest, true heart rest, these links will help you follow the voice of Jesus as he leads us there (Matthew 11:28-30).

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

A poem by Sarah Dunning Park – http://simplemom.net/poem-book-learning/

“Chatting at the Sky” – When the days are long and the minutes are longer

Christina Fox at “The Gospel Coalition blog” – Motherhood for the rest of us

(in)courage blog  – How gentleness makes our children great

Jen Hatmaker – More grace: on not being mean, hateful, and horrible

 

 

For the love of poetry

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 3 Comments

232323232-fp537-5-nu=32-6-572--77-WSNRCG=336548-63532-nu0mrjThere is something about poetry that has a way of taking the ordinary and opening your eyes to the beauty hidden within the otherwise mundane, that can provide you with the words to express what you’re longing but couldn’t find words to fit. I love how Mary Oliver puts it in her poem “I want to write something so simply” (from Evidence, 2009):

I want to write something
so simply
about love
or about pain
that even
as you are reading
you feel it
and as you read
you keep feeling it
and though it be,
my story
it will be common,
though it be singular
it will be known to you
so that by the end
you will think–
no, you will realize–
that it was all the while
yourself arranging the words,
that it was all the time
words that you yourself
out of your own heart
had been saying.

Which is obviously something I really love, given the title of my blog and its tagline. And yet it is hard to find the mental clarity and quiet needed to express in words how my heart is journeying through this unique season. Enter a perfect lunch in Williamsburg yesterday.

My good friend from grad school and counseling colleague, Mel, introduced me yesterday to Sarah Park, who is not only another fellow twin mom but also a published poet. And what’s her subject? “honest poems for mothers of small children” Really? When she handed me her book of poetry entitled “What It Is/Is Beautiful”, I took in my hands a gift. A gift of words to express what I feel and words to help me see what’s hard to see some days. (Like on Tuesday night when we put the twins back in their big girl beds  and found a string of *dirty* diapers they had retrieved from their *childproof-but-not-twinproof* diaper pail, and yes, we both stepped in poop as we entered their nursery-turned-modern art-display.)

While you may not be hearing a poem from me about poop or the angst of big girl bed transition for twins, you will be hearing more from me about Sarah’s book as its release date draws near (April 6th).

One of the few lines that’s already becoming a favorite is below, from “Already But Not Yet”. Join me in savoring the art of words that flow and words that fit –

I have already

drawn my children near,

tucked their hair behind their ears,

told them how much

I love them;

but I have not yet

made it through a day

loving perfectly,

free of discontent, guilt,

or fear.

Taco Tuesdays and Romans 1:1

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 1 Comment

One of my new year’s resolutions has been to memorize Romans along with Ann Voskamp’s “Romans project.” I would like all of you to know that I am two weeks behind. And, in fact, that I have “failed” at all of my New Year’s resolutions that I felt so excited about a month ago. (was it only a month?)

  • Potty training – after two weeks of trials, I made an executive decision that WE were not ready for potty training. When the one twin who seemed to “get it” began screaming “NO!” during every attempt to take her to the potty, I figured that this was a clear message to give it up for now.
  • Focusing on my kids more/technology less – I still find myself in the hard moments inevitably drawn to check Facebook or Instagram or our budget on Mint.com or the weather or …
  • Doing the “Joy Dare” to focus on gratitude v. complaint. Why don’t you ask my husband how well I’m doing at that? Sigh.
  • “State of the union” with Seth – some progress. Some failure. Like the evening when my version of state of the union turned into a very unfair rant and rave where somehow in my twisted logic he was the one to blame for all of the stress I was experiencing in other areas of life.
  • Scripture memory – see above … or below.
  • Reading 40 meaningful books – progress! I desperately devoured several on potty-training, so that helped give me a head start on this one. But now I’m reading Pillars of the Earth which is a good read but realllly long. 900+ pages, so that’s slowing me down a bit. 

What I’m realizing is that I can’t. I can’t do any of this on my own. I need a living Savior to do what I cannot do and never have been able to do: achieve a state of being right with God. And I need a Savior to offer forgiveness, mercy, hope, grace – and above all this, unshakeable LOVE – for all of the MANY moments I fail not just to meet my own standards, but in sinful rebellion turn away from God towards my idea of what I think will help me in the moment. (Yelling? Complaint? Chocolate?)

Yet this is not a reason not to keep striving towards less sinful patterns, towards more of the Spirit reigning in my heart. This simply changes my motivation and the how-to for doing so. It’s not to bolster my pride and sense of self-sufficiency and make me feel better, but I do so because I am loved by one whose love changes me and I do so only in the strength found in admitting and confessing I have no strength of my own.

So with that said, back to Romans 1:1. I can’t seem to get past this verse phrase – “Paul, [1] a servant of Christ Jesus, [2] called to be an apostle …” I keep switching those two phrases around as I’m working on trying to memorize it. Meaning that I keep saying in my head, “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, called to be a servant.” (And sidebar: memorization is not my strong point. I can be familiar with the general ideas and themes of various Bible verses but I am really bad at memorizing them word for word.) I think this shows me how I tend to get this mixed up in my own life. I want to put “called to be a [mom/wife/counselor/Bible teacher]” before the basic identity of “servant of Christ Jesus.” I think this changes everything. If I am FIRST a servant of Christ, and THEN called to whatever I’m called to in a particular season, I don’t complain to those people I’m called to serve or about the tasks I have to do nor do I take it personally if I receive criticism or feel like I’m failing. All of it is service to Christ Jesus. All of my service flows from the One who served me all the way to death because he was motivated by his love for me. This is not a guilt-laden, “Let me try to pay him back.” [I tried that for many years – didn’t work because it’s impossible!] But in the way that I feel about doing a favor for a friend who I know cares about me and who has done many things to show me that. It’s not a burden but a delight. And similar to the friend who strengthens me because she watched my kids for a morning, Christ’s service strengthens me to serve him by serving others out of and with the love he’s poured into my heart by the Spirit. Also, this identity is unshakeable. I am a servant of Christ Jesus most fundamentally. I will never fail at that because God guaranteed that with Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. Callings will come and go, but I’ll always be a servant of Christ Jesus. And I’m promised love, acceptance and eternal approval; in fact, I already have it. So no pressure or stress in that! I’m called to live out of who I already am.

Part of this is trying to find joy in what can feel like a pretty mundane stage of life. I decided that naming our days will help me to know what’s coming and will help our daughters to have something to associate with each day of the week. In trying to incorporate many major household tasks, a friend also suggested “Wash Wednesdays.” Unfortunately, our Wednesdays are too busy to do laundry but I liked the alliteration … so here’s what I’ve got:

Market Mondays – we head to the grocery store[s] to stock up for the week. I wish it were as awesome as a local farm market … maybe one day!

Taco Tuesdays – since our small group meets this night, we always need something really easy to cook for dinner. Hence, tacos. And, yes, this means when we host our small group, our house will likely smell like El Paso.

Women’s Bible Study Wednesdays – self-explanatory; highlight of my week. I love studying God’s word with these women. Right now we’re going through 1 & 2 Kings as we look at Elijah and Elisha’s life

Trash-truck Thursdays – because, well, Thursdays are when the trash trucks come through our neighborhood which is the highlight of my 2-year-olds’ week

French toast Fridays – Seth’s day off (since Sunday is a work day for him as a minister) and he loves making French toast for all of us at breakfast

Sleep-in Saturdays – well, one can have wishful thinking … one day, Seth and I will get to both sleep in on a Saturday. For now, we take turns.

Sabbath Sundays – I really do want to make Sundays a day that’s somewhat different from the rest of my week. So I’m experimenting with different ways to do that. At its simplest, it often means that Seth and I both crash for a long nap when the girls nap in the afternoon. Other times, I’ll try to blog or read an enjoyable book I’ve had on my shelf. After having kids, I had to get creative because I can’t really “take off” from the work I do the other 6 days of the week – diapers still must be changed, meals have to be prepared, tantrums must be dealt with – but I did decide that I wouldn’t do laundry on Sundays. I mean, you’ve got to draw the line somewhere. And so that’s my line … and I’m sticking to it.