-
Welcome to Arras Theme!
Arras Theme is a WordPress theme designed for news or review sites with lots of customisable features.
-
Recent Posts
- Psaltery & Lyre’s New Site
- 123 Psaltery & Lyre: “Agricola Dreams of Flying” by J. Rose Lara
- 122 Psaltery & Lyre: “Communion: a love poem (a villanelle)” by Rachel Bollinger
- Book Review: Philip Metres’s Sand Opera
- 121 Psaltery & Lyre: Rachael Matthews, “Horsehead Nebula”
- Book Review: Monica Ong’s Silent Anatomies
- 120 Psaltery & Lyre: Rachael Matthews, “Return, pt. III” and “Gaia”
- Book Review: Claudia Rankine’s Don’t Let Me Be Lonely
- Book Review: Matthea Harvey, If the Tabloids Are True What Are You?
- Book Review: LoterÃa Cards and Fortune Poems: A Book of Lives
-
Tag Cloud
Book of Mormon books children church Cipher on a Wall creative death epistemology equality faith fakebook families family fear female ordination feminism gender Grondahl homeless humor Joseph Smith kids lds life love marriage memories mind mormon mormonism motherhood music nature ordain women parenthood parenting photography poetry priesthood religion service sex sexuality spirituality women
kids Archive
-
Guest Post Invitation: The Parenthood Juggle
Posted on December 28, 2012 | 10 CommentsI want my daughters (and my son!) to be able to read about other women's struggles. How did they go about deciding what to do and when? -
Shielding Children from our Emotions
Posted on September 12, 2012 | 10 CommentsI’ve read some really sad things lately and have been experiencing some of my own sad moments (hey, I’m 39, so it’s time, no?), so I’ve been thinking a good bit about grief lately and about what grief looks like once you’re a parent. […] -
Ebony and Ivory: discussing the politics of race with young children
Posted on February 21, 2012 | 8 CommentsIn the post-Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday period and in the midst of Black History Month, my kindergartner has had a lot of questions about race. Not particularly about the children in her class or our friends of different races, but particularly WHY "'most homeless people have dark skin. " -
Roller Coaster
Posted on January 5, 2012 | 2 CommentsA year ago, I was living in a daze. I was spending most nights curled up against my 11 year old daughter's back as she lay on her side in her bed, willing her pain to dissipate, even hoping to absorb it myself. -
Santa and I
Posted on December 22, 2011 | 7 CommentsThe year I turned four or five, we drove to my grandparents in central Wisconsin for Christmas. Actually, we did this for most years of my early childhood- until I was 8 or so and we moved to Florida. Making the 1100 mile […] -
Prodigal
Posted on December 8, 2011 | 5 CommentsLast week, at a familiar intersection, the sign a man held up said, "It doesn't take much to be kind." -
Bonfire of the Vanities
Posted on November 17, 2011 | 7 CommentsThe idea of a bonfire to rid ourselves of vanity sometimes has it's appeal, especially on mornings when I've braided my 12 year old's hair three different ways and she's still not happy with it. I could chuck that hairbrush straight in to the flames. -
The Feast of St. Francis
Posted on November 10, 2011 | 7 CommentsThis year, our family observed General Conference by attending the local Episcopal church. -
Family Ties
Posted on October 27, 2011 | 5 CommentsWhere is the line between serving your family and loosing yourself in it? -
Finding Peace
Posted on September 22, 2011 | 4 CommentsForgiveness. As babies and young children, we can’t help but forgive those that wrong us. We have no choice…. we are too dependent. But somehow along the path to adulthood (and independence) we lose that. Maybe rightly so- I think there […] -
Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren . . .
Posted on September 16, 2011 | 3 CommentsEvery once in a while, I meet someone who is just plain old good. Without guile. My friend Rebecca is one of those people. And so are her kids. Rebecca and her family have a great tradition of family service that she […] -
The Wish Tree
Posted on September 15, 2011 | 1 CommentI had my five year old daughter with me and I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't get her very interested in the bronzes. Then we turned the corner and beheld the Wish Tree. -
Crash Test
Posted on September 1, 2011 | 2 CommentsThe thought of any inexperienced driver in charge of a 4,000 pound machine makes me very nervous, but anticipating my own flesh-and-blood inexperienced driver sends me almost into a panic. -
Window to Utopia
Posted on August 11, 2011 | 6 CommentsWhat would heaven be like, for a teenager? -
The Nursery Window
Posted on August 4, 2011 | 2 Comments"Long ago," he said, "I thought like you that my mother would always keep the window open for me, so I stayed away for moons and moons and moons, and then flew back; but the window was barred, for mother had forgotten all about me, and there was another little boy sleeping in my bed." -
We Are Pioneers
Posted on July 28, 2011 | 4 CommentsAs I was telling my Kindergartner earlier this month that we're all pioneers in some way. Whenever we stand up for what we believe in or do something because we know inside it's a good thing to do, we are pioneers. -
The Gluttonous Baby
Posted on July 21, 2011 | 10 CommentsFor as long as humans have made objects, there have been baby dolls. It’s an almost universal phenomenon that young children play with dolls. Especially if they have younger siblings or see babies being taken care of in their daily life, little […] -
Operation Stop Arm
Posted on July 15, 2011 | 4 CommentsMy neighbor Sheri and I watched motorists pass our children's school bus for years. We took video, called the police, reported tag numbers, complained to the public school department of transportation, pleaded with the PTA for attention to this matter. We were met with "there is nothing we can do" around every single corner. -
Kids, Bootleggers, and Diviners
Posted on June 8, 2011 | 7 CommentsI read a fair amount of young adult fiction-both as part of my job as a professor of secondary education and as a parent of two girls ages 11 and 14. I just finished reading Moon over Manifest, the 2011 Newbery Award winner, by Claire […] -
You Can Recognize Them by Their Hand-Carved Daggers…
Posted on May 19, 2011 | 36 CommentsI love memoirs. And I love Tina Fey. So I was just salivating as my friends and co-bloggers raved about Bossypants when it came out. Finally, on Mother’s Day, I stuffed myself silly on waffles, settled back in my bed, and […] -
Park it!
Posted on May 5, 2011 | 3 CommentsChildren can only write so many letters to full-time missionaries. Or out-of-state family members. They can only color so many pictures destined for the walls of the local hospital. They usually need a great deal of supervision during large-scale service projects, at least in my […] -
Delousing the Kids
Posted on April 6, 2011 | 4 CommentsThis beautiful poem was written by my dear friend, Dayna Patterson, after patiently listening to me whine about our 2010 lice-capade. It will be published later this year in a chapbook called Mothering. Dayna has another chapbook that was published recently called Loose […] -
An Unlikely Prayer of Thanksgiving
Posted on April 6, 2011 | 9 CommentsLast summer, Brent and Stuart went to get a haircut. While there, the stylist discovered that Stuart had lice (gasp!). We soon discovered that Marin also had it (double gasp!). Kennedy managed to escape unscathed. From my perspective growing up, it seemed like the only […] -
Kids and Calamities
Posted on March 31, 2011 | 12 CommentsI watched the Twin Towers fall on TV, my oldest child safely ensconced in her kindergarten class. My toddler was playing with blocks nearby…. building towers and knocking them down. “Mommy, why does your face look like this?” she asked, mimicking my […] -
“Do you want to end up living under a bridge?”
Posted on March 17, 2011 | 10 CommentsThis is, reportedly, what my daughter’s second grade teacher asked her class during a fit of frustration over their less-than-enthusiastic preparation for the looming standardized testing. Several other parents and I were concerned, but felt trapped in the status quo and didn’t really see […] -
Celebrating the Man As Well As His Cause
Posted on March 3, 2011 | 13 CommentsA guest post from a reader, Debra. Names matter. They do. My life experience has taught me this. Names are important as they are references — signs – that direct us to meaning, and often to a particular point in time – in history. In […] -
Hate
Posted on February 24, 2011 | 7 CommentsAs an antidote to all the love around here lately, I thought I’d offer up a little bit of good old-fashioned hate. I grew up in a very low key household where strong feelings didn’t really have a place. My typical toddler tantrums were […] -
Memories
Posted on December 16, 2010 | 4 CommentsA grateful resident presented me with a chocolate turkey, wrapped in beautiful multicolored foil. Then she looked around her room, reached over to her bedside table, and handed my brother a mushy brown banana. -
Let My People Go
Posted on December 15, 2010 | 10 CommentsMy little Stuart has a bleeding heart. He is unusually quick, I think, to identify a person or an action as being unfair or unkind and to want to right the wrong (unless it’s one of his sisters, in the which case it’s revenge, no […] -
Lunch 5- Out of the Comfort Zone
Posted on December 2, 2010 | 8 CommentsWe (and our children) have had to learn to be gracious guests at both cockroach infested decrepit apartments and mansions where we are served by The Help. -
Fei Hua (Chinese for “wasted words”)
Posted on October 27, 2010 | 15 CommentsI got to my office one morning and this cartoon was taped to my door: I knew right away who had put it there. It was Co-worker A, a man who shares many of my parenting frustrations. We often trade eye rolls about […] -
Anticipation
Posted on October 14, 2010 | 9 CommentsWe were on our way to church as a family, and I thought it would be a good opportunity for everyone to share in the 'lunch experience." So I was a bit disappointed when no one was waiting at the I-20 exit ramp like I anticipated. -
The First Lunch
Posted on October 7, 2010 | 14 CommentsA middle-aged Hispanic man is walking past the car where I pull up to the light. He sits down on the curb two cars behind us. He has a sign, but I don't read it. -
Around the Dinner Table: What’s a family?
Posted on October 6, 2010 | 28 CommentsWhile digging through the pile of papers in my seven-year-old’s backpack, I came across a copy of a page from the district reading curriculum that includes the weekly spelling words and a couple of ‘Guiding Questions’ for parents to talk to their kids about at […]