by Shannon Popkin | Mar 23, 2013 | Compassion, Pain, Parenting
Once when I was cooking dinner, two-year-old Cade bumped his head on the cupboard, and started to whimper. I was in the middle of adding meat to a pan, so I glanced down to see if he was OK, then looked back to the stove. Lindsay did the same thing, glancing...
by Shannon Popkin | Mar 2, 2013 | Fear, Goals, Parenting, Women
I once overheard a 20-something girl at the gym say that she would never have a baby. When I glanced up, she was making this horrible face, telling the guy beside her, “I would never do that to my body.”Now, she did have a nicely sculpted body–the...
by Shannon Popkin | Feb 28, 2013 | Humility, Pain, Parenting, Problems, seasons, Sin
When Cole was a baby, we were in a neighborhood play group. There were about a dozen kids, so it got pretty chaotic while the moms chatted and the kids rammed trucks into each other and banged pots on the play stove.On one particular week, I was asking the other moms...
by Shannon Popkin | Feb 25, 2013 | Humility, Pain, Parenting
I don’t feel good. I have a throbbing headache which is like the big bully who won’t leave, even when you throw Advil, Tylenol, and sinus medicine at him, one right after the other. My muscles ache and my neck is sore. I didn’t sleep well and every...
by Shannon Popkin | Feb 22, 2013 | God, Kids' Perspective, Leadership, Parenting, Wisdom
Once, when my son Cole was three, I talked to him about stranger-danger. I told him that there are strangers who drive through neighborhoods like ours, looking for little boys to steal. I said that even if someone offered him candy, he must always stay away from...
by Shannon Popkin | Feb 19, 2013 | Disagreement, Humility, Kids' Perspective, Parenting
When Lindsay was about two, we stopped at Cracker Barrel for dinner. We had been driving quite a while, and both Ken and I were cranky. After we were seated, we began to argue with each other about who-knows-what. We were in the middle of a move to a new city, so it...