*Folks have been asking for an update on the “water to the gas tank” incident with our van. Welp. Here ya go. *Vandals You Own* I turned my back for one second. All good parental spiels begin this way, right? … Continue reading
Vandals You Own
Author Archives: Jesi Randalls-Abernathy
Primary Program Sunday
Primary Program Sunday Each year, usually in October, each of our church’s congregations have a special Sunday where the little children present a program. They sing songs and talk about Jesus for an entire hour and it’s my favorite thing … Continue reading
Vandals You Own
*Folks have been asking for an update on the “water to the gas tank” incident with our van. Welp. Here ya go. *Vandals You Own* I turned my back for one second. All good parental spiels begin this way, right? … Continue reading
Brazil in a Nutshell (Part 2)
Ya’ll. I have so much word vomit for you. I apologize in advance for my going on and on and on. Brazilians are just so fascinating. So, my cultural, basic white girl biases are in a tizzy. The myopic ‘Merican … Continue reading
Things I’ve learned in Brazil (part 1)
The First Rule of Rio according to Maria: do not leave a phone unattended even for a second. I basically broke the rule the second my feet hit Brazilian soil. I went to the bathroom in the airport and left … Continue reading
The Most Important Thing
Because I’m questiony and curious, I want to ask you a hypothetical question.
What is the most important thing a parent could ever do?
Thinking…
The cynical little hag that sits on my shoulder says, “Eat Oreos and Cheetos in the closet where no one can see or hear.” Or maybe, “Train all the children to do all the chores and then read books all day.” Or “Get shock collars for all the ki…” Wait. Scratch that last one.
No screentime
Just a little screentime
No screen
No gluten
No sugar
No nitrates
Babywear
Baby Led weaning
Attachment parenting
Helicopter parenting
Free-range parenting
Sleep with the baby
Sleep train the baby
Fed is best
Breastfeed
Bottlefeed
Homeschool
Unschool
Forest School
Private school
Public school
Authoritative
Permissive
Helmets
Love and Logic
Wild Child
Vegan
Vegetarian
Paleo
Keto
The sheer amount of knowledge and information and choices in our modern lives – especially with regard to parenting – just blows my wig off.
My real opinion?
Traditions. Traditions change everything. Traditions mean the kids have something to look forward to, stand up for and remember long after we’re not in their faces all the day long. It’s the tireless job of building a strong family culture.
It’s family vacation. It’s chores and working together. It’s praying together. It’s making the elf do stupid things. It’s consistency. It’s church on Sunday. It’s rules. It’s consequences. It’s playing hard as a family and then working even harder. It’s a special glass egg in the Easter basket every year. It’s holidays with extended family. It’s Grandma and Grandpa.
It’s strong beliefs and opinions. It’s encouraging questions. It’s sweet potato casserole every single Thanksgiving. It’s going through hard things and suffering and coming out stronger, side by side. It’s laughing till you pee and crying because life hurts. It’s making it clear that family is always first. Always.
It’s dragging out the same dusty Christmas ornaments and Halloween decorations every year and dessert and pot roast on Sundays. It’s celebrating milestones and personal growth and life changes. It’s spiritual growth as a unit. It’s sharing our weaknesses and our triumphs. It’s celebrating the smallest victories. It’s culture of acceptance. It’s the book challenge in summer and reading the scriptures together.
It’s talking about sex and love and relationships all the time. It’s letting them know that we don’t have all the answers and that’s okay. It’s late-night chit-chat after dates. Bedtime stories. Height recording at the beginning of the school year. Family movie night. Matching jammies at Christmas. The list goes on and on and on and it’s different in every family.
There is no right answer for tradition.
It’s not one culture or religion or tradition. It’s all the little things we fight for and the puzzle pieces we keep on placing even though we’re exhausted from all the running but we keep on going because it brings our babies back into our orbit even when they’re grown. It’s the expression of love that speaks to their heart and assures them they are more than the sum of their own parts. Tradition whispers to their soul that they belong and they are part of something. They matter. They’re important.
Our family isn’t whole without you, child.
Creating memorable experiences with our families changes each member. It builds love and trust and connection. It’s a historical narrative that fortifies their lives one tradition at a time and makes them stronger mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. It binds them to their people and their home and reminds them where they came from and what they’re always a part of. It gives them something to stand for. It buries a longing in their innards for always returning to where they started.
Get out that elf you hate this Christmas because it’s not about the elf. It’s about the feelings. Make those special cookies or read that special book over and over or kneel down together even when it’s hard and feels weird and you don’t want to. Herd them under your wings and chase them down and make them pose with their Easter basket even though they’re too old. It’s about the belonging and significance these traditions implant into the hearts of our babies.
Do it. It matters. Even when it’s so hard and so exhausting and so confusing. It’s so important.
What No One Told You About Parenting
If you’re following my drift here, it’s not all beer and skittles, my friends. Parenting sucks a great majority of the time. Ironically, it is also the most fantastic hard thing that will ever happen to you and those squeaky little rats will gift unto you unparalleled joy and purpose and lead your heart to the Land of Milk and Honey. Paradoxically, they will also draw out your worst fears and insecurities and unhealed emotional anguish. Sometimes all these things happen over the course of a single day Continue reading
What Old Moms Do When Left Alone
I was left home alone for approximately 7.5 hours today. This is a rare occurrence in the life of this ordinary Hausfrau because I own so many children, it’s very difficult to convince anyone (even the man who procreated them with me) to brave leaving home with all of them in tow. Continue reading
Little Kids, Big Kids
So, here we are ladies. We’ve been pregnant or feeding an infant for so many years, we don’t remember when we started. Or maybe we had one and had to take off 8 years to recover. The last time we wore a bikini, it was cool to pluck out every last eyebrow we had and then draw it back on. Our bladders either randomly pee all over us or won’t squirt urine for nobody or nothin’ no matter how hard we squeeze or how many Kegels we force out while driving the maxi-van. Continue reading
Shark Week
Anciently, women would hole up together in “moon huts” because this was a time for needed rest and reflection. Also, no one wanted a bear or tiger to smell the blood and come eat the villagers, so having all the bleeding women in one spot to lure the blood-thirsty lion to one place was probably a good idea. Continue reading
Encroachment and other Insults
My family is very verbal and we are quite irreverent in our humor. We possess the cloven and razor sharp tongues of the Devil Serpent and therefore do a lot of crap talking and butt kicking amongst ourselves. Alas, even the youngest of our clan wield words like the weapons of the most feared warriors. Continue reading
The Value of Loving Others
This book is required reading at our house. It’s because sometimes kids are jerks and they have to be taught how not to be a jerk. My theory is, if teens are pressed to look outside themselves to find purpose, they will likely discover contentment. Continue reading
Mom Wins Today, Crotchgobblins
Sometimes, motherhood is about the little pleasures you steal when no one is looking. Also, it’s sometimes about reveling in enjoying something the rest of the family hates. It’s a well-known phenomena that you can scream wildly into sleeping tween … Continue reading
The Maxi-Van
It will always smell like an armpit ate a diarrhea diaper stuffed with extra beans and onions with a side of dead fish, which digested a few hours and then barfed all over the place. Or a foot wearing a suit made out of anus skin in the middle of summer. I really can’t provide enough quality adjectives to help you understand the smell.
Continue reading
This is Forty
June 7, 2019 This is Forty This morning, in between planks and the Bible and looking up essential oils for anal candida (twins), I Googled, “Can I get ripped doing push-ups?” I thought, maybe if I really felt especially athletic … Continue reading
Another Mother
You’re born, and then you grow and you never remember a time when your mom wasn’t your hub. All your world revolved around her. She was the axis and from her stretched the spokes that were your food, your time, your emotions, your spirituality, your education, your style, your livelihood, your illusions, your teenage angst, your frustration; and your eyes slowly peeled open when you created your own first human.
There is an invisible but almost tangible conduit that links your heart and your soul to hers. You can’t imagine there’s anyone else in this world who is connected to you like she is. And you’re mostly right, until you meet him.
He is new, he is arresting and he is yours. He is all hard angles and soft feelings and he comes with his very own hub. She is the center point he has revolved around all his life and these revolutions around our mothers are sometimes hard to remodel.
As you grow together, you become the axis of what you create together and the world opens up because the rose of understanding blooms in your heart and mind and motherhood changes you.
Years into loving him, you recognize the spark in your heart that burns bright for your own mother, also burns for his. You love her like he does. You never could have imagined the possibility of two nuclei in your life. But here you are.
The prospect of losing either of them stings and stabs deep in your heart. When she suffers, you feel the misery acutely. Watching him ache for her breaks your heart into shards of emotional glass. When you’re faced with the fragility of her life and the precarious thread upon which we dance daily unraveling, the future feels like it arrived too quickly and you realize with panic that you haven’t had enough time with either of them.
There is peace that radiates from your knowledge of Christ. There is always a warm hand on your shoulder because you embrace the infinite power of His atoning sacrifice. But the graduation from mortality still strikes fear and sorrow and grief in your gut. You just keep climbing and clinging to the strands of beauty stitched into your tapestry because you know the love of two mothers.
It’s a Trip
Let’s get one thing cleared up. When you take your offspring somewhere for more than a couple days, it is not a “vacation”. According to www.dictionary.com, a vacation is an extended period of leisure and recreation, especially one spent away … Continue reading
Have You Had Your Crack Today?
Okay, parental units. I have to clear my throat and step up onto my rickety, wooden soapbox. I am forever shocked when I hear that precious baby boy or little princess has unfettered access to the armpit of our generation. … Continue reading
The Blessings of Owning Twins and Dogs Simultaneously
It’s moments like these where I can take a full breath and be reminded of what an incredible blessing these two are to our family. Then I’m jerked violently back into reality because I go to get them up from … Continue reading
Easter Egg Hunting
These two little cowboys are out having an “Easter Egg Hunt” in the pasture. The “baskets” are giant fish nets and the “eggs” are balls of horse poop. Yes. They’re using their hands to collect eggs. I’m not sorry that … Continue reading
