Splash the Puddles

This is the foot of Walker's bed, and those are his dad's shoes. It may seem as if Walker's been walking in his dad's shoes for play, but that's not the case. (At least not literally in this situation...) This is one of three pair of Cliff's shoes that are currently residing in the boys rooms. God bless their sniffers. :) To some wives, this may be annoying-"Honey put your shoes away!"  To me, it's the picture of beauty. These shoes, at the foot of that bed represent the life legacy of a man who loves The Lord and desires above all else to seek Him in parenting and a man who loves his children with every fiber of his being. Those are shoes, kicked off first one and then the other, as he lays across his son's bed  and reads to him from the Bible nightly, discussing and applying God's Word to his little life, then sends him off to dreamland with a prayer and a kiss.  One night recently, my man and I had been chatting in...

On the way home from school today, Walker and I had a great conversation-some days I get nothing out of him during the ride home, others we talk like he's my age.  Today is one of those days where I feel like God laid out a conversation that I initially thought was meant for Walker, but in actuality was also probably meant for me. He was talking to me about something, and how he worried about what his friends would think of him.  He mentioned that a few kids in his class weren't like him in this way, and he said he was worried other kids would "look at him."  He said that a few times, and it's as far as he went into detail, so I gathered on my own that he was afraid he'd be made fun of, talked about, or stand out.  I asked him if he was worried about getting made fun of or what others thought about his choice and he said yes.  (It's important to note, for purposes later in this post, that this hasn't actually happened yet-he's just thinking of wh...

As a teacher, I have struggled at times with expecting a certain quality of performance out of one child because you see it in another-this is especially true with teaching siblings a year or two within each other.  You expect that because a child is a model student, really smart, really well behaved, that this will automatically be the case for the sibling that comes behind them.  And well, most of the time it’s just not.     When you birth a child of you own, you hear of how different the second child will be.  “You won’t believe they could come from the same two people…” others will say.  And while you are sure they know what they are talking about, you can’t quite understand how drastic the differences are until you experience it yourself.  It’s so beautiful to me, to see how God can create such individualistic traits in his children.   When you are a parent with a friend or family member who has a child near your child’s age, or...

One of the best friends I've ever had in my life, is very keen on making top 10 lists.  In our glory days (meaning our senior year of college and the 4 years that followed when we spent every waking second together and got in more cat fights then I care to mention), we made many a top ten lists for each other (top 10 reasons why I will miss you when I'm on vacation, top 10 reasons why I am glad it's your birthday, top 10 reasons why the guy who just dumped you is a jerk...ok, maybe that's stretching it, but you get the idea)  This sweet (and oh so blunt) friend texted me today and said "Is it bad that I think of you when I put deodorant on?"  To which I replied "Do I stink?!?"  (knowing full well why she was asking me that, and it was NOT because I stink!) And her reply?  :)  A smiley.  Yep. Whatever, Ashley. So, as a tribute to more wonderful memories than I deserve to have with one friend...a top 10 list of things I want to do bet...