How this Baseball Coach Taught Me to Coach my Kids

by Christie Perkins

I have learned a great deal about coaching kids through others. Sometimes kids fall. Sometimes they mess up. Sometimes things don’t go quite right. Our response is crucial to their learning process of who they are. Of the many great coaches we have had in life, one moment stands firm in my mind. I feel impressed to share it with you today, not last week like I was going to.

Someone needed this today.

We all have coaches in life. Sometimes we are the coach. Sometimes we are the player. I learned something great through one of my boys’ baseball coach. I believe it is key to how we coach our kids, especially when they mess up.

“She turned to the sunlight And shook her yellow head,And whispered to her neighbor_ _Winter is dead.”(3)It was pouring rain. But we were playing ball anyway. Too many games have been cancelled this year already. And since the game started out dry that was good enough.

I huddled under layers of blankets with the denim quilt as my oversized poncho and hair destroyer. Lovely. The afghan wrapped around my arms and legs kept me mostly warm with frequent blasts of cold air finding its way through the holes.

Sly comments about a holey blanket in this mad weather kept coming back to me. Again, and again, and again… and I could see the obvious mistake. They were absolutely right. Continue reading

5 Tips To Avoid a Boring Lolly-Gag Summer

by Christie Perkins

Summer is just around the corner. (Squeal!) But it’s not long before the kids slip into a brainless slouchy boredom slump. And all of my entertainment ideas are stumped. We go from bliss to fists in a few short weeks. Yep, it’s true. My kids fight (please send me tips if your kids don’t).

Humph.Avoid a BoringLOLLY- GAG SUMMER(1)

I’m excited for summer anyway. I love hanging with my kids. I love schedule drops, late bedtime flops, and night walks with my guy and the kids. Ah, the sweetness of summer time.

But what to do about the long unplanned days? For me, I love to put a focus on the day. I’ve done it for years and the kids seem to like it (I’ve even been surprised that they liked the organization day- probably because we drop chores that day).  Check out what I did last summer here. Continue reading

How Dealing with Cancer is Like Building a House

by Christie Perkins

If you have ever built a house you know the deep ditch neuro pathways you carve from overthinking details.

You even sometimes dream about the process… or have nightmares.

“She turned to the sunlight And shook her yellow head,And whispered to her neighbor_ _Winter is dead.”(1)You have lived in other places and you quickly categorize what you like and don’t like. You adopt and adapt from previous experience the things you should do for the next house. But some things you take for granted, like the placement of plugs. You don’t really think about those details because someone else does the thinking for that.

Unless you’ve had a bad experience with that.

In my last house I had one light switch in a bedroom that was vacationing halfway down the wall. Ok. Maybe not that far. But, you would practically jab your armpit with the door frame before you found the switch… and I always prayed that a spider wasn’t playing boogie man as I felt the wall.

That’s crawly (not to mention creepy). Continue reading