-
To Compare or Not To Compare
By Vanessa Rasanen ”You cannot compare your children to each other.” I receive this admonishment at nearly every well-child visit. I hear it so often from our pediatrician that I now anticipate it as much as I do her sweet hellos to the kids. This latest appointment for our youngest’s 18-month check up was no exception. Yet it was. Immediately after reminding me not to compare my kiddos, she asked me if any of our older kids had similar body proportions (ie, bottom of the charts for height and weight but top of the chart for head size). I laughed. Inside, of course. I’m not completely rude. Most of the…
-
Skinny People Have Feelings, Too
By Vanessa Rasanen Imagine you’re in your office break room heating up your lunch. A coworker walks in and pulls out a frozen meal. You look at her and at the less-than-nutritious food in her hands. “You really should have a salad instead,” you note, adding a smile to let her know you mean well. She shrugs silently. “You should try to take a walk since you sit all day. It would really help you lose the weight.” She makes a comment about how she does exercise regularly, but the weight is slow to come off. “You disgust me,” you say with a chuckle so she knows you’re being funny…
-
What If You Hate Your Vocation
By Vanessa Rasanen Years ago I found myself sitting in a fairly small, basement office contemplating how to answer my manager’s question. I was fresh out of college and grateful to have landed the job (and not have to spend another few years in graduate school). I had loved my major, so it was a bit of a shock to find my first job — one in which my title actually matched the words on my degree — held so little resemblance to my expectations. And there I was, facing my manager and struggling to find the words to explain where I hoped to be in five years. Five years…
-
Hard Does Not Mean Bad
By Vanessa Rasanen Sometime last year in a desperate attempt to find reprieve from the exhaustion that comes with having four kids (including a newborn), a husband traveling for work, and a full time job, I found list after list of remedies that I couldn’t fathom fitting into my daily routine of craziness. Go to bed earlier? Ha! Post-bedtime is when I finally get to sit and enjoy the quiet so I can hear myself think… assuming there isn’t laundry to be folded or dishes to be done, of course. When my husband is home, that’s our time to connect, talk, or watch a show together. Exercise? Yeah. Endorphins-shmendorphins. I…
-
Some Dreams Have to Wait and That’s Okay
By Vanessa Rasanen Years ago during my active blogging days I attended a conference for Christian bloggers and writers. It was a disaster for many reasons, none of which are pertinent here, but there’s one piece of advice a fellow writer had offered to me — unsolicited, of course — that has nagged at me since. We had been discussing how to write a novel while being a parent with young kids. Her advice? Don’t put it off for years. Get it done. Make the time. It was really the only piece of advice I heeded from that awful weekend, and I set to work on my manuscript. I worked…
