Family

How To Find Balance In Parenthood

Lessons in Parenthood: Week 11 Just one of these days I would like to drink my tea while it’s still hot. Maybe 18 years from now that will happen. This week’s blog comes a little late because I was all caught up birthing a baby. Our newest family member, Leia Rosalia Dolenc, was born Thursday, […]

A Person’s A Person No Matter How Small: Respecting Who Your Child Is

Lessons In Parenthood: Week 9 To illustrate this week’s theme I have to tell you two stories and the first goes like this: Olivia and I were at the park and there were kids a bit older than her playing soccer with their dad. They also had a frisbee on the ground that they weren’t using […]

Why I Don’t Want My Kid To Obey

Lessons in Parenthood: Week 8 Whenever someone pushes the ideal of an obedient child I think, “No thanks, I’m not trying to raise a robot.” When I was a kid I remember obedience being one of the most desirable traits for a child. Somehow an obedient child was equal in meaning and value to a […]

Forgiving A Toddler

Lessons in Parenthood: Week 3 After spending a full day of overhauling parts of our apartment, I was tired. Being 7 months pregnant only amplifies that exhaustion. The additional problem with the cleaning and organizing is that Olivia finds it extremely fun to play with everything I’ve just organized so she tears things apart just […]

Make Them Laugh

Lessons in Parenthood: Week 2 Well, I made it to the second week of this writing challenge, jet lag and all. When your mind is struggling between two time zones on opposite ends of the earth it’s a miracle if you get anything done. I haven’t been the only one struggling either. Olivia is awake at […]

Learning To Take A Moment

We live in a fast paced world. That’s just the way it is now in our modern society. It may vary from culture to culture, but for the most part we live very busy lives. We rush through our year and then are in shock when the Christmas whirlwind hits. It seems like every year […]

5 Ways To Create Physical And Fun Activities For Kids

Physical activity is so important for kids, and everyone really. Today more than ever before in history we are living a sedentary lifestyle. Kids are in school, at desks, in cars, playing games on phones, and so on. Regular physical activity can help kids not only build healthy bones and muscles, but it also helps to reduce anxiety […]

Preparing For Takeoff

Yesterday I didn’t write a post. I had planned to, but I had also planned that it would be the last thing I would do that day, if I did it at all. If it was too late after all the preparations were finished I would go to bed and not kill myself. The thing […]

Family And Internationals

This weekend Lexie came to town. She arrived on Saturday in time for our Thanksgiving dinner and left today, Monday, late morning. It was short and very sweet. When I moved to Slovenia I left all my friends and family back home in California. Since then, I’ve made friends. I’ve made good friends. Even though […]

From Now ‘Til Christmas

I’ve decided to start writing a daily post from now until Christmas. Why? The short version is that I want to push my creativity. Forcing myself to write more is one way (and right now seems to be the least complicated way) to do it. Another reason is that I have so many learning moments every […]

Mariah Dolenc