In this life-giving book, Courtney Reissig encourages moms with the truth about God's perspective on their work: what the world sees as mundane, he sees as magnificent. Discussing the changing nature of stay-at-home work and the ultimate meaning of our identity as image bearers, Reissig combats common misunderstandings about the significance of at-home work—helping us see how Christ infuses purpose into every facet of the ordinary.

    Mothering is an adventure to be sure--from baby's first kisses and cute messy faces to trips to the playground and pushing a grocery cart with a screaming toddler, a mom's life is full of adventures with her children. But it's not only about the kids. Mothering is also an adventure in personal growth for every woman who undertakes this important role. The Mommy Diaries is a collection of encouraging, heartwarming, and funny true stories from moms just like you. These honest and open reflections on mothering will help you rediscover yourself amidst the demands of motherhood. The stories cover all the issues that are close to your heart as a mother, including • reclaiming your identity as a woman • remembering your own personal growth • cultivating meaningful adult relationships • asking for help when you need it • gaining perspective on the everyday demands of motherhood • keeping hope alive The Mommy Diaries is your chance to catch a fresh glimpse of who you are and how you can grow in the midst of the mothering process. You may be too busy on the adventure to write in your own diary, but you'll see yourself in these stories and be encouraged on your own daily adventure!

    Warmth, wisdom, and wit add to this classic LLLI bestseller about mothering and breast-feeding your child into toddlerhoodNorma Jane Bumgarner revisits the challenges of getting enough rest, dealing with criticism from family and friends, weaning, and more in her long-awaited, significant revision of this classic.

    Doulas, or professional labor assistants, have led thousands of expectant women through the birthing process in a way that’s safe and meaningful, and that creates the birth and postbirth experience all mothers long for. What exactly do doulas do?How to find one that suits you.What are the “trade secrets” only doulas know but every woman should be aware of (even if you don’t have a doula)?In The Doula Guide to Birth, senior-level doula Ananda Lowe and award-winning health reporter Rachel Zimmerman have written a most comprehensive book that draws on the wisdom of these skilled experts, whose experience with doctors, midwives, nurses, and hospitals makes them invaluable advocates before, during, and after birth. * Labor techniques anyone can use* Pain medication: do you, don’t you—and when?* What dads and loved ones need and can do best* When should you really go to the hospital in labor?* How to prepare for unexpected medical procedures, including cesareans and epidural* Postpartum—what it’s really like * A clip-out chart of labor techniques, birth plan worksheets, and much more Combining science, wit, warmth, and support, as well as the inspirational stories of dozens of mothers and their partners, you’ll find the “doula viewpoint” on every major pregnancy and delivery issue, making this one of the most important childbirth books you’ll ever read and recommend.

    Yet many who travel this path discover rich, unexpected rewards along the way. In this candid and poignant collection of personal stories, sixty-three mothers describe the gifts of respect, strength, delight, perspective, and love, which their child with Down syndrome has brought into their lives. perspectives, and draw from a wide spectrum of ethnicity, world views, and religious beliefs. Some are parenting within a traditional family structure; some are not. Some never considered terminating their pregnancy; some struggled with the decision. Some were calm at the time of diagnosis; some were traumatised. Some write about their pregnancy and the months after giving birth; some reflect on years of experience with their child. Their diverse experiences point to a common truth: the life of a child with Down syndrome is something to celebrate. These women have something to say - not just to other mothers but to all of us.

    The author, her youngest son, Patrick, her ex-husband, Jim, and her new husband, Bill, all stepped on a five-year roller-coaster ride in which Morgan incarnated the chaos principle in torn jeans and dyed hair. Drinking, drugging, disappearing, suspicious companions, failing and cheating at school, joy riding in a stolen car–there was no variety of adolescent acting out that she didn’t indulge in. For Adair Lara it became an endless sojourn at the end of her rope, a trial immensely complicated by the reappearance in her life of her aging father, a man who had abandoned his wife and seven children decades earlier. Inevitably, Morgan’s misbehavior revives memories of her own headstrong adolescence, while her father’s presence makes agonizingly real for her the consequences of giving up. Paradoxically, he also becomes the source of her best advice.Hold Me Close, Let Me Go is an emotionally charged, often brutally honest memoir that all parents (and anyone who was ever a teenager) will experience shocks of recognition from while reading. It imparts invaluable lessons about holding loved ones close through the roughest passages and about the power of family to overcome the most grievous obstacles. Adair Lara is a clear-eyed and eloquent witness to the complex costs and rewards of motherhood, and her book will redefine for readers their idea of what being “a good enough mother” really means.

    "Don’t Waste Your Time Homeschooling: 72 Things I Wish I’d Known" features concrete suggestions to help you: • Discover ways to take your family’s pulse and maintain a peaceful household. • Realize how easy it can be to sidestep the isolation trap. • Find creative ways to maintain your own identity amid a sea of others’ needs. • Learn the one easy habit to help avoid conflict with busy teen drivers. • Explain to others how your children are being properly socialized.

    But she needs it. She needs the moment to refocus and refresh her soul. She needs the inspiration to find God in the mess and the mundane that often defines her. She craves the solitude of a moment with the Master to quiet the storms. She needs to laugh and remember why she loves being a mom.Don't Make Me Come Up There! is filled with inspirational and hilarious true-life stories and reflections written by a very human mom. Moms will recognize themselves in the pages of this book written for real, everyday mothers who know what it's like to catch vomit with one hand while starting a load of laundry with the other (and never confusing the two!). The fifty-two reflections encourage moms to revel in the everyday beauty of their lives and grow closer to God through it all."I couldn't help thinking of the last time my children had scattered up the stairs and disappeared into a quiet abyss. Initially, I thought they were just delighting in one another's company, holding hands, and making paper daisies. But that thought lasted for 1.2 seconds before I snapped out of my delusion only to discover my oldest giving her brother a "haircut" and my youngest smearing soap all over the bathroom. . . " from the book

    It felt like an alien invasion but her instincts took over and, despite being totally unmaternal, she found herself going ahead with the pregnancy.My Shitty Twenties is based on an award-winning blog about being a single mum. Emily Morris started writing when her son was two and she needed to try to find something funny in a crap, banal day. Six years later, this is her story.

     Quick advice—Key childcare tips are broken into short, convenient guides—unlike other new dad books, there’s no reading an entire textbook just to change a diaper. The big moments—Track your baby’s development at a glance with charts that lay out the most important milestones in one place. Who needs other new dad books when you have the expert guidance of We’re Parents! at hand?

    Your friends, your neighbors, your Uber driver--everyone is giving you unsolicited advice, to which Beth and Jackie say: F*ck advice! There's no "right" way to be pregnant or a new mom, only stretchy pants to be worn and choices to be made.This illustrated guide asks and answers all the essential questions that pop up from the first trimester to the fourth, such as: Should I have an unmedicated or drugged-out birth? (Up to you!) Will I have time to pee as a new mom? (Maybe!) How do I avoid hating my partner? (That's a little more complicated.) Funny, feminist, and, above all, pro-mom, this book is an actually useful baby shower gift.

    Transcend it. Pope John Paul II wrote that the little domestic Church, like the greater Church, needs to be constantly and intensely evangelized: hence its duty regarding permanent education in the faith. That s a tall order for busy Catholic mothers. You might even say it s as big as a house. You wouldn t want to clean the whole thing in one fell swoop, but if you take it one room at a time you ll get the job done. In a systematic course that s equally useful for groups as for individuals, this talented author shows how to remodel a home and form a family after the spiritual design of Holy Mother Church.

    To those who didn’t know, the biscuit factory that towered over Carlisle might look like just another slice of the industrial North, a noisy and chaotic place with workers trooping in and out at all hours. For the biscuit girls it was a place where they worked hard, but also where they gossiped, got into scrapes and made lifelong friends. Outside the factory walls there might be difficult husbands or demanding kids, and sometimes even heartbreak and tragedy, but they knew there would always be an escape from their troubles at Carr's. Some, like Barbara, only applied because she needed the extra cash, until things got a bit easier at home. Her supervisor cross examined her about who would be looking after the kids while she was at work, but let her have the job. Like many of the women who joined up ‘temporary’ Barbara went on to stay at Carrs for 32 years.Beginning in the 1940s, these heartwarming and vividly-remembered stories have all been told by the women themselves to Hunter Davies.

    A gripping first-hand account of midwife Penny Armstrong’s journey from student midwife in Glasgow to running her own practice among the Amish in rural Pennsylvania, A Midwife’s Story never fails to enlighten, inform and surprise.Going far beyond mere biography, Armstrong’s journey of self-discovery is ultimately very moving, and it is the honesty with which she describes the world she discovers which makes this book a classic, and essential reading not just for aspiring midwives but to anyone interested in natural birth.

    She felt as if she were 19 again, the age at which she got pregnant out of wedlock and relinquished her newborn son for adoption. Suddenly, he was back — this stranger she had given birth to — and he wasn’t just searching for his roots. Joshua was looking for a mom. Eager to embrace the second chance she had been granted, Denise leapt wholeheartedly into the role. “It’s a BIG boy,” she announced to her family and friends, setting free her twenty-six-year secret. But Joshua was not a boy. He was a grown man, with a history that fell far short of what she had envisioned for him when she’d been assured he would be “better off” without her. His adoptive parents had essentially given up on him at age thirteen, sending him away with only an eighth-grade education. He drifted through a series of institutions and group homes, and ultimately onto the New York City streets, where he fell into drugs and crime. When an early marriage failed, he and his young wife surrendered an infant and toddler to adoption. By the time Denise and her son reunited, he was in his second marriage to a teenaged runaway who was six months pregnant with their first child. Despite her disappointment and his obvious problems, Denise was determined to restore their severed bond and give him the unconditional love that had been lacking in her own childhood.At the same time, she struggled with her parents’ adverse reaction to her reunion and their refusal to acknowledge their grandson’s existence. The shameful event that they had worked so vigorously to bury was back to haunt them. They could not accept their daughter’s happiness at having found her lost child.Still reeling in the overwhelming mix of joy and grief, gratitude and guilt triggered by reunion with her son, Denise received a letter from an aunt she never knew existed. Aunt Mabel revealed some startling information about Denise’s mother, who had claimed to be an only child raised by a kindly couple after both her parents passed away. In truth, she was one of nine siblings tossed to the winds by their mother after the death of their father in 1929. As she got to know her new-found aunts, uncles and cousins, Denise became obsessed with understanding how her grandmother could desert her children and how her mother, who so clearly bore the scars of abandonment, could then force her own daughter to give up a child.A year into their reunion, after Josh’s wife left him with their ten-month-old daughter, the rage that he had initially denied surfaced. Denise went from feeling like a new mom to the frustrated parent of an out-of-control teenager. In the face of his angry outbursts and threats to cut her off, she remained intent on “fixing” him, believing that, in time, she could heal his wounds. Once more, she put her own pain aside and stood by him as he married twice more and fathered another child.Only when Josh and Denise reached an impasse in year five, did she recognize how emotionally shutdown she had been since relinquishing her son — and how she had let her fear of losing him again hold her hostage. In the silence of their estrangement, she began the hard work that ultimately allowed her to resolve her own issues, reclaim the young woman she had left behind after surrendering what turned out to be her only child, and make peace with the past. She found acceptance and forgiveness for her mother, her son, and ultimately herself.