After an end of employment, we finally had more time to be together. But on Dad’s Day, we discovered that writing about our life had begun taking time away from living it. A county envelope, eight children waiting for their daddy, and an evening holding Luke helped us remember what we had been trying to make room for all along.
Tag Archives: Family Life
What It Takes for Us to Be Here
A childhood memory, our mother’s injury, and two questions from our new therapist reveal the extraordinary, often invisible work of maintaining an ordinary life as a plural family of nine—and what it takes to make that life sustainable.
I Have This Life in My Arms
On Luke’s Day, an unexpected answer to prayer, a fraudulent email, and a promise to my nine-year-old son taught us that putting our children first means more than making time for them. It means allowing each child to be himself, listening to what he tells us, and remembering that the work of understanding our lives must never take the place of living them together.
But This Time, We Will All Be Known
In the summer of 1972, the world came apart. A summer later, it began to come back together. More than half a century later, Daniel took us back there—and helped us recognize an organizing story capable of holding memories we have carried all our lives. Perhaps our creation story is not about when we appeared, but how, through rupture after rupture, we remained. This time, we will all be known.
Understanding September 1
What happens when nobody is THE ONE? A classical analysis of Solis’s Day reveals an answer emerging through ordinary life: Daniel wakes Daddy, Jude imagines dinner, Hope changes the plan, Solis draws an ethical boundary, and the family adapts when a difficult afternoon makes rest impossible. September 1 becomes a study in functional multiplicity, consequential listening, and a new understanding of stability: when something happens, the family remains.
Solis’s Day Is Reclaiming the Sabbath
We stayed home on Sunday because we needed rest. By midday, the journal—and the analysis that followed it—was uncovering something much older about urgency, safety, work, faith, independence, and what it means to reclaim the Sabbath.
And Then Saturday Happened
Daniel said no, so we stayed home. What followed wasn’t a therapeutic exercise or something devised for a blog. It was simply Saturday: blueberry waffles with peanut butter, boys needing Daddy, Hilda, quesadillas, an old letter finally sent, an octopus reclaimed, and ordinary family life unfolding because we listened.
