Category / getting personal

Being Married to Julie, I am the Luckiest Man Alive.

It was twenty years ago today. With my back to the cold, roaring Atlantic, she walked the beach pathway towards me. “Fields of Barley” played amidst the squawking seagulls. (The word “barley” had special meaning for us—we were about to honeymoon in Bali.) I wept as she approached, vividly aware that of all the men…

Tag: marriage, mothers

Happy Father’s Day—Here’s Sage Advice For Parents On Groundhog Day

Happy Father’s Day—here’s sage advice for parents on Groundhog Day. The parenting task on any given day can be so repetitive and mundane—like the tedious day in the movie Groundhog Day—that we lose our wonder and alertness in it all. (Relief! You may have thought I was going to compare a father to a groundhog.)…

Tag: family-habits, mundanity-of-parenting

The Six Best Gifts My Dad Left Me

Here’s the six best gifts my dad left me In this post, I pay tribute to Allan Mullins, my second dad and the proud grandad of my five children. I hope to gift you with some of the remarkable and priceless gems he gave me through his wisdom and character. As hundreds of people who…

Tag: example, my–dad

Ten Things Your Kids Need Most From You

Ten Things Your Kids Need Most From You. What do kids (tweens especially) think they need from us parents? I just had a little chat with Eli (12) and Fynn (10) and asked them that very question. I will share with you the gist of what they said. I’d always thought that I needed a…

Tag: authority

My Whole Family Got COVID…

My Whole Family Got COVID… Here’s the whole story. After a crazy-eventful lockdown (in which we had to make not one, but two emergency visits to the hospital for our normally healthy kids), we were so looking forward to getting back to some kind of normal. Our kids’ school was opening up again, our work…

Just Da Boys: How Bro-Getaways Make Better Dads

Just Da Boys: How Bro-Getaways make better dads I recently went on a weeklong surf trip with a handful of other dudes, mainly dads. It was just what the doctor ordered! Fellow dads, I know how stretched time and money can be, but there really is nothing like getting away with some great dudes to send…

Tag: male-friendships

Check Out My Mom’s Mindblowing Art (And Hear Her Heartwarming Story)

As a parenting writer, it’s high-time I go up-line instead of down-line and shamelessly honour not only the mother who gave me my very life, but also her electrifying art talent. Over and above being a brilliant grandmother, her latest focus is her imminent “Immortals” art exhibition. It consists of 10 large-scale oil-portraits. She describes…

Tag: mothers

The Surprising Reason We Had Five Kids And Named Them As We Did

The Surprising Reason We Had Five Kids And Named Them As We Did Christmastime is the celebration of the gift of a Child. For a decade now, it is also a time when Julie and I are reminded that every child is a gift from God. In our case that’s five kids. Five gifts. Five…

Tag: faith-and-family, listening, my-story

Something Brighter Than A Screen

I have stumbled across something brighter than a screen. Two nights ago, after the second family movie night in just three days (it’s school holidays) ended in exhaustion-related meltdowns in my youngest kids, Eli (10) and Fynn (8) my oldest kids made some recommendations: Eli: ‘Dad, we like movies and all. But I think we…

Tag: family-habits, kids-and-screens, time

What We Did When Our Kids Threw Mud Balls At The Elderly Lady Next Door

‘Wow, what a life lesson was that!’ said Eli to Chris and I as we walked back from the neighbours which he and 3 other kids had bombed. The drama had started an hour earlier. My 3 oldest kids had climbed over my neighbour’s wall using the ladder-play-gym system Chris (my neighbour) and I had…

Tag: life-lessons, misbehaviour

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