Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2020

As a white mom of two multi-racial kids, I was very excited to participate in Multicultural Children’s Book Day. The book I received to review was beautifully illustrated and I read it to my kids right away. “Sissy Goes Tiny” is the story of an inter-racial couple who decide to sell their house and build a tiny home to travel around the country as they raise (and homeschool) their daughter. Sissy is very relatable, and my oldest (age 7) loved the idea of having your own sleeping loft. My youngest (age 2) loved that she had curly hair like her. The girls enjoyed reading the story and were intrigued by the concept: where would Sissy go to school? How would she make friends? Wouldn’t she be lonely?

As I sat down to write the review, my children’s questions nagged at me. Living in Oregon, my experience with the tiny home movement is that it is either 1) overwhelmingly hipster white (think: expensive ultra-modern AirBnB) or 2) non-profit housing for folks who are trying to get off the street (think: houses built by volunteers in church parking lots).

With this context, the story of “Sissy Goes Tiny” is definitely something new. No stereotypical cultural references here. But is it true to life? Does this book reflect the experiences of children of color who live in tiny houses?

I did some research to see if my concerns were unfounded. I discovered the Tiny Home Trailblazers, a group of people of color working to make the tiny home movement more diverse. I wondered what the Tiny Home Trailblazers would think about this book…and about the stories that they might tell. The authors of this book are both white women. One owns her own tiny home. The other is the project manager for Multicultural Children’s Book Day. There isn’t any information in the book to say how they came to write this story, other than an explanation for Sissy’s name (it’s taken from a Danish word; the name of the author’s house).

It is so important to present our children with books that break stereotypes. And the best antidote for a stereotype is to meet a genuine, complex, specific person. The authors of “Sissy Goes Tiny” missed an incredible opportunity to do that by introducing us to the Tiny Home Trailblazers. How powerful it would have been to have their stories shared, and photographs of their actual houses, in the book!

The hashtag for Multicultural Children’s Book Day is #ReadYourWorld. Does Sissy’s world exist outside the page? I’m not sure that the answer is yes.

Heart in the Hinge

For the past three years I haven’t been writing, because I’ve been preaching. Sunday mornings. Church. Choir. Communion. Gay-friendly church stuff, because I’m gay, so it has to be gay-friendly, or I can’t show up.

The best part of being a pastor is the kids. Little kids running around like holy terrors in angel costumes at christmastide, and big kids asking hard questions like: Why should I be a Christian? Those people hate trans people and brown people and I am literally both. I love the kids.

I LOVED the kids…past tense, because I quit my job, which is why I’m back here. I’m back on this blog only to discover that – surprise! – no one blogs anymore. I guess we binge Netflix, drink cheap liquor and put our therapist on auto-pay. Or maybe that’s just me.

I’m a ex-pastor mom to two kids right now: our sassy, precocious first-grader (via open adoption), and a sassy, precocious toddler (via foster care).

Foster Care.


Really, Oh My God. I hope She knows what is happening, because no else has a clue.

Becoming a foster parent required ripping my pulpy heart from my chest and nailing it to the wall….no, to the family bulletin board with the school lunch menu, expired pizza coupons and last month’s grocery list, so that I pass it every morning and wonder: what is that HOT MESS doing outside my chest, and will I ever get it back?

I already know that I won’t. My heart won’t ever fit back into that hollow cavity I carry around with me.

I know that already, but I pretend otherwise because that’s what motherhood is all about….holding it all together. You hold it all together, even if all you’ve got are dried-out junk drawer glue sticks and rubber bands thieved from egg cartons brought home from the grocery.

I’m Old

I turned 44 last year, and realized my life was half over. (I don’t really want to live past 88. So I’m half done.)

WOO HOO! Half-way done. Go me!!

I took myself on a birthday retreat, because that’s what you do when you’re middle-aged and parenting small children: you justify your escape with a fancy, therapist-approved permission slip. If “retreat” seems like it could be a word for running away, sending the troops skedaddling in the opposite direction (as in “fall back! retreat!”) that’s because it is….retreat is the last ditch attempt to save your skin before parenthood completely annihilates you.

Anyway, on my retreat I realized that I’m in the hinge: at 44, I’m in the middle part of my life between the door that’s swung open and the one that swings shut.

What does that mean for my karma? (Am I allowed to be a Christian minister and publicly talk about karma? I’m pretty sure in Trump’s America, that’s a big fat YES.) I’ve got just this second half left to make up for all the mistakes and omissions of the first half of my life. I better get BUSY!

But….oof. I’m tired. My body is – shockingly – also 44 years old. My eyesight is worse. My knees ache. My right foot has this thing that HURTS, and if I wasn’t so busy going to the dentist before my health insurance expires, I’d have it looked at. Hot Mess and a side of fries, that’s me.

Yet here are these kids. My whole heart. The reason I get up in the morning. To feed them. To negotiate all the reasons they can’t – won’t – dress themselves. To remember their glasses. Homework. Parent teacher conference forms. Lunch boxes. Hats, gloves, coats, boots. Matching socks? Please. Socks – of any kind – are extra. I’m not that kind of mom.

I’m the kind of mom whose heart makes a steady drip-drip sound from its place on the bulletin board. That heart, half-way done, still beating. It’s the only one I’ve got, and I don’t need it back.

The Real Reason People Believe in God

I’ve figured out why religion came into being.




Me: Because you threw it on the ground.
Why did I do that?
Did the birds want to eat it?
Me: Yep.
Me: Because they are hungry.
Why are the birds hungry?
Me: All creatures eat. Maybe they hadn’t had breakfast.
Why do creatures eat, Mom?
Me: They just do. They eat for energy.
But why do they EAT food, Mom? WHY?
Me: Because their bodies tell them they are hungry.
Why do their bodies tell them they are hungry?
Me: Because that’s how it works.
Why is that how it works?
Me: Because that’s the way Mama God made it.
Why did Mama God make it that way?



