Rich Stories from Fertile Ground - Author Cat Poland
A Simple Toddler Prayer for an El-Cheapo Swingset
My favorite part about tucking my toddler in each night (other than disciplining her multiple times for running out of her bedroom) is caressing her soft, smooth, round cheeks. I talk to her in a low voice, and wish her sweet dreams. The lights are very dim, but I can still see her liquid blue… Continue Reading
One of the Most Beautiful Births I’ve Ever Witnessed
“You’re going to what?!” I believe this was my initial reaction (internally) several years ago when my sister said she wanted to adopt. And not an infant, a middle-school age boy, a couple of years younger than her youngest. It was something God was calling her to do, though, and I couldn’t argue with that.… Continue Reading
The End of My WAHM/SAHM Season
This isn’t really an announcement so much as it is an explanation. Back in March 2012, I opted out of the workforce, leaving my job as director of communications for a statewide non-profit to stay home with my girls (then ages 10 months and two years). I’ve chronicled the ups, the downs, my insecurities and… Continue Reading
The Sexiest Thing My Husband’s Ever Said to Me
If you’re like me, when you latch on to a new hobby, you bite down…hard. You’re all consumed with dabbling in your new craft, often at the expense of family and friends. Lately, I can’t seem to pry my camera from my hand. I just keep snapping and snapping and snapping…and I’m sure it’s fairly… Continue Reading
Why You Should Take Your Children into Public
Until recently, I avoided taking my girls out in public as much as possible. Too stressful. Too scary. Too many factors outside my control. What if they ran off in a parking lot and got run over? Or kidnapped? What if they wander off in a crowded store? What if we get in a car… Continue Reading
All the things my mother never did for me
She never taught me how to style my hair, or do my makeup, or dress in the most flattering fashions. She didn’t teach me how to blow a bubble, ride my bike, or snap my fingers. I don’t recall her ever making cupcakes for my class, or putting on an elaborate birthday party. A box… Continue Reading
Are fragile memories best left unpreserved?
Round and iridescent, delicate and weightless, bubbles blown from the lips of my strapping husband danced on the light breeze. We’d secured a particularly good bubble-blowing kit as a birthday gift for my youngest, and the results were no less than magic. The temperature outside was perfect, and the relentless Kansas wind had finally decided to… Continue Reading
Beautiful Exhaustion after the Birthday Party
Eight hours of cooking, cleaning, decorating, all to be enjoyed and devoured in two hours time. Ground beef, roast chicken, beans, cheese, mushrooms, cilantro, onion, green chile, salsa, sour cream, enchiladas gooey and melty on 20 plates. Three-layer made-from scratch banana cake, caramel dripping down the sides. Laughter. Long conversations. Little girls shrieking and chasing.… Continue Reading
I know this little girl…
I know this little girl She came into our world All plump and round and sweet What a joy to meet Her eyes are crystal blue They sparkle bright and true Her auburn hair it shimmers In the sunlight how it glimmers A blessing we’ve been given A daughter and a sibling A sweet and… Continue Reading
When did my daughter become my adversary?
I can still remember the way she looked on my chest. Wet from the womb, her eyes wild and her chin, strong and angular, jutted out at me as if in an immediate assertion of dominance. She’s always been strong. Strong minded, strong willed. So strong, in fact, that she left a large, deep bruise… Continue Reading
Forgive Me For Not Laughing
As I brought my car to a stop, pressing my foot down on the brake pad, I looked up to the opposite corner of the intersection, and my heart began to race. There stood what appeared to be a young man, in a flowing black cape with a hood over his head. My left turn… Continue Reading
Get Thee to the Bartlett Arboretum
I looked at the clock on the stove in the kitchen. 3:05. I was unshowered, and still in my pj’s, taking a day’s rest to nurse my sinus headache and resulting malaise. While a small part of me wanted to stay in the comfort of my home and my leopard pajama bottoms, a bigger part… Continue Reading
Panic! in the Bathroom
Oh. My. God. OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD! My hands were shaking and my heart bulging from every artery when I saw what was on the screen. A picture of me. Well, half of me. From the waist down. Pants around my ankles. Sitting on the toilet. On Instagram. Did it post? Did it post? I didn’t know. My… Continue Reading
A Beautiful Encounter Among the Dry Bones
“He’s not really here, honey. It’s just his bones.” I spoke these words from my own mouth, but I wasn’t sure I believed them. Part of me desperately wanted to believe that his spirit somehow lingered in this place, where flesh becomes fodder for earth dwelling creatures. I parked on the gravel path right in… Continue Reading