Tim and Olive's Blog

“Why is your daughter crying?” is a question that I have been asked hundreds of times – and I’ve only been a dad for 1.5 years. Inspired by this dad, Olive and I decided to start writing down the reasons why Allie cried. To give other soon-to-be parents a more realistic view of life with a 1-year old, we’ve posted a few of these reasons (along with some photos). Read More

[“Courage Is” is a guest post series of readers sharing their personal stories of courage and what it means to live courageously. This is Marcela De Vivo‘s story.]

When I was only 36 weeks pregnant, I was told that my son wouldn’t survive birth and that if he did, he would likely quickly die after birth or before his first birthday.
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Recently, I watched this provoking TED talk called, “Why 30 is not the new 20.” In it, clinical psychologist Meg Jay challenges people in their 20’s to re-evaluate how they are spending their time and challenges the notion that one’s 20’s is a throwaway decade. She encourages young people to “claim” their 20’s by investing in who they might want to be, pursuing their careers by connecting with people beyond their immediate sphere of connections, and choosing their future families by being intentional about who they date.

One of my friends watched the talk and sent me this question, “That was a really inspirational TED talk – I watched the whole video. But I feel that, perhaps, this doesn’t take into account Christianity. In following God, I feel that I am being asked to forsake all my dreams and desires (a stable career, the opportunity to travel, and perhaps a spouse). I feel that by following God, that I am moving backwards through life. What are your thoughts on this?” Great question.
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When Allie was 5 months old, we took her on her first trip. That road trip to Seattle was a disaster. It’s taken me a whole year to muster up the courage to travel with her again, but this time, we’ll be flying.
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[This is a guest post by Neal Black, who together with his wife June, helped us with premarital counselling to prepare Olive and I for marriage.]

The other day the headlines read “Gold prices set record high”. I am all for investment when it gets me what I want. But if you are like me you didn’t jump on the gold band wagon soon enough and wish you had years ago. So I guess you can call me dumb for not investing sooner.
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How do children succeed in life? After I became a parent, I started to ask myself this question. What can my wife and I do to help my daughter succeed in life? What is “success” and what does it look like? As I’ve started reading about this subject, I’ve come across a few insights that I will share with you today.
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Housework can be a source of conflict in a relationship, whether it’s with your spouse, siblings, roommate, or whoever you’re living with. When my wife and I got married and started living together, one of the things we had to decide was how to divide the housework. Who would do what? And how would we decide? Though it was fun, playing rock-paper-scissors for who would cook dinner didn’t seem like a long-term solution.
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Guess what arrived in the mail today? 

Olive and I are very excited to announce the arrival of hard copies of our books, Fight With Me and Then Came The Baby! There’s just something very different about holding the actual print copy of a book (compared to reading the ebook version on a laptop, tablet, or smartphone). Even more exciting is that these hard copies are now available for you, our readers!
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Yesterday was a particularly meaningful Mother’s Day for me because we held a baby dedication for our daughter Alena. We wanted to share with you our thoughts and reasons for doing this. While there is no scriptural mandate for dedicating a child to God, we see examples of people bringing their babies to Jesus to be blessed (Matt 19:13, Mark 10:13, Luke 18:15a) and Jesus himself was brought to the temple as a young child as part of a Jewish custom (Luke 2:22-24).
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[May 6-12, 2013 is Mental Health Week in Canada. At least 1 in 3 Canadians experience challenges with their mental health each year. To grow empathy for people struggling with mental health and depression (and their families), Tim shared his experience with depression on Monday, and I am sharing my experience as a wife of someone with depression today.]

The first time Tim allowed me to see his depression, I was shocked. We had gotten married in the midst of my own recovery from burnout so I had come into the marriage thinking I was the one who needed mending. I hadn’t realized that he also walked with a limp. He hadn’t really mentioned it while we were dating or engaged (mostly out of fear and partly because he hadn’t come to terms with it himself yet), so when he told me he was fighting depression, and that he had recurring bouts of it, I was surprised.
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