The Gift of an Ordinary Day

The Gift of an Ordinary Day: A Mother's Memoir by Katrina Kenison is making me feel extremely guilty right now. My girls are testing my patience lately....the usual kid stuff - not listening, not doing anything that I ask, fighting with each other.....and then I read Kenison's book and I am reminded to remember the simple things in life. Kenison doesn't try to act like her family life is perfect, either. Her boys are growing up and there is the usual rebellion that teenagers subject their parents to. She fondly remembers the boys' growing up years, perhaps wishing to go back to the years when her sons were smaller and needed her more.

This memoir shows a family who is transitioning to an empty nest, who has moved to a new home, new town, and is making new friends and finding their way. And most of all, in this book Kenison shares her own fears and worries for her children, something mothers everywhere will be able to relate to. Reading this book may not give me all the answers about how to raise my own children, or how to not lose my patience with their constant bickering, yet I feel like I did get something out of this book, that Kenison's own admissions were helpful to me. That her ability to share her feelings help validate my own.

Kenison has written one other book, Mitten Strings for God that I will be looking for, and I look forward to any of her future work and finding out what she and her family are up to.