Hi there. I’m Jess Connell.
I seek to write things that are true, so that I (and any women reading) can live with ever-increasing God-confidence.
Here are some things you might want to know about me–
- Doug is my husband, and we’ve been married since October 2000. He’s a kind, faithful man and I praise God for him.
- We’ve got 9 kiddos (yes, nine. Our oldest was born in 2002 & our youngest was born in 2018). We spend our days together. Yup it’s hard and yup it’s good.
- Through writing here, and my podcast, Mom On Purpose, I encourage Christian women to dig into Scripture, take a long-term view in parenting, and invest in the quality and joy of their marriages.
OUR STORY:
Born-and-raised Texans, we’ve lived all over the world. Little Rock. DC. Dallas. Istanbul. Pacific Northwest. Now, we’ve planted roots down in the same soil where we started– North Texas.
We’ve been through a lot of challenges and suffering. We’re both sinners in need of God’s goodness. (Want to know more? Here’s the ugly truth about Jess Connell.)
God has– in every circumstance– proven Himself utterly trustworthy. I’ve learned that the best adventures are the ones He writes with our lives when we let go of our tightly-gripped control.
HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO YOU?
We’re all apt to lie to ourselves about
- who we really are,
- and the life we’re really living.
I want to help you RIGHTLY evaluate yourself, your home, and your family. My desire here is to:
- give you meaty, biblical things to chew on,
- offer practical ideas that work for us with our large family,
- and spur you on toward fruitfulness in your real life.
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- If you have a question, post idea, or suggestion, please share it with me. I love to hear from readers! Contact me here:
So something brought you to my mind and I was wondering if you were still blogging, and here you are, at this beautiful new spot, all shiny and wonderful! I miss seeing your name around the blog. Congratulations on the new little life and moving back to the states! Just wanted to drop in and say hi.
Thanks for saying hello, Kelly! I’m not as much of a blog reader as I used to be (no time!), although I definitely pop over to your place when a link pops up in my FB feed. 🙂 Hope you and yours are doing well.
Hi Jess! I don’t see a way to re-blog your pieces. I would sometimes like to!
Madelyn, I don’t really know what that means– “reblog.” How would that work & what does that look like, practically? Would the text of my article show up on your site, or do you simply mean like a link/share?
Madelyn – do you mean how to share a post on social media (facebook etc). I am noticing now that Jess offers a few links at the bottom of articles (under “Share This”) that let you post her articles online. That is just my guess as to what you mean by re-blog 🙂
Jess, I am a long-time follower of yours. Can you share any quick thoughts on how to enforce rest time / nap time even when my toddler doesn’t actually go to sleep anymore? My toddler has started skipping her naps (2 y 4 mo) and she will play in her pack and play for about 1 hour but it’s just not long enough for me to rest or get anything else done, after she used to have 2-3 hour naps! She understandably doesn’t like it if I let her out of her pack and play but close her door so that she needs to stay in her bedroom by herself. Thanks! Julie
Hi there Julie,
This is when it gets hard. For us, where we landed at these ages are…
* if they can make it all the way to bedtime without (extra) grumping, and I truly do not believe that they need a nap, then I do not require that they have one.
* if they do not have a nap, they still have to have solitary quiet play time. So that could be something like in a play area, in a pack and play, sitting on one corner of the sectional with a stack of books, or in a (safe) room.
* I still need daily quiet. My other kids still need the option of daily quiet/naps.
* It is actually good for the CHILD him/herself to do without non-stop stimulation & entertainment.
So it sounds like roughly where you are right now.
It’s tough to lose out on those 2-3 hour naps!
The other thing is this… out of 9 kids, only 1 that no longer needed naps at age 2. About 3 of them no longer took naps at age 4. For most of them, (and I could tell through their attitudes/fussiness) they still needed some form of nap, multiple times a week. So that’s my last word– several of them went to a phase of me watching their attitudes to determine… does he/she need a nap today? And for a while, we got into a rhythm that way… “he’s taking about 3-4 naps a week right now” etc. With my (current) 4 year old, he still occasionally has weeks where I’ll say, “today you’re gonna have a nap. I’ll sit with you until you fall asleep”… because I can just tell in his irritability and fussiness that sleep (or lack there of) is catching up with him and he’s having trouble with self-control.
Hope this helps! Feel free to follow up if I didn’t address something.