Blog | Brittany L. Bergman

“Don’t Miss It!”

“Don’t miss it!” Selah’s high-pitched command breaks my fragile focus, and my eyes flick from my laptop to the TV screen. She’s watching Masha and Bear, a silly Netflix show about an introverted bear whose carefully laid plans for the day are consistently disrupted—and his orderly home often destroyed—by a pig-tailed toddler named Masha. Masha may be frustrating and chaos-inducing, but she is also charming and sweet and completely well-intentioned. So basically, she’s Selah. “Don’t miss it!” Selah shouts again from her spot beside me on the couch. I look at Selah as I explain, perhaps for the thousandth time,… Read More

Divided

Mar 27 Leave a Comment

On a warm June evening one year into a fifteen-year mortgage, I put my seven-month-old daughter in the stroller. My husband slips the harness over the dog’s shoulders. The sun is still high when we set out along the trail in front of our suburban neighborhood. Walls of greenery are in bloom, and my daughter’s pudgy fingers reach out, trailing along emerald leaves and ruby petals. We walk to the local elementary school and I lift her into a swing, jabbering about how this is will be her school someday and how she’ll run out those doors after lunchtime, chase… Read More

How I Make Time to Read as a Busy Mom

Mar 19 Leave a Comment

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase. Reading is my life. I say that with only the slightest hint of exaggeration. I probably spend more hours reading than I spend doing any other single thing. I am a copy editor by trade, and while I’m not reading every minute of my workday, reading is a huge part of what I do. (I’ll get more into that below.) And when I’m not working, my favorite way to… Read More

How to Practice Meaningful Self-Care in Any Season of Life

Mar 6 Leave a Comment

I’m sitting at the head of board room table. Sunlight is streaming through windows so tall I couldn’t close the blinds even if I wanted to. Bookshelves crammed with devotionals, Bibles, and publishing memorabilia line the walls, and the air conditioner is humming in time with the microwave. My little office is my favorite spot in the building, but the board room is my favorite writing spot. By 12:30 each day, I’m itching for a break: from my cream-colored walls, from covers and pages piling up in my inbox, from other people’s words. I’m ready to write a few of… Read More

February Armchair Chats // The Difference between Certainty and Confidence

Feb 28 Leave a Comment

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase. Last night I texted my best friend, “I HATE CHOOSING PAINT COLORS.” I’d spent hours staring at the samples I painted on poster board, carrying them around the house with me and testing them out in different lights at various times of day. I knew for sure I didn’t like one of the two options, but I wasn’t certain about moving forward with the other one. Should I choose a… Read More

Why I Get Up Before the Rest of My Family

Feb 20 Leave a Comment

Despite the fact that I have a gentle alarm—chimes that begin low and slow and gradually get louder—waking up at 5:15 a.m. is still not something I would describe as pleasant or peaceful. Nevertheless, every weekday my alarm goes off at this time. I do a quick social media check while lying in bed (a habit I know I need to kick) before rolling my pregnant self out of bed. I brush my teeth while listening to NPR’s Up First, put on my favorite sweater and creep down the stairs as quietly as possible. It’s the dead of winter here in… Read More

Someday

Feb 13 Leave a Comment

Selah and I are sitting on the couch watching The Nutcracker—the 1993 version of the ballet, starring Macaulay Culkin (sans aftershave). Well, she’s watching, and I’m reading China Rich Girlfriend. Selah loves all things ballet—the dresses, the twirling, the shoes tied up with satin ribbons. Several dancers begin leaping across the screen in an enchanted forest. They’re wearing white tutus and embroidered bodices and puffy sleeves. Tiny tiaras encircle their perfect ballerina buns. Selah, without taking her eyes off the TV, asks me, “I do that someday?” I look up from my book. “Do what, baby?” “I dance like that… Read More

Armchair Chats // Life with a Threenager

Feb 1 Leave a Comment

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase. It’s official, friends: I have a threenager. Selah was a tough baby, an even tougher one-year-old, and then two was . . . surprisingly easy. (Although let’s be real, I use the word easy very, very loosely. There’s nothing easy about parenting toddlers.) I think a big part of this is because she finally started talking after a bit of a delay, and it made us both feel less frustrated and… Read More