Today was a day of children singing and playing music, and a day of me crying. At the UU church where got married in 2002 and are these days, at best, sometimes-attendees, today was an all-welcome service designed around Sesame Street songs. I thought about going when I saw the email describing the service, and…
nostalgia
On not going to my 20-year college reunion
Since it was a relief when I finally decided I would not go to my 20-year college reunion, it’s a surprise to feel so emotional about it now that it’s happening. About a month ago, I check to see if the friends I most wanted to see were going. Most weren’t. A few of them…
Jealousy in the face of children’s periodicals
Maybe it’s just because I have a fever or a painful skin issue that came out of nowhere, but I’m feeling sad when I look at the issues of High Five and Highlights that are currently taking up real estate on my bathroom floor. I just for the first time took a glance at the…
All I needed to know about myself I learned on Land/Sea
My alma mater, Kalamazoo College, contacted me some weeks back to let me know there would be a commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the Land/Sea Program. Patterned after Outward Bound, this was a special orientation program and outdoor adventure experience for about 30 first-year students in an incoming class of around 300. In my…
There goes the neighborhood
Missing from my To-Do list today was the item “Watch elderly neighbor get carted away by police.” And yet, unlike many of the things on my To-Do list, this actually happened. And I can’t shake it. It really was just a matter of time. Mimi had seemed to be suffering from dementia since we moved…
Out of words
You’d think that on Thanksgiving day, I’d be welling up with heartfelt warm-fuzzies or could at least feign some kind of thoughtful riff on how good I’ve got it. But I’m struggling to find something to write about. Now, I do know how good I’ve got it, really, I do. I’m so lucky to have…
The short and long view
It’s now been over three months since I started reading Katrina Kenison’s The Gift of an Ordinary Day. I’d picked it up even before that, but three months ago I devoured as much as I could while away from my kids at a conference. Since I’ve been back, time has been scarce amid getting unpacked,…
Day Two on the road
So tonight it’s Monopoly I’m missing to write, but I’ll be brief with this, inspired by our visit to the Indianpolis Children’s Museum, and as I noticed as I wrote, the cadence of some children’s book I haven’t read in a long time. Maybe Freight Train? From two to twelve Orange ball Rock wall Kids…
Flashback
After a few days of coughing and sniffles, and a lot more of them last night, my son declared today that he didn’t want to go to school. We couldn’t blame him. Since I’m taking him and his sister on a plane tomorrow where they will spend 3.5 fun-filled days (and possibly late nights) with…
What’s it like to be an adult?
Today skipped by with no chance for any fun photo shoots out in the fall air. But that’s just as well, because this commitment to photograph and write daily in November prompted me to snap some shots of my son and husband playing music together. Sometimes I wish they would both help me get dinner…
Rockin’ Orioles! Tweet! Tweet!
It isn’t every day that I have the chance to give my kids the kind of memorable experience we had last week at the Baltimore Orioles game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Since my son hadn’t ever been to a professional sporting event before, I’m not sure he fully appreciated just how special this event was….
20 years ago today: How I Met Their Father
I met my future husband at a dorm room party on Friday, April 24, 1992. Twenty years ago today. “You were babies!” people exclaim when I tell them this. Yes and no. I was 19, he almost 21. We did, in some ways, grow up together. We’ve seen the world change together, from days of…
We’ll always have Halloween: Creating costumes for kids
Welcome to the August Carnival of Natural Parenting: Creating With Kids This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama. This month our participants have shared how they make messes and masterpieces with children. Please read to the end to find a list…
Thyroids of a feather…
When I wrote an essay titled “Attemptus Interruptus” about having to postpone conception to deal with Graves’ Disease, autoimmune hyperthyroidism, I had no idea that the woman I referenced in the second-to-last paragraph would face the same disease. I was best friends with S in eighth grade and spent most of the summer of 1987 on her…
No, I don’t think I’ll become a Bradley instructor
I remember the first time I got a message from the Bradley Method® of Natural Childbirth after my son’s c-section in 2006. The subject heading — “The World Needs More Bradley® Instructors!” — didn’t exactly feel warm and fuzzy to my tender belly and the emotional guts beneath it. But it was the contents of…
Counting the minutes
There are a lot of emails I haven’t responded to and much more interesting posts I’ve written and never finished getting list to and so never posted. There are a million books I could read while I’m nursing, but at this moment, I feel the need to shout publicly that I am going insane! Yesterday…
When your story is out there
So, I wrote about sex, and I wrote about my family. Not in the same piece. One in a poem at Exhale zine and one in an essay in the Journal of Attachment Parenting International. The latter disclosed some stuff I’d never shared with my mom. I happened to be talking her around the time…
Little Mouth Speaks – a lot! A letter to my loquacious toddler
Today was the first day I’d had any childcare in two weeks. There was snow, then a fever, then my boy’s dad got sick and needed tending. Today’s four hours of babysitting went fast, but when they were over, I had a supremely lovely time with my son. It was a chilly rainy day, and…
Happy Halloween – 33 years later
I don’t give my mom enough credit a lot of the time. But the woman can sew! In 1975, she made this leopard costume for me. It’s been worn by nieces and nephews, and now, by my son. Thanks, Mom!
Smacked in the Facebook
I’ve just recently lost my Facebook virginity. It happened a few months ago, but I’ve been in denial. I created the account using my secondary (read: hardly checked, used only for esoteric Yahoo lists about traditional eating and food allergies) email. Then I just ignored my page. When I checked back during vacation in July,…