We sat down at our weathered farm table together. I fiddled with the salt shaker. He leaned back into one of the mismatched chairs with his hands behind his head. My husband and I were about to ha…
"Mom, there were about twenty different ways you could have handled that." Although my preteen son got a scolding for saying so, he was much too right. I had just given my kids a Silent Yellin…
I don't write very much about raising teenagers, even though by this fall I will have five of them under my jurisdiction. Yeah, I know. Five is a lot. The reason for this writing hole? My lack of p…
We sprawled out in our rented cabana, breathing salt and sun, telling each other how ridiculous this life (of three days) was. The drinks were served, the books were read, the ocean was heard, the ski…
I slipped into the quiet room filled with rocking chairs and slung my thirty gallon diaper bag off of my shoulder. The bag will shrink with each child until it resembles a lone diaper tossed under t…
Who has time to read? This busy parent does. Yes, it is wedged between after school activities and homework. It is interrupted countless times. It is done next to looming piles of I-should-be-clean…
It is the best of times to be female and it is a lousy time to be female. But mostly the best, with only a trace of lousy. As everyone attempts to define women, decide their rankings and judge t…
He turned his melty brown eyes to look at me as he confessed the saddest moment of his day. A kid in his class had done the unthinkable. They had called him a baby. I tried to pull off a …
I'm tempted to think it is because I am an unemotional, cold-hearted jerk. Maybe you are tempted to think it is because I never carried him in my belly and my attachment is not as strong.…
Whether our kids are in favor or not, most of us are waving goodby to a carefree summer. Schedule and routine are about to become the norm again. (This is me high-fiving you for surviving another summ…