When writing about motherhood some of the key players always, eventually — rightfully — insist on privacy. Sometimes I whisper their ages in surprise — 12, 10, 10. How did we get here and how did it happen so quickly? The world is heavy right now and I believe it’s a weight we all must […]
A couple weeks ago my sister and I saw Patty Griffin perform at Stuart’s Opera House in Nelsonville, Ohio. We both have long loved Patty Griffin and the ticket was my early birthday present to her. Lucy Wainwright Roche opened for Patty, and we loved her music – and humor – too. We stayed at a cute […]
(There are links throughout, a purple that looks like green (apologies). These are just a few of the songs Marty loved.) I’m having a tough day. In the early years, my father-in-law Marty was often critical of my work. But as time went on, he became one of my biggest cheerleaders. “You should write about that,” […]
When you have twins, the first baby to come out is Baby A or, in our family, Owen. The second baby to come out is Baby B—James. At 4 lbs., 15 oz., Owen was almost twice the size of James at birth. Owen was released from the NICU first. He slept through the night first. […]
It’s difficult to write about, not even parenting, but being when your children are older, which is largely why this space now sits quietly stagnant for so long. Can vagueness and truthfulness co-exist? Perhaps. Parenting in the age of social media is terribly complex. I love the record-keeping aspect of it, the connections made and kept […]
Someday you will drop your boys off at the ball field for practice. And your daughter will get on her bike and ride the surrounding quarter-mile paved loop over and over. And you might walk the same paved loop, untethered. Or read The New Yorker. Or simply sit on the bench with your eyes closed […]
I recently bought sidewalk chalk and Sophie recently drew a rainbow, highly pigmented (pink, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink) with white puffy clouds on each end, which is not a true meteorological phenomenon but one that has lived on children’s papers (or, at least, strangely on my papers as a child and Sophie’s as […]
Two things happened yesterday that helped clarify an uneasiness I’ve felt all summer. • I took the kids to the zoo with only a small backpack filled with three water bottles and a few essentials. We’ve been handling zoo trips this way for quite some time. But this visit, zipping around strollers filled with children […]
A couple years ago, as I was loading Sophie into the van after a morning of half-day kindergarten, two men approached me. Their car had run out of gas on 27 and they wondered if I would give them a ride to a gas station. I believe most people are good and kind. I give […]
It’s difficult to tell the story of Mia without telling the story of us. Her years marked so many of our big moments, which, I guess, any 14-year chunk of time will do. Mia came into our lives in 2001. Andy was taking classes at OSU and living with friends. I had just started a […]
