It’s that time of year again, the season of giving thanks. You might be making a mental inventory of blessings, jotting down ideas for Facebook statuses, or lining up pictures for Instagram posts that proclaim unceasing gratitude in the most…
“I can’t imagine having a real job,” is a thing I used to say sometimes. Until my oldest daughter, who recently graduated from college and joined the workforce full-time, looked at me sternly and said, “Mom, stop saying that! You…
For my first grader, it was kind of a big deal. Every day, a classmate I’ll call Joey asked to borrow a different color marker. He always gave it right back to her, but he was heavy-handed, so sometimes the…
With five minutes left before the big switch from the art room to the music room, my fellow Vacation Bible School volunteer had a circle of adorable 5-year-olds to entertain, mine included. “Let’s tell everyone where we’re going on vacation…
“The funniest thing happened today!” She said it with a nervous giggle. I had just started using full-time childcare for my firstborn, who I was picking up after a day at the office. A lovely and enthusiastic twenty-ish woman plucked…
There we sat – crisscross applesauce on a cold kitchen floor – surrounded by a sea of Duplo LEGO blocks. One of us didn’t have pants on. The look on her face was a combination of shock and delight. My…
Ten years ago this month, our Christmas budget officially blew up. Perhaps your family was hit by the same destructive force: The Great Recession. If I close my eyes, I can still feel the throbbing that overtook my frontal lobe…
When my youngest daughter turned eighteen last month, my mother asked me if I was going to “drag her to the polls” in November. She remembers when I turned eighteen a long time ago and voting was not exactly top of…
When you’re pregnant, a very large share of your energy is expended getting ready for the baby: doing nursery things, choosing a pediatrician, lining up childcare, and maybe – if you have the time and resources – taking classes about…
Do you remember the Huggies Dad Test commercial? People complained, and it was yanked after a few weeks because it portrayed fathers as unable to care for their own babies. This spot I’m thinking about showed a group of dads…
