Dear Chewie,
The kids beat the heat in lots of ways. They spend a couple of days building Lego vehicles.
And playing with them.
Daddy reads them books.
I take them to the pool.
Category Archives: Introductions
Our relationships are delicate things, fragile and in need of constant repair. Put enough strain on love, and quite often, it breaks. If it doesn’t break, though, if, in fact, it survives, then it often collides directly with the next strain. Any of the situations described below could be used to describe The End for a couple. Of course, these situations could also highlight the ways in which humor can shelter a love through stress. But we would know nothing of that here, would we?
Dating
It’s not you, it’s me
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Marriage
It’s not me, it’s you
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Therapy
It’s not you, it’s us
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Kids
It’s not us, it’s them.
… Read the rest
For the second consecutive year, my kids participated in the Montgomery ballet’s Fairy Tale Ballet Camp. It’s a compromise between doing summer lessons and skipping ballet over the summer, and it’s one Sam and Caroline both enjoy. It buys Scott and I a good measure of sanity, because Caroline’s age group meets three times a week (M-W-F from 9-12) and Sam’s meets twice a week (Tu.-Th. 9-12). Although it means having to have a kid up there every single day for three weeks, it also means a morning spent with only the other child at home all morning.
Also, they put on an adorable little performance at the end.… Read the rest
These two pictures hang above my desk. They say an awfully lot without my needing to interpret them for you, but let me talk awhile anyway. My husband is not just a father to our children. He’s their Daddy. Sam, who is a Mama’s boy, has lately started demanding his Daddy-hugs at bedtime again and saying, in a worried little voice, “I like Daddy best.” He doesn’t yet understand the ebb and flow of a parent-child relationship, and he worries that he’s hurting me. He always seems surprised by my delight. I tell him, “That’s wonderful. I love you, and sis, and Daddy best.”… Read the rest
Doot-doot-doot-doot-doot. My daughter’s first impression of volunteerism was sheep plop. I took her to the humane society for her orientation into the junior volunteer club. It was supposed to be an hour of paperwork followed by a short tour. However, about half of the regular club didn’t make it, so the new members were invited to watch the presentation that the regular club had come to attend.
And seriously, who wouldn’t want to meet sheep? We sat down in the floor of the volunteer office, listening all the while to the mewling of a couple of litters of kittens in need of foster homes.… Read the rest
Until I get my new theme installed, this refuses to show big enough. Just click the picture a couple of times to make it work. Sorry.
… Read the rest
Here we go with the 100 word song! This week, it’s OK Go’s “This Too Shall Pass”.
Since Tuesday, I’ve watched this video twelve times with Sam. He finds something new every time. I’m trying to teach him to step back, when his heart explodes, to breathe and say ‘this too shall pass’. I know I’m doomed to failure. My Mom pressed “Let it Be” on me in the same way, but I can’t let anything be. Nothing at all. So I know that Sam has to find his own song to speak peace to his heart. And yet he sings it, and when he sings, I hope it will pass, so he can enjoy his childhood.… Read the rest
If you’re not familiar with Sam’s story, start with Sam Part I and Sam Part II. Then, if you’d like a happy little interlude, try out Beauty and the Beast. Although the story below will make sense without the background, the background will help. A lot.
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I just took some chocolate chip cookies to the neighbor’s house. Normally, I do that to express sympathy. I eat for comfort. Surely you do, as well. But today, I was saying, “Thank you.” We barely know these neighbors, a married couple with teen kids. In the three years we’ve lived here, we’ve exchanged maybe thirty words.… Read the rest
And now, allow me to bring you the best and most unexpected guest post ever. I took the kids grocery shopping, and we picked out Sam’s birthday cake for next weekend, and when I got back, Scott had written me a mother’s day card with various quotations of dubious origin. These are things the authors only told him, let me assure you.
But I will share them with you, because I love you like my mother. Or something.
“Fork clang. Shoes on. Love. the trash went out…” — Joyce
“Love. Pointless. Dying. Alone. Perhaps only partly cloudy.”– Hemingway
“Love, a yes, that, as it spring forth anew each day with the force of a river fed from high in the mountains, from a spring up there…” — Dickens
“Love, the thing that is beautiful just like a rose” — Shakespeare
“A life without love is like a squirrel pie without the squirrel” — William Shakespeare Bocephus.… Read the rest