Playing Favorites

Ask any parent with more than one child if she has a favorite and she will say no.  She will be a liar.  All parents have favorites.  Who that is may change from day to day, even minute to minute, but at any given time a favorite rises to the top.
If you have brothers or [...]

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Get this mom a helmet

I have a confession to make.  
I am clumsy.  
There.  I’ve said it.  I am not a graceful or coordinated person.  I trip, stumble, crash, bonk, drop, bang.  I’m the kind of person who ought to go through life with a safety helmet and a good plastic surgeon.
I don’t think it’s my body’s fault, though. [...]

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On confidence, criticism, and the agony of writing

It is rather ironic how someone like me, so self-conscious and in constant need of approval by others, could choose writing as a profession.  Okay, I guess calling it a profession is a bit of a stretch since I haven’t actually been paid for any of my writing since I left the Boston Herald lo [...]

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Murphy’s Law

See.  Told you so.  Me, tonight, wearing jeans, black long-sleeved tee shirt with some small bleach splatters on the front.   Dinner.  Mitzi elbows her milk cup off the table.  It was pretty remarkable, how it hung there in space for a moment, like Wil E. Coyote off the cliff, before plummeting to the kitchen [...]

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New Clothes

Speaking of fashion, I got some money for my birthday (thanks to parents and grandma) and took myself to Ann Taylor Loft, where I can be assured of fit and trend, despite my sister’s complaint that the store offered very little that was cute or wearable this season.  Sadly, it was true, but I managed [...]

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Music Wars

As hard as it is to believe, one day my kids will no longer think I am cool.
I know.  Can’t imagine it.  Me, not cool?  How could that ever be?
But it’ll come.  I have three daughters, after all.  There is bound to be a lot of eye rolling and head shaking in the future.
It happens [...]

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Yay, Democracy!

That’s what I shouted when I came home from voting this morning.  I know, kinda queer, but I was feeling the love.
I went alone to the polls, early, following the pair of parent conferences I had before school started.  In the past, I’ve wheeled strollers along, but found it to be a little annoying.  I [...]

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When a dad fails his job

I’m not one to judge other parents.  I am pretty flawed, so far be it from me to question how other people raise their kids.  Binky, no binky; McDonald’s, veggie burgers; bath, skip-bath.  Whatever works, folks.
But when safety is an issue, I am firm.  Booster seats until 8 years old.  No unsupervised playground activities.  Don’t [...]

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Birthday

Today is my birthday.  We all have the Halloween hangover, but I’m used to that emotion on my birthday day.  Growing up, my sister Michelle, with the October 31 birthday, got the trick or treating, I got the day after.  Imagine my shock when Ray had the same Halloween birthday.  Forever, this was my destiny. [...]

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