high five
“how big is M?” [lifts arms over head] “Sooooooo big!”
all-purpose word: “Eh.”
blowing raspberries
eating cut-up grapes, begging for more “Eh!! Eh!!”
climbing into C’s rocking chair and trying to get it to rock
applauding for herself
dancing by shifting from side to side

On the way to church/preschool, with NPR playing in the background
C: Mommy, he said “killed.” Who’s being killed?
RM: switching off the radioSome people in another country far away from here.
C: Why are they being killed?
RM: Well, the United States is fighting people in a war.
C: Why are they fighting?
Hell if I know!
RM: Well, the United […]

The divine miss m is TEN months today! Blessed be.
And now…
You wanna see something *really* scary?
1. Do you enjoy a good fright?
I really don’t. I startle *extremely* easily and don’t find it fun. This startle reflex totally short-circuits my rational brain, so that even a haunted house, which I’ve paid for and chosen and know […]

In talking to ChaplainMom tonight I realized I may have given the wrong impression last week. When I said that our costumes growing up were often original and/or homemade, I wasn’t implying that they were all particularly good.
Exhibit A:
In third grade I went as a Rubik’s Cube. (Why yes, I was a nerd, why do […]

Today’s “take back your time” makeup day was a series of very low-level fiascoes, such as R offering to pick up C at preschool only to discover that there was no carseat in his car… my going to the hospital to visit someone who turned out to be in the other hospital across town… stuff […]

Today is October 24, Take Back Your Time Day.
TAKE BACK YOUR TIME is a major U.S./Canadian initiative to challenge the epidemic of overwork, over-scheduling and time famine that now threatens our health, our families and relationships, our communities and our environment.Did you know…
We’re putting in longer hours on the job now than we did in […]

Take it from a couple of wanna-be foodies… When you’re at a wonderful restaurant and can’t decide among the menu items, and the chef offers a tasting menu, get it.
…splash of onion soup with a thimble-sized parmesan biscuit
…homemade sourdough with roasted garlic and olive tapenade
…crab salad on couscous with marinated julienne cucumbers
…caramelized scallop with homemade […]

This weekend is our twelfth wedding anniversary (zoinks!! how???), and we are headed to Peaceful Beach in a couple of hours. Thanks to Free to Be who will watch the girls this afternoon, and to Mamala, who will take over until we return tomorrow evening.
Today’s Friday Five is a word association; the words are
whirlwind, foundation, […]

big things take care of small things.
so the big sister pats and doesn’t squeeze,
the baby uncurls fingers from the tail of the cat,
we squeal, packages topple to the floorboard
while the squirrel prances in the tunnel beneath us,
we weave, and the turtle tucks into a palm-sized shell,
as if resigned that the next car’s wheel
will climb on […]

I.
So little she-who-is came to work with me this morning–she seems to feel OK, just a little puny with a low-level fever. So I brought in a couple of videos that she watched while I had a meeting or two.
We walked in first thing this morning and ran into the preschool director. Mrs. S greeted […]

Little she-who-is has a 102.5 fever.
We discovered this just minutes after she threw up on the kitchen floor.
I’m doing a happy consolation dance that the kitchen is hardwood, but that sound you heard was the other shoe dropping!

Disney princesses
have no mothers.
Just dwarves in a frat-house,
mice in hats,
a tiger, a dragon,
a Jamaican lobster,
and a fairy godmother
unaware of child-labor laws.
But no mothers.
Let’s swoop in
and do the job:
teach Cinderella to kick down the tower door,
pack up Belle’s books in heavy trunks
for a semester of study abroad, where
she’ll room with Jasmine.
Help Ariel keep her voice.
Who knows? […]

I am preaching the world’s most boring sermon tomorrow. Really! It bites. But in the immortal words of my sister Will Smama: “If you got a dog, walk it proud.”
The divine miss m is feeling much, much better. She’s just about back to her normal grinning self–nighttime sleep is not quite back to normal though. […]

Maybe it’s the arrival of crisp October, my favorite month. Or maybe it’s the fact that the divine miss m has been sick all week (and if the baby ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy). Whatever the reason, my thoughts have been turning to cozy creature comforts–those activities and spaces that just make a person feel […]

Houses aren’t solid,
like I drew them as a child:
squares of thick, dumb lines,
with rectangles and a triangle hat
beside a lollipop tree
with a gaping black oval in the trunk
for the bird to sit in
straining toward the light of a quarter-arc sun with stubby rays.
Real houses have holes,
I discovered, not just as an adult,
but recently. They breathe. […]

Nobody knew,
that sunny December breakfast in our home
was our last supper with you:
scrambled eggs pulled, runny, off the stove,
they popped and sizzled on the way to our plates;
biscuits, dropped by careful spoonfuls
onto a sheet of parchment,
then drenched with honey and jam;
and clementine oranges.
You praised the way they peeled,
so easy, no mess,
and I felt a child’s […]

Tuesday night, 7 p.m. The divine miss m goes to sleep after much cajoling, rocking and Benadryl.
10 p.m. RM and the Mr. go to sleep.
11 p.m. M is awake again and manages to settle down for 10-minute stretches–just long enough for one or both of her parents to settle back into their own bed. Then […]

Ugh, what a day. R has come down with what M continues to have. C & I are living on borrowed time I guess. M is fussy, restless and phlegmy, and she sneezes double-barrel snot, then smears it all over her face.
R took the morning shift with her while I did chapel and tried to […]

Master storyteller Donald Davis (who has a wonderful voice, very Southern and chewy, like caramel on an apple) recommends collecting “quilt scraps”—little snippets and details that don’t stand alone as a story, but which could become a part of a story later. The trick is to file them in such a way that they’re readily […]

The divine miss m took 2 steps about 20 minutes ago.
I shared in the news… via text message.