Dearest firstborn girl, Your beauty, it takes my breath away. From the crown of your curly mane to the tips of your colorful painted toes. From your ink-stained fingers to your sometimes tear-streaked face. You radiate. But. Beauty is a fleeting thing, straw that looks very much like...
Every day we wake once more with the sun. We help them brush teeth, make beds, get dressed. We pack lunches, wash dishes, fold laundry. We sing that favorite song as we take their hands to walk across the street. We cook meals and wipe noses, teach...
Certain quotes stick to your ribs like biscuits and gravy on a summer Sunday: "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." --Anais Nin I can't remember the first time I read it -- a LONG time ago -- but the idea...
Last Saturday we went apple picking with friends to a "you pick" farm in MD (Homestead Farms). We brought home a whopping total of 58 lbs of apples! We have six people in our family and normally go through about 2 big bags of apples per...
Sometimes I forget to serve my children. Sure, I make dinner, and wipe little bottoms, and tidy up messes, and so on and so forth ad infinitum. They are fed, semi-rested, and usually clothed. We snuggle at night and read books over and over and over...
I Want You. I want you, sweet baby. I want your painful birth, your downy head, your midnight cries, your drooly teeth slicing through tiny baby gums. I want your tottering first steps, your magic smiles, your barely intelligible first words. I want you. I want you...
(September is all about our favorite ladies. I've already written of my mother here, so here I'll tell you of my husband's mother.) Dear Gigi, Thirty-nine years you've had this boy (man), and for the last twelve, you've ever so graciously relinquished him to me. You embraced me...
The cool morning air filled my lungs as I breathed deeply in and out, jogging on the mountain. My eyes latched onto deer after deer which made their way across the lovely green landscape. I watched as the fawns followed their mothers and studied them to...
My favorite comedian, Jim Gaffigan, shares in his now-viral comedy sketch entitled "Four Kids" what it is like to be a dad of four kids. Gaffigan and his wife Jeannie are parents of five children now, but at the time of taping their fourth child...
For me, this has been the Summer of Sufficiency. Like most moms—and probably like you, too—I am always on the lookout for better and more thoughtful ways of doing things: running my household, teaching my children, opportunities I want then to have and experiences for...