-
Hawkeye.
This boy. Oh. He just has my heart. He starts third grade next week and that just is too old to be true. Too fast. He still wants me to cuddle in bed at night. He creates games with his little brother and isn’t embarrassed to hold Otto’s hand and tell me how cute Otto looks. Inspired by his big…
-
the birthday decision. decided.
Remember that birthday treasure I received? (I still can’t believe the generosity of my friends!) Although I was sorely tempted to spend the loot on a bill payment, I’m a rule follower at heart. (Plus, I really like birthday presents!) And so …. I picked two things. After discovering the Ninja for a great deal available online and realizing that…
-
English Teachers Ruin Literature
English teachers ruin literature. It’s a bold claim, I know. I used to be an English teacher. Well. I still am an English teacher. I’ve been guilty of this. We ruin good literature. We put books that are inappropriate for their age or for their life experience into students’ hands and command, “read“. That’s the first offense. And the second…
-
logic. five year old style.
My lovely friend Jo is going to give birth next week. This will be their third baby and she and her husband Jason have chosen to let the baby’s gender be a surprise. That seems like a giant deal to me. I love the mystery of it, the anticipation. But I know I couldn’t take the suspense. I just need…
-
parenting . . .
You know what’s hard? I mean, extremely difficult, without cut and dried answers? Parenting. It’s like a choose your own adventure book with new endings and twists being added each time you set the book down for a short break. It’s just so complicated. Worthy of your efforts? Without question. But hard. So ridiculously hard. It’s the kind of hard…
-
forty days
It was maybe eight a.m. I think I had already brushed my teeth but I was still wearing the clothes I had slept in. Trying to edit a few photos, I had my back to the door in our school room when I heard footsteps. I glanced and saw Kevin and I stood up to tell him good morning. And…
-
Charleston by means of Forty
I guess it was meant to be. Three girls all born on the same day of three different months. The 23rd. All with Beth in our names. (Beth. Gretchen Beth. Lacey Elizabeth.) Attending the same small college in the hills of Kentucky. Choosing to make a Big Deal of the year we passed the second decade of our lives led…
-
more than lunch.
Last week, or something like that, I was approached by London and asked my favorite question of my every day – “What’s for lunch?” I didn’t answer with my standard full of love and kindness response. (Which, by the way, is a monosyllabic delivery of the word “food”.) Nope. I said something else. I said, “Why don’t you decide what’s for…
-
Otto Fox Wilder says …..
Otto has always been trailing along, carried along, tagging behind on Nature Walks since he was born. And he listens too. Whenever we leave our home we pass a small field full of wild flowers. Without fail, he spots the lovely delicate favorite of both of ours – Queen Anne’s Lace. And he says, “Look at the Queen Man’s Lace, Mommy!”
-
in the meantime.
She’s nineteen. To me, that’s sort of grown. To everyone else, that’s certainly grown. It’s surprisingly difficult to have two basically grown up women living in one home. She wants to be boss and I want to be boss. Some of our days seem spent in a barely veiled power struggle. When she’s hard to understand and when she pushes…
-
surprise! forty feels fine.
I spent half of Year 39 thinking about Birthday 40. That number seemed so daunting. So definitive. So half way. So big. My thoughts were primarily focused on actually turning the corner on that milestone. Sitting at that iconic number. Four. Zero. But I did give a few thoughts to the actual day. July 23. I like birthdays. I always…
-
swimming.
I don’t know where to start. When I’ve been away from my computer for as long as I’ve been away here – it’s a little overwhelming to put fingers to keyboard. I cannot possibly recap every moment of this super fleeting month of July, although I’d love to try. I think I’ll just say the following things: London Scout has…
-
Hi.
Hi. I’m still here. And by here – I think I just mean on Planet Earth. Actually, I’m here at my own home now too. I’ve been in Virginia quite a lot this summer. On farms with no cellular service and at camps with no cellular service. And now I’m home. With service. But still with very little time. I’ll…
