Their Bad Mother

We have, in our yard, one of those big inflatable pools. It’s hideous. It sits there, a big, lumpen water-patty, a bright blue squatting round thing, looking like the effluent of a giant Michelin Man after too many blueberries. I was not supportive of the idea of installing it, but my husband had dragged it…

Emilia, at four years old, is a daredevil and a tomboy and a sports enthusiast and a thrill-seeker and an all-around rapscallion. To say that I think that’s awesome is extreme understatement. And sure, being a rapscallion tomboy means that sometimes you whack yourself in the chin with your skateboard, but isn’t it more than…

I know that Father’s Day should be, in significant measure, about celebrating the father of my children, and it will be that, for sure. But still: I have lost my own father, and that’s impossible to forget. Last night Emilia and I sat at the dining room table, making a Father’s Day card for her…

I wrote this post four years ago today. Four years ago, when the girl – my girl! – was a wee baby and I already knew (that is: sort of, maybe, had a good guess about) what I was in for… This child is kicking my butt. She has suddenly become immeasurably stronger, faster and…

So my mom called me the other day, to talk about this, that and the other, and in the course of our chatting she says, in passing, words to the effect of ‘… and so after I saw the vascular surgeon…’ At which point I interrupted and said words to the effect of ‘WHAT?‘ ‘The…

It’s been a hard week around here. Both Jasper and Emilia are sick. Tanner is declining. Life just seems dark and hard. But all it takes is a minute or two of flipping through some recent pictures of a wee ballerina at her dance recital rehearsal and the heart relaxes, and breathes, because it is…

It’s Jasper’s second birthday. I would be celebrating, if I weren’t sniffling fat, maudlin tears into my Cabernet. I love that he’s getting bigger, that he’s turning into a boy, I do. But also, I hate it. I hate it because he’s my baby, he’s my last baby, and I love his baby-ness, and it…

These, if one goes by the picture above, are the reasons that my daughter loves me: 1) Candy2) Presents3) Make-up. The picture, she tells me, is of “a coffee rainstorm, which I know would make you happy.” So. If one goes by my daughter’s descriptions, one would think that I am a candy-jacked coffee fiend…

Today is the National Day of Prayer. I love that. I’m also discomfited by it, a little. I’m discomfited by it because – as I’ve said time and again – I have an ambivalent relationship with prayer. I have an ambivalent relationship with prayer because I have an ambivalent relationship with faith, and with God,…

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