Three Boys and a Girl

There were three little boys at my brother’s wedding this weekend.  Two of them were mine.

That night, filled with so many firsts, was the greatest night in their little lives.  The night they were no longer just children in a sea of adults.  The night they were grownups too.   They donned tuxedos and bow ties just like all the big boys did and checked the football scores while they waited.

11 08 14_0254

They solemnly walked down the aisle of the church, clutching the rings in their sweaty anxious hands.  Halfway down they forgot to be nervous, briefly breaking character to wave and smile at familiar faces in the crowd.   They sat in the pew – the very first pew – and poured over the wedding program, tracing over their names again and again with fidgety fingers. Read more...

Continue Reading

I Will Always Know

According to National Geographic Kids, 97% of parents secretly eat their kids’ Halloween candy.   Which means that 3% of the population is just lying.
IMG_20141104_120334
One of the underappreciated privileges of parenthood is raiding your children’s candy stash after they go to bed.  The trick is to pick things that they (1) don’t like or (2) have a plethora of.  For years, the boys only liked fruit candy (Skittles, Starbursts, gummy anything) which left me free to enjoy all of the chocolate based items with impunity.  Billy, who shares tastes similar to the boys, had to be more circumspect. Read more...

Continue Reading

How Love Changes (And Why That Isn’t a Bad Thing)

Last week marked the fifteenth anniversary of my first date with Billy.  I know most people probably don’t celebrate such anniversaries but my parents always did (February of 1967 in case you were wondering). Their first date was a comedy of errors. My mother, having been dragooned into a blind date at Yale, disliked my father on sight. My father, already cranky due to lack of sleep, was further peeved because he thought he had been assigned to another girl and thus spent the weekend trying to steal what turned out to be his own date.  It was a rather bumpy start for two people who would, by the end of that first weekend, begin a 50 year love affair. how love changes and why that isn't a bad thing Read more...

Continue Reading

So You Had a Bad Day…

Of all of life’s pleasures that are wasted on youth, the most overlooked is the luxury to indulge in a bad day.

Children can throw themselves on the floor wailing and moaning over a seemingly inconsequential disappointment.  Adolescents can walk around sullen and slam doors, just because they feel like it.  Brokenhearted college kids can curl up in the fetal position, play sad songs, put a straw in a bottle of wine, and sleep for 18 hours.  Because sometimes it feels good to just wallow.

But wallowing is an extravagance for the young. Read more...

Continue Reading

What I Learned On My Summer Vacation

Last week marked the official end to summer.   This was old news to many of us who said goodbye to summer weeks ago.  Perhaps at the exact moment we were photographing our children (looking the best they will look all year long) holding their Pinterest-inspired first day of school signs.  We have already grudgingly readjusted to the strictures of routine and schedule and simultaneously given up caring what they look like when they go to school.  Nearly one month in to the school year, my boys left the house looking as if they had not brushed their hair in 4 days.  And last week I let them wear stripes on stripes.  Don’t judge. Read more...

Continue Reading

Not Everything Has To Be A Teachable Moment

Last week was a hard week to be a parent, especially to two little boys who love to watch football.

Everywhere you turned, someone was talking about the massive scandals involving several NFL players and their deplorable conduct.  On television.  In the newspapers.  In line at the grocery store.  I did everything in my power to shield them from all of it.  I didn’t even let them watch the NFL halftime shows on Sunday because I knew what the topic of discussion would be.

I suppose I could have told them a watered down version of events.  It is, after all, in vogue in the parenting world to turn every moment into a “teachable moment.”  I suppose we could have had a didactic discussion about whether employers should be able to fire you for your off-the-job conduct.  Or whether when you hold yourself out as a role model, you accept that you should be held to a higher standard. Read more...

Continue Reading

Make a Wish

I got home from the Virginia game late on Saturday night and this was waiting for me:

IMG_20140907_091824

A container of personalized New York Football Giants M&Ms – a present from my college roommate who had to suffer through years of my football obsession while she was trying to get her molecular biology homework done.

As I was standing in the kitchen eating them (I hadn’t had dinner after all), the words jumped out at me.

Make a wish.

That is the essence of loving any sports team, isn’t it? Read more...

Continue Reading

‘Twas the night before school

08 23 14_2842

Today is my least favorite day of the year.  The day before school starts.  The end of summer.  The beginning of homework and drudgery.

The end of fun.

Jack has been dreading this day for weeks.  He angsts. He frets. He worries about things to come instead of basking in the remaining moments of his freedom.  He is, after all, his mother’s child.  I do my best to distract him, to cheer him up, to reassure him he will love it once he gets there.  But I am pretty sure he can see right through me. Read more...

Continue Reading

Summer Crushes

07 16 14_0001Oh the summer crush.  There is nothing like it.   I don’t know whether it’s the potentially fleeting nature of the relationship that makes it so intense.    Perhaps a summer crush is special because it is accompanied by the exhilaration of seasonal freedom.  Unlike the other nine months of the year, reason and obligation take a backseat to the vagaries of the heart in the summer.  Maybe everything is amplified by warmer temperatures and the heady smells of suntan lotion, chlorine, and french fries from the snack bar.  Whatever the reason, in the summer you sit a little closer, gaze a little longer, giggle a little louder, and love a little harder. Read more...

Continue Reading

The Family We Choose

08 12 14_0001This is what 38 years of friendship look like.  Easy.  Real.  True.

38 years ago, our mothers asked each other to be godmothers to their new daughters.  27 years after that, we were each other’s maids of honor.  Fast forward another 3 and we are godmothers to each other’s babies.  And all the moments of all the years in between are just too good to reduce to words.

When we were younger, I idolized her incredible spirit of adventure, her fearlessness, her inimitable ability to make everyone laugh, her giant heart that embraced everything and everyone.  I still do.  But now I admire how she didn’t sacrifice those qualities on the altar of adulthood.  Instead, she effortlessly parlayed all of them into her marriage, her children and her work. Read more...

Continue Reading

I’m Fine

DSC_4520

“I’m fine.”  I don’t know how many times I have said that over the last 6 weeks since my father died.  My father died.  Those words still seem odd to say.  Odder still that they flow trippingly off my tongue as if I were simply recounting where we went for summer vacation.

It is a well-established fact that I am a regular crier.  I excel at crying.  Happy tears, sad tears, exhausted tears, frustrated tears, nostalgic tears.  They have all been a part of my weekly repertoire for 38 years.  Sappy commercial? Check.  Wistful memory of the boys when they were babies? You bet.  Random song on the radio? Yup.  Hard day?  Too tired?  Proud parental moment?  Bad blisters?  Yes, yes, yes, and yes.  You name it, I have cried because of it. Read more...

Continue Reading

Look at me, look at me!

06 16 14_0001Nearly every afternoon in the summer, you can find me in the pool.  Not at the pool.  In the pool.   With 8 kids lined up waiting patiently to jump to me.  Or 5 boys practicing the sweep the leg move from Karate Kid as they try to dunk me.  These kids range in age from 3 to 8 and sometimes I don’t know half of them.  I’m “the pool lady.”

Last year, there was a woman stretched out languidly on her chaise lounge, flipping through a magazine, in the area I affectionately call the “adult” section.  You know – the place where people go to relax and read and get a suntan.  The place you go when your kids start insisting on sitting at their own table.  Far away.  The place where dreams go to die as far as I’m concerned.  She looked up at me as one of the boys tackled me in the water, smiled a bless-your-heart kind of smile, and said “don’t worry, you’ll be over here with us soon enough.” Read more...

Continue Reading

Love Never Ends

00631_n_10acylv3s50419

When I was seven years old, a particularly fierce thunderstorm swept through town one night.  One of those southern summer storms that shakes the walls of the house and the nerves of its occupants – especially the little ones.  Sensing my palpable fear, my dad quietly took my hand and asked me to come watch the storm with him.  I shelved my trepidation and accompanied him to the sun porch on the side of our house that had floor to ceiling windows.

As the storm put on a magnificent display, I sat on my father’s lap and listened to him quietly talk about calculating the distance of the storm by counting the seconds between thunder and lightning, why light travels faster than sound, and the origins of electrical pulses in the sky.  Every time I jumped at the sound of a thunder clap, he gently put his hand on my forearm and immediately my heart rate slowed down.  When the storm finally ebbed, I realized that I was completely relaxed. Read more...

Continue Reading

Ten Things No One Told You About Motherhood

05 11 14_1251 copy2

10. You know how you were able to sleep through fire alarms at 11am in college? Forget it sister. You will now bolt straight out of bed if you hear a sigh. That’s right, a sigh. Because apparently one of the side effects of labor is developing supersonic hearing.

9. Laundry will be the bane of your existence. You will empty all the hampers, do 5 loads of laundry – none of which is yours of course because you would rather re-wear white pants covered in coffee, chocolate, and ketchup than wash One. More. F*&%ing. Thing.  As you fold and put away that 5th load, you think you’ve won. And then you realize that in the span of 3 hours, all the hampers are FULL again. Read more...

Continue Reading

Wolfman Jack

02 27 14_0079copy

Sometimes Jack gets blue that his blisters will prevent him from even getting the chance to score the go-ahead touchdown or winning basket. As a parent, it is heartbreaking to see your child limited not by his talent, but by some genetic flaw that you passed down to him.

So it’s crazy cool to have moments like this . . . when he finds his groove in a different arena. It’s doubly cool for me since that arena is the same stage on which I performed 20 years ago.

#watchouthollywood

Continue Reading