Growing Up, Parenthood, Summer, Uncategorized

The Beginning and The End

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Beginning of school year

I have always measured time not by the turning of calendar pages from one year to the next, but rather by the beginning of a school year.

Maybe it’s a vestige from having spent the better part of 2 decades in the educational system.

Maybe it’s my stubborn reticence to return to the monotony of obligations and expectations, alarm clocks and routines. God I hate routine.

Maybe it’s because I am a 7 year old trapped in the body of a 42 year old who relishes in the lazy days of summer, the heady smell of sun tan lotion and chlorine, and the simple pleasures of letting adventure find you. Read more...

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Growing Up, Parenthood

Why Participation Trophies Have It Right

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Here we go again. A new crop of smug articles about how participation trophies are creating a generation of entitled brats.

Can we step off the ledge and be honest for a second? You and I both know that a participation trophy isn’t making kids believe that they won something other than…a participation trophy.

Kids aren’t dumb – they know who won and who lost even when you don’t keep score. They can tell you who is the fastest, who is the smartest, who is the best – even if they do so grudgingly. Read more...

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Love, Parenthood

You Are Their First Home

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You are their first home lucky orange pants

You are their first home. Your breath is theirs. Your food is theirs. Your body is the sanctuary in which they grow, protected, until they can live in the world.

From the moment they enter this world, arms and feet flailing against the cold brutish air, you are the home of security. Your chest is their first bed, your arms their transportation, your voice their solace. When they can no longer climb into your lap, they will find comfort in the sight of your face across the table, the space you give them to talk without judgment, and your unconditional love. Read more...

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Growing Up, Love, Parenthood, Wahoowa

You, Just You

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You just you

When your first born says he wants a date night with you – just you – you scrap your holiday party plans and trade your cocktail dress for your Lucky Orange Pants to drive to Charlottesville for this.

In those early days, when your babies want you, just you, all of the time, it can be exhausting. And you think there isn’t enough of you, just you, to go around. You feel like you are not enough. For your children. Your spouse. Your parents. Your friends. Yourself.

The older they get, the more they let go. The more they rely on a tapestry of people to hold their hand as they navigate the waters of  childhood. Like they’re supposed to. Read more...

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Parenthood, Writing

The World’s Worst Thank You Note

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You guys. I have been so overwhelmed by the response to I Am The Keeper. So overwhelmed that it took me this long to even write this very belated thank you. It’s digital and not handwritten and it’s 3 weeks late so I’m fairly certain my father is rolling over in his grave at my lack of manners.

But I hope you know how sincerely grateful I am to those of you who read it, who commented, who shared it, who tagged their fellow keepers, and, especially, to those of you who reached out with your struggles and your own stories. Read more...

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Growing Up, Love, Parenthood

I Am the Keeper

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I am the keeper

I am the keeper.

I am the keeper of schedules. Of practices, games, and lessons. Of projects, parties, and dinners. Of appointments and homework assignments.

I am the keeper of information. Who needs food 5 minutes before a meltdown occurs and who needs space when he gets angry. Whether there are clean clothes, whether bills are paid, and whether we are out of milk.

I am the keeper of solutions. Of bandaids and sewing kits and snacks in my purse. But also of emotional balms and metaphorical security blankets. Read more...

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Parenthood, Summer

5 Things I Learned This Summer

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I have always had a love hate relationship with summer. The heat and humidity remind me of all the things we cannot do because of our blisters.

But I love the freedom from schedules and commitments that affords me endless time with my boys. I view that as sacrosanct. So I tend not to write much in the summer. And as much as our summer has been what it always is – a lazy conglomeration of quiet mornings, big adventures, and total spontaneity – there were plenty of very important things I learned. Read more...

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Doubt, Love, Parenthood, Relationships

My Break Up With Social Media (And What I Learned In the Process)

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why i broke up with social media detox and what i learned

It’s been over two months since I broke up with social media.

I wish I could say it was intentional, that it was part of some noble plan to be more mindful.

But it wasn’t. It was apathy.

Honestly, it was a lot like the end of every other mediocre relationship you stay in too long out of habit. Until one day, you wake up and you simply don’t have the energy to care anymore.

Like all relationships, the love affair with social media started out so promisingly.

The idea of being able to stay connected to the daily lives of friends and family regardless of geographical distance was revolutionary, much like email had been 10 years earlier. Read more...

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Loss, Parenthood, Wahoowa

The Long Ride Home

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Long ride home uva basketball wahoowa ncaa tournament basketball season

It’s 150 miles from here to Charlottesville.

I’ve done it often enough to know it takes two hours and 35 minutes to get from my front door to my seat in John Paul Jones Arena.  Five hours round-trip, give or take, depending on traffic and how many times I need to stop for coffee.

There are times when it seems longer than that — when we are mired in traffic, when we are racing against the clock to make it into our seats before tip-off, or on the long ride home after a late game on a Monday night.

Don’t worry — I am keenly aware it sounds crazy to have season tickets to a basketball team that plays 150 miles away and adds 3,000 miles to my odometer each year. Read more...

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Epidermolysis Bullosa, Love, Parenthood

This is What An Invisible Disease Looks Like

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mom boys disability epidermolysis bullosa

This is what an invisible disease looks like.

It looks like nothing at all.

There are thousands of them and they run the gamut from rare to common, physical to mental, life-threatening to debilitating. But they all have one thing in common – they leave no noticeable mark. To the outside world, we all look healthy.

Mine, and my children’s, is called epidermolysis bullosa, a rare genetic disease whose hallmark is debilitating blistering of the skin in response to heat, friction, injury or rubbing. I was encouraged to write something about it today for Rare Disease Day but, truthfully, I didn’t know what to share. Read more...

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Love, Parenthood

A Promise To My Second Born

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It is trite now to offer up written apologies to latter born children. To catalogue all the ways in which we have relaxed the rules the second (or third or fourth) time around. To humorously list the words they’ve learned too early, the movies they’ve seen too soon, the crappy food they’ve eaten.

In fact most of these articles aren’t apologies at all but thinly veiled parental pats on the back for being so nonchalant, so easy going.

Here’s the truth if we’re willing to admit it. The innocence of our latter born children is all too often sacrificed on the altar of their older siblings. It just is. Read more...

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Doubt, History, Parenthood

Be the Change You March For

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All politics is local, my dad was fond of saying. I’ve always subscribed to that theory in a metaphorical way.

Yes, change is wrought from inside great marbled halls. But my friends it is not born there.

It is not dreamed up on the spot by a well-meaning legislator who has a cartoon light bulb suddenly appear over his head in the midst of routine parliamentary procedure.

No. Change is born in the mind of a 4 year old, unencumbered by what he has been taught to believe, to make fun of, to be afraid of. Read more...

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Believe, Christmas, Parenthood

Believing in the Magic of Christmas: The Truth About Santa

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It happened the other night. An off-the-cuff remark: “I know you’re really the Elf mom.” Then a pause and, more tentatively, “I know you’re Santa.”

He’s made those casual comments a few times before. But his voice – which is always so resolute and certain when he is making a pronouncement about the leading rusher in the NFL or the way to reduce fractions – shakes a little when he tests the waters of doubt.

I know, in the way that you always know your child, that what he wants is for me to tell him he is wrong. Dead wrong. That the Tooth Fairy flies into his room and Santa Claus shimmies down the chimney and I am not the Elf. I know this because if he didn’t, he would simply ask me point blank, the way he does with everything else. No, what he wants me to do is tell him magic is real. Read more...

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Believe, Parenthood

Pressing the Reset Button: Family, The Election, and A More Perfect Union

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Friday was a tough morning in our house. For no apparent reason everyone was cranky and flippant and hostile. Including me. Our chance day off from school turned from a world full of possibilities into an inexplicable fracas about where we were going and why.

Instead of engaging in a reasonable discussion where differing viewpoints were acknowledged and debated respectfully, my household was filled with a barrage of insults, voices shouting over one another, and eye rolls.

Frankly it reminded me a lot of how the entire country is behaving right now. Read more...

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Growing Up, Parenthood

Almost 8 and Almost 10

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almost 8 almost 10 adolescence is harder than having a baby parenthood

To all of you in the throes of babyhood and toddler madness, please let me assure you that you will get through this.

And when you do, you will get down on your knees and pray to the gods of squeaky toys and late night feedings to go back.

I remember. I remember the sleep deprivation, the constant trail of unidentifiable gunk on your shirt and wondering bemusedly whether it was applesauce or poop, the endless delays because I can do it by MYSELF mommy, and the throw down tantrums in the middle of Target. Read more...

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