Danielle’s beautiful post makes my heart overflow with love and gratitude for my dear female friends. And with admiration for the ways that women can honor and support each other. I have a powerful series of experiences of Christmas and Advent, both alone and with my children. Certain hymns embed themselves in my thoughts for [...]
A trip to American Girl Place with Grace makes me think about money and what kinds of values I want to instill in my children about it. I read The Embers by Hyatt Bass, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard, and Olive Kittredge by Elizabeth [...]
Grace shares with me her feelings of not entirely fitting in in her classroom, and of the resultant loneliness. I find myself lost in a quagmire of identification and wonder how best to help her with this. A poem my father wrote in college is featured as the preface to a book called Finding Pete. [...]
Spent the last week of the summer, also the first week of September, in Marion. I took Grace and Whit to Water Wizz, which has become an annual tradition. The weather had fall in it, which made the week bittersweet. I reflected on the summer. My sister’s marvelous friend Launa began keeping a blog of [...]
Both kids’ camps end. Grace is devastated by the prospect of no cafeteria trips for ten months. Whit seems unfazed. Ethel Kennedy Shriver and Ted Kennedy both die; for some reason I am surprisingly affected by both of their passing. I turn 35 and am none too psyched about it. Bloggy friends start a provocative [...]
The annual Fourth of July parade and celebration of my mother’s birthday. The WW2 veterans, in their dwindling numbers, make me cry as usual. Whit sits on a tractor at Home Depot wearing camouflage fleece, lobster-embroidered khaki shorts, red Old Navy girls’ flip-flops, and Mardi Gras beads. I take them both to see Up in [...]
Grace graduates from kindergarten. I spend the graduation ceremony wiping away tears, and feel my heart crack a little at how grown up she all of a sudden appears. Whit leaves the nursery school that I’ve been a parent at for five straight years. That’s bittersweet too: the first school experience that either of my [...]
My goddaughter is christened on a glorious May Sunday. My children were hilarious when they took their first communion (which I learned in godmother class was the right thing to do). Whit asked the priest in a whisper whether the wafers had nuts in them, and Grace asked me if the next time I could [...]
Easter in Marion with two of my oldest and best friends from Princeton and their children. And my son wore his new tie (his obsession) for the occasion (see above). Had a Mummy & Kids Saturday with a visit to a friend’s store, pizza lunch, and trip to the movies. There was a photographer at [...]
Grace and I have a wonderful visit with Hadley & family Whit’s exercise pants consumed his attention and affection. I read more of the Twilight books and Everyone is Beautiful by Katherine Center. Had a conversation with the children about their dreams. Grace described wanting to be sure the world had food, and the ways [...]
