One evening last week Whit and I sat in companionable silence in the family room. He was building a LEGO and I was working. “Mummy?” At his voice I looked up from my laptop. “Yes?” He was perched on the side of the low train table, LEGO pieces in one hand and the other held [...]
Dear Whit, Today you are seven. I have loved every age you’ve ever been – that’s really the truth; for example, I will never be able to adequately express to you the way that your infancy healed so many broken things inside of me. But right now, you are particularly divine. You are growing fast [...]
Seven years ago tomorrow. Cliche alert, but: how? Cue sobs, weeping, overwhelming love, and intense nostalgia. January 20, 2005 3:15 am Samuel Whitman 7 lbs 9 oz 6 days early (and not a dwarf) “And we are put on earth … That we may learn to bear the beams of love.” – William Blake Email [...]
Before we went to Jerusalem, I had an exchange with my friend Aidan about how mothers universally doubt themselves. This is simply and inherently part of the terrain, she said, and I agree. But for days after our conversation I found myself thinking about those moments – rare, but important – where I have trusted [...]
On September 1st I took Grace and Whit on a last summer adventure. We drove about an hour north to the beach. The day was magical. It started out with Grace noticing a rainbow in the cloudy sky – not the standard arc but literally a patch of rainbow among the clouds. I thought of [...]
It was just a regular morning. Clear and cold; it finally felt seasonal after a few oddly, swampily warm days. The kids were quiet in the backseat, listening to the Boston Pops’ Sleigh Ride on the radio. Out of nowhere, I asked, “Hey, guys? I have a question. If you had to say one thing [...]
This is my every morning. I park the car, we walk into school, first to Whit’s building, and then to Grace’s. I always trail them up these steps, for some reason, watching their bodies skipping towards the door. Lately I’ve had the physicality of motherhood (and childhood) on my mind, and it is never more [...]
Thanksgiving was full of experiences that carried the mantle of important, moments I could feel turning to memories even as I lived them. Most of all there was our Friday evening celebration of my in-laws’ 45th wedding anniversary and the 9th anniversary of my father-in-law’s successful heart transplant. My in-laws had their three sons and [...]
Whit lost his third tooth this weekend. As usual, I cried as I hugged him, celebrated one of life’s passages even as I mourned it. Is there a more tangible marker of growing up than teeth falling out? I don’t think so. Later that day, Grace and I were driving home from her soccer game [...]
One day last week I was puttering in the kitchen and it occurred to me I hadn’t seen Whit in a while. “Whit?” I hollered up the staircase. Our house is very up-and-down and we have a terrible habit, all of us, of shouting up and down the stairs. “Yes?” I heard him answer from [...]
