Hello! A couple of people have asked and I didn't want to leave anyone hanging after you were all so sweet about my jerkface of a dying dog. Duncan is indeed still with us--after the first couple of days home he started eating again (but picky-like, so now he's getting canned food like the prince he is) and perked up considerably. We all spent several days watching him in amazement and commenting to one another, "He sure doesn't ACT like he's dying" and although I publicly declared I wasn't going to get my hopes up, lo, my hopes were up, because the medication was clearly working and he...
2016 continues to be a never-ending dumpster fire and I'm not going to tell you what to do with yourself, but I have found baking more cookies to be very therapeutic. Our entire house is now filled with cookies. Crowded, yes, but on the other hand: Cookies! Plus, my eldest apparently has half a dozen pals from college coming to stay with us for a few days, and I suspect I can count on them to take care of my cookie problem. Anyhoo. Here is a good thing to do when you are feeling like everything is terrible: Get on a plane. Fly across the country. Sneak into the kitchen of your best friend on...
Spring Break is upon us, and on Saturday, Monkey jetted off to see his dad, Otto took Chickadee to an event at her soon-to-be college, and my lovely friend Ruth who lives too far away came to spend the weekend. Instead of spending quality time with my offspring the night before they left me, I spent quality time in Atlanta traffic gabbing endlessly with Ruth, and then we went out washed down our weight in sushi with a couple of martinis as if we were party animals. (All was forgiven because Ruth makes her own AH-MAZE-ING chocolates and she brought us a box of goodies. The kids might've...
1) Although this year was my fourth time being part of my local production, everything was different this time because Chickadee was in it with me, too. We could not have picked a better way to come full circle from the first time I was in it, years ago. (And if you want to read more about her, head over to Alpha Mom. I don't know if you know this, but I am awfully fond of that kid.) 2) I'm not sure how (lies, I know how; I am largely oblivious), but my ENTIRE FAMILY conspired with Kira and kept me completely in the dark until SHE APPEARED AT MY FRONT DOOR ON SATURDAY and I started screaming...
So. Kira and I went to Vegas and took the town by storm! Hahahahaaaaaaaaaaaa. Not really. But we had a good time. It started like this: Every summer for the past 10 (!!) years or so, Kira and I have conspired to see one another. As ours is one of those "fake Internet friendships" where we simply met online while both of us were freshly divorced and newly wrecked, we're not REAL friends, of course, but somehow at that first meeting long ago it turned out that neither of us was a pedophile living in a basement, and our friendship turned into a real boy, Geppetto (a real girl?), and we have...
While I'm not fond of the old trope about moms always putting themselves last, a large part of the reason I dislike it is because---for me, anyway---it tends to be true. Thank goodness I have friends who sometimes drag me out of the house. I hear it's even good for a person to do that! So I'm over at Alpha Mom today with a few words about my Village and how much I appreciate it. And as long as you're over there, last week I rounded up some of our favorite soup recipes, which you may find useful as this second round of Arctic weather hits us. Friendship or soup; take your pick.
I have two sort-of-parenting-related things for you today: 1) I'm coming clean and I've donned my fireproof suit; over at Alpha Mom I'm explaining why I feel justified in snooping on my children. Now I just sit back and wait for someone to explain to me why I'm a terrible person, right? Because that's how the Internet works. 2) While I am merely angering random people online, some other folks are doing awesome charitable things while being rockstars. For the entire month of October, my friends Asha Dornfest and Christine Koh (co-authors of Minimalist Parenting) are donating 100% of royalties...
There's so many things I wanted to tell you about our camping trip, but somehow I got stuck on a title. What could possibly convey the depth of emotion in just a few words? How could I make it clear what these few days meant to us? Somehow Paradise by the Dashboard Light got stuck in my head, and then I started thinking that "Pigs and Cards by Mosquito Bites" might work, but then you'd have to know that I was thinking of the song, and also that it's a very different kind of paradise, and... yeah, it got kind of complicated. Just trust me that IN MY MIND that all made perfect sense. In the...
Here's a part of a terrible picture I snuck around a corner of Kira's house and snapped while my girly was chilling out with her new posse: (From left to right: Tre watching Max play a video game, Max playing said video game, Chickadee texting and making Max into her personal cushion, and Raphael desperately wishing he was the one playing the video game.) There's something unspeakably awesome about your friend's kids welcoming your kid into the fold, so of course I wrote about our trip for Alpha Mom because I still feel like there are cartoon bluebirds circling my head. (Sure, they're...
