I want to be everything. To be everything, I’d have to give up too much: the 5-minute hug that helped my daughter greet her day clean laundry eating feeding my loves walks where we talk about cars & clouds your growing up my growing up how we grew each other up while I desperately […]
Category: Parenting
Marking Time
I mark this week, this month, this time, and I call it the time in-between. The moment I realized I’ve given what is needed in so many ways. The days I read books from start to finish while I listen for my kids, their sounds are off in the distance and I’m here in the […]
Crumbs Aren’t Crummy
This is my afternoon: warm washcloth, angry sty Meditation interrupted by teen flyby Project started: more teens arrive Waiting for my teen Teens who eat my chips: I love you I love that tea means gossip That teens administer psychology freely While eating the chips, just bought This isn’t a poem, but a writing down […]
Flip Turns
This morning Annie said to me, “Oh, the flip turn! I think I can finally do it and it’s easier than I thought.” Annie has been on swim team for almost a year. She’s in it because she wants to be with her friends, and she loves being in the water. It’s no pressure: no […]
Bitter to Better
During the hardest years of my young daughter’s life, I often wanted to be somewhere else. It’s not a proud thing to admit. It’s just the truth. It was hard to watch her struggle. To not know how to make her life easier. To watch other kids seemingly learn with ease. It was hard to […]
RoadMap
This is what I made for you today. Or for myself: “RoadMap: Family of 4.” I ask: What time is it? It’s 5 o’clock for one of us. To the right, to the right, to the right, says another. While I’m right in the middle of my head, head, head, like Ruth Krauss writes in […]
Change
About a year ago, I decided to push toward the new. Mostly because I needed to: it’s arriving whether I like it or not. The other half came from a gentle nudge from my friend. As she drove me away from the urgent care clinic where I had gotten my left index finger sewn up. […]
Learning To Be Quiet
This morning we had my daughter’s accommodations meeting for school. That’s the yearly meeting where we look at her accommodations that are in place due to her learning issues. She’s in 7th grade now, age 14. My job is to not talk. To let her answer for herself. To listen. I listened pretty well this […]
Desert
The whisk makes her rounds in the metal bowl. We hear her in the other room. My husband stirs enough magic to coerce Kk back to the dining room table. With pressure, the whipped cream streams from container to pudding top. Four bowls and we have communion. A new inside joke about cows. Ten more […]
Orange
There’s green acrylic paint on the wooden chairs in our dining room. It’s from the children who are no longer children. On Sunday, I painted at our table. I paint only so I can see orange and red thick lines on heavy paper. I paint so I can feel texture being laid down heavy. So […]