It Takes a (Kind) Village

Bench with Heart Carved in it

As a writer, I face rejection on a daily basis. People love or hate my work — or worse, they’re indifferent to it. Agents say no, publishers say no, magazine editors say no. What that’s done for me is thicken my skin. (Not thicken my rear end, although some would beg to differ.) My point? […]

Toddlers and Teens and In Betweens

Kids Laying on the Floor with Their Heads Together

Our kids are 15, 13, 12, and 10. That means at one point in our lives, they were 5, 3, 2, and barely out of the womb. When Mary Claire was born, Gus was not yet walking. When George (the baby) was born, Sam (the oldest) was still in preschool. People ask how we did […]

All Kinds of Mothers

Purple Flowers

Mother’s Day is such a funny little celebration. Overpriced flowers, candies, brunches, matching kid outfits — all in honor of the one who birthed us. It’s a commonality we children carry… like birth, like death, there are inevitable things we share in the connectedness of our existence. Each of us has a mother. Perhaps we […]

Teenager Two

Today, I have two of them. Teenagers, that is. In seventeen short months, Teenager Number Three will make her debut, and we’ll no longer have anyone in single digits. How in the world did that happen? “Um, we’re growing up, Mom,” Mary Claire explained with her classic eye-roll. “It happens.” Augustus Charles hit the big […]