As a parent, it’s painful watching your child suffer when you are powerless to help. This poem, titled “Benched,” captures one of those moments for me. Continue reading How Do You Handle Your Emotions When Your Child Is Benched?
I had always wanted children. I simply had no idea that raising them — or parenting them once their decisions were all theirs — could feel so hard. Continue reading Parenting Rule #1: Stop looking the “gift horse” in the mouth
On a special Saturday morning, I spent time with my grandson saying I love you with every chore. He got it. Continue reading ‘Are you doing this because you love me?’
I had missed the birth of my first grandchild, and I was determined to be as present as possible for … Continue reading A grandmother is born — again
If you saw a little Marilyn Monroe action in the parking lot of Walmart last Sunday afternoon, it might have … Continue reading This is what love looks like
Thinking about my own mothering moments makes me feel 16 feet tall at times. But today, my thoughts are with … Continue reading My kids make me feel 16 feet tall
Parenting is a full-contact sport, a risky business, an often thankless task, and my greatest joy and still-in-progress accomplishment. Continue reading My baby turns 21 today
Our cat is like a teenager who shows up when she wants — and doesn’t when she doesn’t… Continue reading When Trouble is a teenager and acts just like one
Sometimes our son misses our power. Such as the night before we lost ours when he lost his. Continue reading Power to the people, not to the parents
What do you buy a man who has everything — five of everything, actually, packaged up in each child who has grown up in our house? Continue reading What do you give your husband on Father’s Day?
I have entered that period so many lament: the empty nest. My five children have left me one by one. But rather than lament it, I say… Continue reading Let the empty nest begin…
I hadn’t realized until it happened that having one of my children host the holiday meal was a goal of parenting. Continue reading The goal of parenting…
My husband has saved me from curfew worry much of the time. He simply awakens me to let me know our child is home, and I am lulled, comforted, back to sleep. Except when the child isn’t at home by curfew. Continue reading Stream of cold consciousness writing…
I was with my two colleagues as we drove across the university campus. Because we were lucky enough to have … Continue reading In fact, we are not entitled…
I married into my hairdresser, much the way I’d married into four children when I married my husband nearly 21 … Continue reading Why I love my hair stylist…
My husband and I left for a semi-spontaneous, brief beach vacation, leaving our 19-year-old son at home with his college … Continue reading The problem with one-sided conversations…
It was after 9:30 before I decided I should at least try to sleep, but knowing my husband was driving … Continue reading No news is no news…
I dreaded the dance. I saw it as an awkward mother-son performance in front of a room of spectators, but of … Continue reading Dancing with my son…
