On January 1, I completed my annual tradition of Googling the correct way to write “New Year’s resolutions.” Capital N, capital Y, apostrophe s, lowercase r. Did you know you can do that? You can Google punctuation and grammar rules. I’ve worked alongside a lot of copy editors and I promise you that most of
I’m not the type to make New Year’s resolutions. I’m also not the type to set goals or make to do lists or schedule things in advance. What enneagram does that make me? It’s most certainly the one that has a tendency to roll their eyes at personality tests. Anyway. I’m not really setting resolutions
I was grumpy all day Christmas Eve. The kids were acting like children, how dare they. They were overly excited and a little tired and do you know what excited, tired children do? They take the cushions off the couch even though their mother told them not to. They ping pong between being silly and
Playing Santa is, without a doubt, one of the most fun gigs I’ve ever had. Shopping, wrapping, imagining the joy when they open the gift. It is all so very wonderful. Sometime in November, Tom’s mom, Peggy, called me from Costco. She was shopping, and there was one MaryEllen American Girl doll left. Should she
What to get the girl who has everything? No, literally. She has everything. She has blocks and dolls and markers — and a LOT of things she shouldn’t have. Anna is surrounded by hundreds of knick knacks and tchotchkes that are all age inappropriate. She likes her siblings’ toys but they don’t really engage her the
“Mommy?” Mary asked me one afternoon. “Does this mean ‘I love you’?” I looked up and Mary was standing in front of me, holding up her middle finger. I was startled, but I decided to play it cool and figure out what terrible influence in her life taught her this inappropriate gesture. “Why are you
I always knew this would happen one day. In fact, this is why I keep blogging. Because I want my kids to have a treasury of stories from their childhood. Last week, David read my blog. We were watching this video and he noticed a tag in the sidebar, “Why does that say David Monthly? What’s that?”
Recently Mary has become obsessed with letters and writing. I credit this newfound hobby to kindergarten and her phenomenally creative and motivating teacher. I also credit it to Mary deciding she wants to know letters, because Mary does not learn things that she does not want to learn. Not for her phenomenally creative and motivating
There’s a reeeeeeal bear problem in Richmond these days. I wriggle this bear outfit onto Anna on our coldest bus stop mornings. She bearly fits. (I cannot and will not stop with the bear puns, I’m sorry.) But this happens to be another one of the few things that all four of my babies have
I’m not going to use that cliché, the one parents always say at the end of the first year. The cliché I used when David turned one, the one I am so very tempted to use. I am not going to say that this year flew. The phrase implies that time slipped through our fingers