I can’t tell if it’s happening more, or if I’m just noticing it more, but recently Thomas has been crawling into my lap a lot. He turns six tomorrow. More than I do with my other kids, I spend the week before Thomas’s birthday remembering the final days of my pregnancy. I remember each day
Last weekend, the kids and I drove west to my hometown in the mountains. We visited my parents for a few days, then we met my best friendJenny and her family at the farm where she grew up. It was a quick, inhale-exhale sort of trip with old friends to visit old places that we
Thomas is almost six, which means he’s at the apex of the picky-eater curve that all of my kids have traveled. They start out as adventurous eaters that’ll try literally everything and then consume almost everything they try. Then they realize, around 18 months, that they have a choice in the matter, and why would
One of the beneficial side-effects of our new work-from-home lifestyle is that between Zoom meetings and phone calls, Tom carves out some time to put Anna down for her nap every afternoon. This is different than all of our other kids, who Tom almost never put down for naps because he has always been at
This morning I registered Thomas for kindergarten. Through my mask I told the school administrator that we registered last year, then decided to wait a year. You know, because surely by September 2021 this pandemic would be a terrible, distant memory. We both had a hearty perfunctory laugh. Hardy har har…Har. Har. Har. I wrote
The Internet is full of awesome ideas for how to dye Easter eggs with little ones. Put the egg in a whisk! Paint the eggs! Rice shake the eggs! Or my personal favorite tip, do it outside, and have a glass of wine. But now that most of my toddlers have grown into big kids,
I keep getting Timehop reminders of what life looked like one year ago. The photos are all sunny and happy captures of the kids in the backyard against a backdrop of daffodils and an uncharacteristically mild spring. With every photo I think — wow, we had no idea…I’m glad we had no idea. Also, my hair
At a recent doctor’s appointment, our pediatrician was rolling through some general healthy habits for five-year old kids. She was talking through recommendations about stuff like exercise, screen time, eating vegetables, drinking a glass of water with every meal and snack, and, hmmm, hey doctor? Any thoughts on the benefits of wearing a pair of
In the past month or so, Anna has unveiled an alter-ego that she calls “Real Anna.” I’m not sure how she sorts this out in her own mind, but basically she’s “Anna” and “Real Anna” is elsewhere. Sometimes Real Anna is causing problems, sometimes she’s napping, usually (according to Anna) she’s on the roof. The
David reads all the time, but he almost never wants to talk about what he’s read. Not even when he and Tom read Jurassic Park together just so they could discuss it. He doesn’t like when we ask him about characters or the plot, or why he likes or dislikes a book. He usually responds by