This week I’m registering my five-year-old for kindergarten. Like everything these days, the registration will be completely different. It’s truncated and sterile. I’ll wear a mask, there will be no colorful room with blocks and crayons, and I won’t even take my kid with me. (In fact, unlike the other two times when I showed
What do you miss? This is something I think about a lot. We’re 10 weeks into this and I’m no longer even considering things like soccer practice or our gym membership. It occurred to me this week that the thing I miss is being in relationship without fear. Remember running into a friend at the grocery store
Thomas was at the counter struggling with scissors. I watched him for a bit, then I offered to help. Thomas watched me easily cut what he’d been struggling with and asked, “Why did they work for you and not for me?” “Because I’ve been using scissors for more years than you’ve been alive,” I answered
Recently a friend gave us a big bag of hand-me-downs. They included a bunch of clothes for Thomas, and for Mary, several pairs of boots, some pajamas, one particularly gorgeous dress, and one pair of gold sparkly high heels that are just her size. When the kids got home from school, I had all of
You might not have heard of Beyblades. They’re these toys that spin sort of like a top. (Though, DO NOT CALL THEM TOPS IN OUR HOUSE. We have had many, many “Beyblades are basically just tops” arguments that have lead to me making a family rule that you are not, under any circumstances, allowed to
I’m not sure why, but I’m suddenly really aware of Thomas and Anna’s friendship. All of my kids have individual relationships, but each one has to be forged. Maybe I’m noticing their friendship because it’s just now really emerging. Anna is finally old enough to really play and be a part of Thomas’s shenanigans (which she
Tom was out of town last weekend (pause for dramatic effect)(insert shock and awe)(add comment about me being the best ever and Tom being the worst ever)(remember that people do stuff like this all the time and your whining might induce a lot of justified eye rolls)(regain consciousness and move on). One of the many,
I’ve mentioned before that Thomas doesn’t know colors. Actually, let me rephrase. Thomas refuses to conform to the names society has given colors. Instead of using the names of the colors that you and I use, he came up with his own. For example, instead of red, green, blue, and yellow, Thomas would say David
One morning Anna’s pajamas were half-on. (Ok, so sometimes/all the time after a diaper change we don’t bother to wrestle Anna back into her clothes. Whatever, we get the important part taken care of.) Somehow this transformed into a game where Thomas was holding the legs of her pajamas and pretending she was a dog
This morning I took Thomas and Anna outside. I was planning on cleaning out the garden and adding compost to the soil. I thought Thomas might like helping with raking and digging, but as soon as we went outside he and Anna immediately started playing on their own. That was fine, too, but I still