School days are done! Summer has arrived! Time for my annual speech about chores, and how “just because it’s summer doesn’t mean you are all just going to be laying around here the whole time.” Time for my annual declaration that I’m going to make a...
It was our eighteenth anniversary. We went to dinner at the kind of place we only go on special occasions; Velvet curtains, golden lighting. We laughed a lot. We always do. We talked about all that had led up to that day, facing each other in that...
The day she separated our coffee mugs – That was the day for sure. I had thought I could hold it together, and be brave stepping into this new world of independent children, but for some reason the sight of my oldest daughter, Alena...
We had just gone into the store for a couple of sandwiches. When my mom is here visiting, my daughter Tessa lives her best granddaughter life, and eats whatever she wants. I had tried telling her we had food at home that I planned to make, but as a...
The much-talked-about annual fifth grade outdoor education camp was coming up, and for weeks Paige had told me she did not want to go. I don’t know if it has been the pandemic or just her personality, but these days she rarely ever wants to leave...
I could hear Justin outside talking to someone as he worked on chipping away at the huge bark pile he had had dumped weeks ago. I had been begging him to get spread out where it belonged. I asked him who it was he had been talking to when he walked...
This is not my first time here – This age of embarrassment. With her as my fourth daughter to reach 5th grade, I was already prepared for how getting my 11-year-old, Paige, to this point would feel. I knew to expect the hissing voice, telling...
After our beloved cat, Cosmo, was killed tragically in our driveway by a neighbor a couple of years ago, poppies started springing up from the rock. Directly over the spot where his body had lay, they grew like an unplanned memorial the earth showed...
She has always drawn all over her hands; In blue ink, and red ink, and with black sharpies. I asked her so many times to please stop doing it. My reasoning was simply that it looked dirty to me, to see her looking like that. Tessa is my middle...
She was the type who could do almost anything. Everything she baked was delicious, she could sew intricately, and her garden buzzed with life that she had brought to it. I remember watching my mom’s best friend, Lyn, as a kid, thinking that I hoped...