We have a torture device in the garage. Or so one would assume based on the screams A. emits when that door creaks upward. Slowly, if I’m feeling maniacal. Slower, if my voice goes deeper and I ask her “Hey, kid, wanna take a bike ride?” OH, the humanity! No exaggeration: every day for a month when we picked her up from the sitter’s, she’d talk about her fourth birthday coming up! when! she was! going to get! a new! (...Read More)

I’ve become my mother. It’s an unexpected transformation, and it didn’t happen overnight, but looking back, the warning signs were clear. The first time the words, “I hope you have a daughter just like you, someday,” escaped my lips in response to a defiant teen daughter, I probably should have enrolled in an intervention program, but denial runs deep for this mama. My mother is a great word economist. Growing up (and as lately as last week), I experienced no (...Read More)

We are in the dog days of summer and I have done my very best to avoid the inevitable fact that I am going to need to wear a swimsuit or find a good reason to spend summer in the Arctic (where I can visit my distant cousin, the beluga). It has become impossible to continue hanging out around the barbecue in my cover-up, swearing “I’ll be right in” but then finding every reason in the world to refill everyone’s (...Read More)

I know this is nearly impossible to believe, but this summer I attended my 20th high school reunion.   For reasons I do not understand, The Big Geek did not want to use up all of his vacation in Oklahoma listening to people say “fixin’ to” and mopping the sweat from his forehead at 8 a.m., so the kids and I flew out alone and he joined us for the weekend of the reunion. The flight out was not bad, (...Read More)