One of the first pieces of advice I can recall getting as a journalist was this: When you’re profiling someone, don’t go around asking people for illustrative stories about your profile subject. The surest way to make someone’s mind to go blank is to say, “You have any good anecdotes about Amy?” I find the […]
Yesterday was the first birthday party of first grade. I hope it’s the first of many. Actually, at the moment, I really don’t. I need some time to recover. Even at their best, other kids’ birthday parties can be stressful, if it’s not your crowd. And this wasn’t. I’m just not a walk-right-up-and-introduce-myself kinda gal, so I hung […]
Allow me to explain, since Karen Bayless-Feldman (a Mothers Who Write repeat customer and one of the funniest people I know) so graciously asked, “NINA?!” First, you should know that it rhymes with Carolina. Or vagina. Given that I was raised to call both male and female private parts a “weiner” (and don’t you dare […]
Poor Ray. Turns out, yesterday’s kidney stone episode was not to end so quickly. He needs two operations; the first will be Monday. I am not at liberty to share details (to the contrary, I was warned, “Don’t you dare laugh about this with your friends”) but let’s just say that I feel very, very […]
Yesterday began with a bang (the rear bumper of my brand-new car against the trailer hitch of a truck parked behind it) and a whimper (my poor husband appearing in my office door in the worst pain I’ve ever seen) and while everything ended okay (minimal damage; kidney stones) I was pretty much a wreck […]
This evening at dinner, I asked Sophie how her day at school was. I’ve asked the question many times before, but have never gotten this response: “BOOOORRRING!” she bellowed, with all the panache of any saucy 6-year-old. I know very well that it wasn’t any such thing, but I was tickled with the answer. Sophie’s […]
In the end, we didn’t make a cake today, because I realized too late that I had no icing in the house. If you watched “Cake Boss” on TLC (or “Ace of Cakes” on the Food Network — cakes are apparently “in”), you would know that you need to “dirty ice” your cake with buttercream […]
Annabelle is home sick. She, Sophie and I all caught colds (a record — school’s barely been back two weeks) and while Sophie and I are fully functional though snuffly, as often happens, Annabelle’s went straight to her chest and she was up at 3:30 this morning, coughing that terrifying croup-y cough. I don’t think […]
You know those friends — friends you can go years without seeing, but when you do see them, it’s like no time has passed? That’s my friend Heather. Love her. Loveherloveherloveher. We met as undergrads and somehow 20-plus years passed and here we are. After college she went to law school and met a cute boy and and […]
I skidded to a stop in front of the sign-out book at aftercare yesterday, threw my arms in the air and yelled, “5:59 and 24 seconds! Yes!” I scrawled my name and the time, then quickly dug into wallet for my ID. The girl behind the table just looked me, not comprehending my joy at arriving before […]
