I have to admit that I think Sophie’s pretty cool, but I worry all the time that you might not agree. Like when she gets ahold of my phone and calls you (repeatedly) at 6 a.m., or gets ahold of your phone and fills it with self-portraits (like the one above), or when she comes […]
Live by the sticker, die by the sticker. That’s how it seems in our world — Sophie’s world — these days. Sophie was not behaving at school last fall, so her “team” started a daily sticker chart. For now, anyway, it works like a dream. Particularly when it’s a Justin Bieber sticker she’s getting. But it’s not just […]
Not long ago, Annabelle announced that none of her jeans fit. I was a little surprised; it felt like I’d just bought her new ones. “Well, Mom, when you wear tight jeans, when you outgrow them you really outgrow them,” she said, adding another pair to the pile. Good point. Annabelle really rocks the skinny […]
“I know what I want for Valentine’s Day!” I announced at dinner the other night. “A raised garden bed.” “No way,” Ray said. “You’ll never use it.” The man has a point. I’ve killed every green thing in my path for years, and really, until I have time to even go to the farmers’ market, […]
This morning Sophie asked for a Justin Bieber “mixed CD.” Things improved this afternoon when she asked me to read her some poems from a falling-apart copy of “Where the Sidewalk Ends” so old it has my sister’s name in the front, her maiden name written in little kid script. We read a few, then […]
Annabelle’s making friends at school. She’s taken her time, she’s so wise. Or shy. Whatever. In any case, I hadn’t thought about what it would be like for her to introduce her new friends to Sophie til she got in the car this afternoon and announced that a friend had asked Annabelle why she’s so […]
The phone rang early this morning. It was my friend Deborah. “Hey, sorry I didn’t call earlier in the week,” she said. “I’ve been snowed in.” “Literally or figuratively?” I asked, still half-asleep even though I’d been up long enough to make two Carnation Instant Breakfast shakes, a pot of coffee, a sack lunch and a […]
A few weeks ago, I had lunch with a good friend who happens to have a special needs child — make that special needs adult, this kid is about to graduate from high school. Suffice to say, my friend knows her way around the block. “You’re getting the pass for Sophie, right?” she asked when […]
My dear friend Jill shared her personal manifesto in our Mothers Who Write class last fall, and it got me thinking, of course, about my own. (Jill’s is magnificent — like she is. Included on it: “I will judge you by your playlist.” She’s inspired us to post them on the New Times culture blog, […]
