“Do you love your sister?!” Sophie asked the other day, out of the blue. “Um, yeah, of course I love Aunt Jenny,” I replied. “Tell her!” Hmmm. That might be tough. The only time in recent memory the phrase “I love you” was used in conversation with my younger sister, it was at the end […]

Today I am 46. When I mentioned last week on Facebook that I was having trouble with my list of 50 things to do before I’m 50 (with thanks for the inspiration to my friend Megan, who came up with the idea for 30 before 30, a much more rationale notion!), I was bombarded with […]

“Oh man,” my friend sighed into his spare ribs. “How could it be that not everyone understands that Barack Obama is, like, the coolest, smartest, most incredible president we’ve ever had?” “I know,” I said, helping myself to more beef and broccoli. “I know.” We were at a rundown restaurant in central Phoenix, the kind […]

Two nights ago, Sophie slept with us. Rather, with me. She leaves Ray alone, but not me. I’m her foot rest, her arm rest, her kicking post. At one point I was sleeping on my side — my back to her — and realized she was using my hip as a pillow. Typically I’d roll […]

I have a raging case of the HeyMoms. It came on two weekends ago, and no matter how much rest I get, how well I eat (I’ve even taken my Centrum for Women horse pill of a multi-vitamin religiously each morning) I can’t shake them. It started suddenly, in the car, on a Sunday afternoon. […]

“Is it okay if we tell her about the underwear?” one of the teachers muttered to the other toward the tail end of Sophie’s parent/teacher conference yesterday afternoon. Underwear? Instantly, I was on high alert. (Who wouldn’t be?) It had been a pretty good conference, as far as these things go. I dread parent/teacher conferences. […]

I am considering doing something very scary on Thursday afternoon. I am considering walking into Sophie’s parent/teacher conference and asking her teacher to let my kid ditch math, permanently. Ditch? Did I mean to use such a strong word? Well, yeah. Sort of. As I’ve written before, Sophie can’t do the math. She can’t do […]