This morning the girls and I were cuddling in bed, and I was stalling, waiting a few more moments before starting our suddenly upside down day. Annabelle is home sick; she woke up in the middle of the night with a fever that wound up being yet another bug that’s going around. That meant: cancelling school; […]
I love kindergarten. I spent a couple hours in Sophie’s classroom this morning, and yesterday’s sour mood washed away in a sea of Tempera paint. I cracked up when I overheard one kid say, “I love how that paint smells!” Me, too. Now, that’s not to say that I could ever teach kindergarten, or spend more […]
I woke up this morning feeling out of sorts. Rather, I finally gave up and rolled out of bed to start the day — feeling out of sorts. I wonder why I’m tired all the time. Duh. A recap of last night: I fell asleep on the couch at 10. Crawled to bed at 11. Sophie came in […]
I’m feeling guilty. As soon as I read about President Obama’s gaffe on Jay Leno last night, I immediately began to make excuses for him in my head. Then I had to stop and wonder how I would have felt if John McCain had said the same thing. I know how I would have felt. […]
And now for a commercial announcement. The Scottsdale Arts Festival is sweatily underway (my car thermometer insists it’s over 90 degrees this afternoon) in — you guessed it — Scottsdale. Years ago, I found one of my now-favorite artists at the festival: Amanda Blake, creator of the beautiful artwork that graces this blog and inspired its […]
Boy, do I wish I used that word disparagingly. Because it really applies here. Just the other day, an out-of-stater remarked (again) that she just doesn’t understand my state of Arizona — a place where you can have Down syndrome but not qualify for services for the developmentally disabled. Yeah, I don’t understand it either. Maybe State […]
Last night, our household’s attention was focused on making on the horse for the kindergarten rodeo, which was due this morning. But I did devote some time to a surreptious search for Piglet. No luck. It wasn’t til she went into the bathroom to brush her teeth before bed that Sophie stopped like a light bulb […]
Piglet is lost. Now you might assume that this is not a big deal, as you admire Sophie’s stuffed animals — here’s a line up from this morning — including all the pigs and variations of Piglet. You would be wrong. In fact, Sophie owns three wind-up musical Piglets — designed by Gund, all grasping […]
Ms. X called last night. “Leprechauns came to my classroom!” “Really?” I asked, just a split second before I got it, even though I had a St. Patrick’s Day plan, too. I’d bought gold-wrapped chocolate coins (AKA Chanukah gelt) to put in the girls’ shoes, because Annabelle had told me a few weeks ago that on […]
Not long after Sophie was born, I wrote a piece for Phoenix New Times (you can read it here: http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2004-11-25/news/up-the-down-staircase/) in which I mentioned that I am the kind of person who put a button on her bulletin board at work that says, “If at first you don’t succeed, you’ll be a loser and a burden […]
