I woke up this morning and realized I’m still hysterical, so I won’t write about Sarah Palin — not yet, maybe not ever. But I’ll dance around the edges. Last night I walked past our playroom (once the formal — ha! — dining room in our ramshackled but well-loved house) and realized it looks just […]
Ray’s last words, as I climbed into the car this morning (after admonishing me to not use swear words on the phone, in the car, in front of the kids): “You are a word that begins with the letter H.” Oh, he’s right. I am hysterical. I called this, months ago, as soon as I […]
Quite a bit happened today, not all of it good, so I think i’ll focus on one of the pure, joyous moments of childhood and parenthood: the loss of a tooth. This was Annabelle’s third tooth. Sophie insists she has loose teeth that are going to fall out “in 15 minutes” but so far, only AB […]
I should really be asleep by now. In a few short hours, I’ve got an early morning meeting with the special education teacher at Sophie’s school — I need to try to convince her that even though my kid’s got an IQ of 86, she deserves time in the “resource room” without letting her think Sophie […]
My grandpa is dying. He has been, off and on, all summer, but this week, i fear, it’s for real. My husband Ray (it’s confusing – my grandfather and my husband and his father AND grandfather are all Raymond) wants to know why I’m not more upset. He keeps nagging me about it. It’s true, I […]
Just hours now, til the first day of school. The girls are asleep — in bed, anyway. Sophie assured me she wasn’t at all scared. “A little bit?” I asked. She held two fingers as close together as they’d get with out touching. “A tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiny bit,” she said, giggling. I’m not sure she knew what […]
Before you start pelting rotten eggs at your computer screen, let me explain. First, “mental retardation” is a medical term. The IQ cut off is 69. Seventy, and you’re not retarded. Second, I have spent much of the year considering this topic, particularly since Sophie’s IQ clocked in at 83. (This was the topic of […]
I watched it. Turned out, it was a very old tape (much heavier than current VHS tapes, which I guess are lighter because they’re getting ready to go POOF altogether, followed by DVDs, leaving me screwed) with Alfred Hitchcock’s “Notorious” taped after the 1992 documentary “Educating Peter,” which a friend had given me — she […]
Saturday’s show is up now at www.thislife.org – the last segment in the “Social Engineering” show from June 27 is Sophie’s. I haven’t tried it (um, no thanks, don’t want to hear the sound of my own voice again — don’t you hate that?) but looks like you can just click and listen.
This week we discovered the double-messy bun(s). On the day this photo was taken, Sophie also had her shorts on backward (she knew, she insisted) and I worried that I’d really gone over the edge with the whole “I’ve gotta be me, I’ve gotta be free!” approach to childish expressions. But she actually got a […]
