Yesterday, I volunteered in Annabelle’s classroom. Really, though, I was more of a visitor. An interloper.  Special Agent Amy. (OK, too much “Harriet The Spy”.)
Drama aside, there’s nothing like a little while in your kid’s classroom to tell you what’s what. For example, 20 minutes into my morning in Second Grade, I’d diagnosed every single [...]

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 has [...]

All week, my dad’s been quoting Jon Stewart, who recently must have said something to the effect of, “War is God’s way of teaching Americans about geography.”
I love that. And I love that my father is quoting The Daily Show. I don’t know much about geography, myself. I was never a good student when it [...]

Last weekend, we painted Annabelle’s room. It was part of her 7th birthday present.
Here’s the before. (Warning, the colors in these photos are much brighter than the actual paint! Maybe.):

Now that I have a 7-year-old, it occurs to me that most of my childhood memories begin at 7.
I have a few, from before that. I [...]

At 7, Annabelle’s way better with a video camera (actually, I think it’s an attachment on our old digital camera, which Ray gave her) than I am.
While Sophie and I were at Trader Joe’s yesterday, Annabelle made a movie. She had a little help from Ray, but he swears she filmed the whole thing herself. [...]