“Okay, kids, say cheese!” My brothers and I stood shoulder to shoulder by our driveway for a picture, the flash of the clunky family camera glinting in my memory as we smiled for a photograph…that absolutely no one saw for weeks or months until that roll of film was taken to be developed. My backpack, the same one I’d had… Read More
The sun was still high in the sky, a beautiful warm early September late afternoon. I was in a rush, having just fed the tiny troops dinner, homework had been completed, I was quickly buzzing through a sink full of dishes and then we were off to my son’s first soccer practice. It feels like yesterday when we were carefree… Read More
Summer is rife with fresh produce, heat waves, late nights, lightning bugs, rosé sips, splashes in swimming pools and along ocean edges, sunsets, adventures, lazy days at home, extra noise and chaos with littles underfoot, the buzz of locusts in the evening, laughs at the lake, extra food, extra cocktails, connecting with faraway friends, and no alarm clocks (at least… Read More
“Nana, you birthed six children in nine years: any advice you’ve tucked away over the decades that you found to be extra helpful?” I asked, well-meaning, wide-eyed, pregnant with my first at age 27, full-on in information-seeking mode. She thought for a minute, lips pressed together, gazing off, then the light bulb visibly going off overhead, she put her finger… Read More
Some days are. Just. So. Hard. They’re never ending. The demands keep coming. The fatigue is palpable. Tasks that seem so simple and should take but two seconds…*always* wind up with a puddle of something gross, tears, mess, effort and frustration oozing out of every pore. Elbows quietly poke into siblings’ ribs when they think we aren’t looking, the floor… Read More
There’s a certain kind of magic that happens when your heart remains open, your friends remain close, and your feet begin to wander. It was a perfect-temperature Thursday night when we journeyed into the City of Brotherly Love to support a friend in marketing who was throwing a summer sips and eats event. She rallied the troops and we… Read More
So as a parent there are good days, lighter than air, where the kids play and listen and laugh and twinkle as their awesomeness radiates from their sweet little bodies, wafting through the air like in old cartoons when they lay a freshly baked pie on the window sill and it floats into the nostrils of the dog down the… Read More