Last week, I sat in a chair facing a group of four-year olds as they sat “crisscross applesauce” and waited for me to read a book to them. I explained about the author who was also the illustrator, highlighting his beautiful pictures and use of vibrant color. Once we had finished the book, the other […]
A few weeks ago, I heard an unmistakable chirping sound as I walked through the basement to the laundry room. We had recently changed the batteries in the various smoke alarms, but we had overlooked the carbon monoxide detector mounted high on the wall. As I climbed a chair to take it down, from my […]
Twenty years ago I had the shock of my life. After a year of unsuccessful attempts to have a baby, I had finally seen the coveted two lines on a pregnancy test. A few weeks after the positive test, I started having issues which made me think I was losing the baby. I made an […]
As I was sitting on the sidelines of one of my sons’ soccer games recently, I heard a familiar question, “A little help?” It was part request, part heads-up. A ball had rolled from one of the nearby fields and was heading toward ours. The kicker wanted us to stop it from rolling onto the […]
For the most part, my husband and I were raised as city people. A half-acre lot was plenty for our folks. They had their vegetable gardens and rosebushes. Brent’s dad even had some fruit trees. But our homes were situated in suburban neighborhoods (in Nashville and Knoxville, respectively) with weekly garbage pickup and streetlights and […]
Our two sons are both on travel soccer teams. This means that they seem to be playing ball all the time. In the winter, we’ve watched them play in high school gymnasiums and indoor soccer facilities, but most of the action is outside. We’ve stood under umbrellas watching them play in the rain. We’ve stamped […]
When I was 6-years old, my dad bought our family’s first microwave oven. It was a giant behemoth with its own designated piece of furniture, a cart made of lightly stained oak which sat on little caster wheels and had a cabinet underneath to store all the sundry accouterments a microwave might require. This included […]
I had a friend in elementary school named Jill who was allergic to chocolate. I knew she tried to avoid it, but I didn’t know exactly why or what would happen if she ate it. That is until we were in the same homeroom in the 3rd grade… Without any warning or explanation, Jill […]
One of my favorite words is the word wonder. As a mom, it reminds me of my kids when they were all little. I loved watching them as they looked at the world from their vantagepoint, asking why and how about everything. They would construct new realities where they were teachers or bus drivers or […]
I enjoy being outside in the summer, especially in the morning before the sun sends down the full force of its intensity. One of my favorite tasks is watering the potted plants on our front porch. I like a variety of colors and textures in these pots—stalks of purple salvia, fuchsia trumpets of million […]