At the start of fourth grade, Claire came home with an assignment to write about her hero. “I picked you!” she announced to me. She then spent much of the afternoon finding a photo that she liked of me and writing about why I was her hero. It was really sweet and touching. My kid […]
single parenting
Parent 2
My kids all came home after the first day of school with backpacks full of forms. “You have to fill everything out today!” Claire instructed. Even though I’m a teacher, I still can’t understand how schools make you fill out the same information a dozen times. Can’t they put all this stuff in a database […]
The Marine
While traveling this summer, I had one day that was particularly bad. I was alone with my three kids and we’d been bumped from our original flight to a later one. We were seated in random seats across the very last row of the plane, and everyone was exhausted. As we got on, I instructed […]
The Scar
Claire has been to the emergency room exactly one time, when she ate a pistachio nut and had an allergic reaction that had to be treated with epinephrine. My boys, however, have been at least a dozen times between them. They’ve received stitches and slings and warnings from doctors to never again do whatever it was […]
What If the Plane Crashes?
I’ve taken my kids on airplanes since the very early days of their lives. Claire was only six weeks old the first time she rode on a plane, and I remember boarding the flight with Shawn and about fifteen bags to guarantee we had everything. As I sat down, the man in front of me […]
Brussels Sprouts
A few days ago, I came home from an afternoon at the pool and said “screw it” to a formal dinner. The kids were starving and I had eggs in the refrigerator, so that’s what everyone was getting. I also decided that we’d all get in our PJs and then eat dinner while watching Kung […]