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It’s Just Me
“Mom, where is my purple headband?” Claire yelled at me. “I asked you to put it in my drawer last night and it’s not here!” “Claire,” I answered, “I don’t know. I can’t deal with that right now.” It was 7:30 in the morning and I had three kids to get up and dressed and out of the house. I’m pretty sure I don’t need to describe the scene that lay before me, but it was filled with dirty dishes on the counter and pull-ups that needed changing and papers strewn everywhere. “Mom!” Claire continued to whine, “this is important!” “Claire,” I said sternly, “it’s not important that I find…
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So Proud
The end of the school year is really a crazy time for parents. In the last week and a half of school, Claire and Austin have a combined seven school events. All of them, of course, are during the middle of the day, which makes things really difficult for working parents. Particularly single working parents. On the way to school on Friday, Claire asked me whether I was coming to the end-of-year party. “No,” I told her, “But I’m coming on the all-day zoo field trip the day before, so don’t worry!” “But everyone else’s parents are coming to the party!” she whined. Let’s be clear here – everyone else’s parents are…
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Do You Know What Makes Me Nervous?
How the hell am I going to do this? No really, how the hell am I going to raise three young kids without Shawn? There’s literally a decade left before I send the first one to college, and I really don’t know what I’m doing right now, much less how I’m going to figure it out in the future. Some days, it just feels damn near impossible to know how to parent alone. Take tonight. I took the kids out with friends for a fun kid-themed dinner at a Japanese steakhouse. There was entertainment and the kids were all so excited. But I couldn’t even get through the appetizer before…
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Grandpa Tom
It’s crazy that I’ve written dozens of blog posts, but have yet to write one solely on my father. I think the reason is that every time I sit down to write it, I think, “I can’t possibly capture my dad in one blog post!” Which of course is true. But since he left on Monday to return to Oregon for the summer, I feel compelled to at least try and capture a bit of what makes him so wonderful. For anyone who knows him, you know that my dad loves just a few things in life: family, golf and Texas football. He retired a few years ago with the…
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90s Party
When Claire was in kindergarten, Shawn and I teamed up with two other couples to throw a party to benefit our kids’ elementary school. Since that first time, the now-infamous 90s party has happened every spring at our house. This year would be no different, and part of that was because of Shawn. When he was in the hospital, I remember telling him that we’d do things to protect his immunity during the chemo treatments, including cancelling the 90s party. “What?” he’d said, horrified, when I brought it up. “You can’t cancel it!” So we decided we’d throw the party anyway, and figure out a venue later, if Shawn was still…
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An Uncomfortable Reality
A few days ago I was waiting to pick up Claire from school, baking under the newly hot weather we’re getting these days. I was standing around with all of the other parents and babysitters and somehow ended up next to an acquaintance I hadn’t seen in awhile. “Oh, Marjorie,” she said to me, “I haven’t seen you since….everything happened. How are you doing?” I didn’t quite know how to respond. Was I not supposed to talk about Shawn’s death since she couldn’t bring herself to mention it? I had always liked this woman, and though we weren’t close, her kids had been in class with mine. And yet she…
There’s No Handbook for How to Do This
