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Thanksgiving
Three years ago, we spent Thanksgiving break with our friends Becky and Josh in an old farmhouse in Delaware owned by Josh’s family. All of our kids were really little and so we spent a lot of time dealing with their needs, but we also drank wine and sat around the dinner table each night for many hours. One night, we spent much of the evening talking about Josh’s brother, Chris, and the teenage antics he pulled during his gap year between high school and college. Josh’s mom told a particularly funny story about Chris and we all laughed and laughed. I remember thinking later how amazing it was that…
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Report Cards
My kids came home this week with their first term report cards. I opened them up and braced myself. Last year’s report cards were decent, but Claire struggled academically in math and Austin sometimes shut down in big groups. I figured that those flaws were okay because, well, if they were managing to just attend school, that struck me as a win for the year. But this year’s report cards were great. I mean, no one is going to Harvard tomorrow, but both of my big kids are on grade level and doing things like “respecting the rights of others.” Austin “has a large peer group and enjoys interacting with…
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Why I Might Have to Stop Reading “Mommy Blogs”
I’ve always loved “mommy blogs.” These blogs, where writers discuss the (sometimes hilarious) ups and downs of being a mom, often validate how I feel – overworked, under-appreciated, and just really, really tired. When my kids were babies, mommy blogs were what kept me at my paid job when I thought I might quit. The things I read made me realize that most other moms felt like I did and that we were all just doing the best that we could. But God, I can’t read half of them anymore. I just finished an article about a working mom in which the author discusses how she does so much more…
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Dad Is Not a Zombie
A few weeks ago, I was driving through DC with Tommy and we passed a cemetery. “Mom, look!” he said, “graves!” “Yes,” I said. “There are graves in a….” He stopped because he couldn’t find the word. “Cemetery,” I answered. “And,” he said, “there are zombies in cemeteries.” I didn’t expect him to say that, so I paused for a second to reply and then before I could say anything else, he said, “My Dad is in a cemetery. So my Dad is a zombie!” “Dad is not a zombie,” I said back to him. “Dad died and his body is in the ground. He did not become a zombie.”…
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CNAS Tribute to Shawn (Part 2)
Below are the remarks I gave on October 29, 2018 at the CNAS event honoring the life and work of Shawn Brimley. Thank you all so much for being here to honor Shawn. I thought a lot about what I wanted to say to you tonight. Shawn was a brilliant, funny, thoughtful man, and I have many good things to say about him and his impact on the world. It’s hard to choose the best Shawn story or fully describe the impact he had on his coworkers, friends and family. Instead, I decided I would speak about what Shawn valued as his greatest lifetime achievement: being a dad to Claire,…
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Guns and Cancer
After Shawn died, my friends Ilan and Phil organized a group to participate in the Colon Cancer Run here in DC. There were hundreds of people who showed up and the event raised thousands of dollars. As I was running with the kids that day, I thought about how supported and loved I felt. When I turned the corner mid-way through the run, I saw the Capitol and snapped this cover photo of our oldest boy – number 5008 – running towards it. I thought about this moment when I first saw news of the shooting last weekend at the Tree of Life Synagogue. Of course, I was horrified. And…
There’s No Handbook for How to Do This
