My Daughter the Cat

I am going to tell you for moment about my ten-year-old daughter, my middle child – because I am deeply in love with her, and I am fairly sure that she keeps the world spinning. She has a tan, small face and tiny features like a mouse or a squirrel. There is a smattering of freckles across her nose like someone has been flinging wild oats out to the horses. Like her mama, she needs her quiet time. If she gets overwhelmed, she might really let you have it, yelling and screaming at one moment, then taking a moment alone to recollect herself and then reemerging moments later like some kind of beautiful, kind, sweet thing. A thing transformed. “Oh, hello. I love you,” she will say when she comes back to herself, even if she never left but has been...

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The Promise of a Vagabond

So yes I have this simple life. And I love it. Oh yes, I do. And I have to remind myself of this so often of late because I have friends who are starting off on grand, slam bam adventures and I get a little jealous – just every now and then – of their escapades. When the economy took a dive, quite a few people in my town went looking for new digs. It’s a mass exodus, really. The other day, I came across an old Girl Scout roster from two years ago and saw that, in that time, more than half of our sweet Brownie troop has moved away. One family went to Florida, where they somehow ride roller coasters just about every day. One went to go and live at grandma and grandpa’s beach home. One family is setting off this week for ports unknown, though I’m told...

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Private Gratitudes

Photo courtesy of Mel B., on Flickr We have a Thanksgiving tradition in my family that I’m not so very thankful for. It’s called the Gratitude Circle, and I’m not grateful for it because it is this tradition that makes it so my parents and brother don’t share Thanskgiving Dinner with me and my husband and my kids and my in-laws’ bold band of merrymakers. No, they would rather dine alone than share intimate thoughts with a crowd of people they see only once a year. As you might imagine, in the Gratitude Circle, we gather just before dinner and we all hold hands – all 34 of us – and we go around the circle, taking turns making little speeches about what we’re thankful for. This can take 30 or so minutes, and as you also might imagine, in...

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For the love of office supplies

My whole family loves office supply stores. I can’t really explain it. My kids particularly love to spend their money on Post-Its. They take the allowance that I give them on Friday, save it up for a whole day and then blow it at Office max after their soccer game each Saturday. I have to admit that my step quickens on the way to the office supply store, too. Always has. I think it’s because office supplies represent a world of possibilities. Just think of all the things you can do with that pen — all of the ideas you could jot down! Imagine how you could be organizing your days and your thoughts and your very life! This morning, I come down to my desk and find this, compliments of my 6-year-old son: His next pack of sticky notes is on...

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Do you ever feel a sense of longing?

I’m sure I’m not the only mother alive who has fantasized about just chucking it all and walking away, starting a new life in a new town. Remember that Anne Tyler book (I think it’s Ladder of Years) in which a middle-aged mom actually does it. She just walks into a new town and buys herself some pretty new dresses, rents an apartment, gets herself a job and carries on a new life. I read this book before I had kids and the whole time, I’m hoping against hope that the kids and her husband never find her, that she never has to return to her old life filled with dirty socks and sarcastic remarks. Fast forward about 12 years: I’m married to my best friend, and I have three kids who treat me with respect. They put on their own shoes, buckle...

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