“I want to GO TOO! I want to go to Mill-ya’s party!” Henry screamed, kicking my seat with his Spider-Man sneakers. It was a Sunday afternoon, and we had just dropped Rose off at her friend Amelia’s carnival-themed birthday party. “Henry,” Jack interrupted his brother’s wailing, irritated. “Stop crying. I never go to birthday parties.” […]
The bedroom door opens with a creak and a very young boy steps out into the darkened hallway. Just shy of three, this boy is tall for his age and sturdy in build, wearing multicolored pajamas that are too short for him. He quietly steps to the landing of the staircase and begins to descend. The […]
“I need to make PLAY DOUGH. For TOMORROW!” Jack screamed as soon as he stepped off the bus last Wednesday. “What? Oh, okay, we’ll figure it out,” I told him as we made our way up the driveway. Hazily, I remembered this task buried somewhere in Mr. Hines’ weekly teacher notes. I thought about our schedule for […]
So, we’ve got this guy in middle school now. And he is all sorts of cool. Savvy. Phrases like let’s play have been replaced by let’s hang out. He makes scrambled egg sandwiches for himself in the morning and wants to walk home from the bus stop alone in the afternoon. There is swagger in his neon-sneakered […]
“I have a question,” said a woman in the second row. She was wearing a red cardigan and had been quiet for most of the hour. “How do you get the things you want from the school?” I was finishing up a reading in a nearby town over the summer, and the discussion had just about petered out. […]
“Tomorrow morning. At 6:45. I’m going to be on TV,” Jack announced around a mouthful of kale. The chatter at the dinner table came to a screeching halt, and we all stared at him. TV? I thought to myself during the pocket of silence. Didn’t you just go to school and come home today? When did you […]
“Hurry UP! It’s my turn next,” Jack said urgently, pulling on my arm and pitching me forward. We were navigating the busy classrooms of Riddle Brook Elementary for open house –the pinnacle of the back-to-school season—and Jack was getting impatient. “Okay, okay, let’s find Henry.” I looked over and signaled to Joe it was time […]
“Oh,” Charlie said with a disappointed look on his face as I started to open the box of graham crackers for his afterschool snack. “I thought you said you would buy the cinnamon ones.” “Sorry, Charlie-bear.They didn’t have the cinnamon ones. Do you want these?” “Not really, I like cinnamon.” “Well, these are good too, and we can […]
Last week, I dropped Henry off for his ten minutes of preschool and zipped over to Target to pick up socks and underwear for the boys. Just before I headed into the store, I checked e-mail on my phone and saw there was a new post by one of my favorite bloggers, Jen Hatmaker. (You guys […]
(I had a different post prepared for today; a funny, light piece about all the hilarious things kids will say. But I switched gears and decided to write this one at the last minute.) Yesterday we went to some friends’ house for a barbecue. To be honest, we sort of invited ourselves to said barbecue, because […]
