Last night, D was reading Little House in the Big Woods to Stella, and I was sitting at the dining room table, planning my new Loft class, Americans Writing Across Cultures, which begins on Monday. I was alternating between working and watching them read because I need frequent breaks from the computer to let my…
Read MoreCould this be because my morning work time was swallowed by three children—two mine, one not? Could it be because one of the said children had diarrhea all over my—ahem—clean-this-very-morning bathroom? Could it be that I’m in one of those writerly slumps (and full of despondency)? Could it be that I’m just impatient for spring—real…
Read MoreThank you to everyone who submitted a toddler haiku for the annual Mother Words Haiku Contest. You can read all the entries here and here. This year, my dear friend Jess agreed to judge the contest, so I’m turning it over to Jess, who says: I’m a little troubled by the prevalence of excretion in…
Read MoreA year ago, I woke up nervous and still sick with the cold that wouldn’t go away. Big, wet snowflakes fell outside, and I was snuffling and coughing. D took Stella out to breakfast so I could rest, but it was difficult for me to sleep. How could I sleep when I knew that in…
Read MoreIt’s embarrassing how many of my sentences and thoughts begin with “I should…” I wish I could remove the word from my vocabulary, vote it out of my life. But even if I refused to say it, or—and this seems impossible—refused to think it, it would still be there, a silent but persistent anxiety, an…
Read MoreLast week I posted about how people smile and gush when they see my little, beaming Zoë. What I failed to mention is that after some of them have exclaimed about her hair and her smile, they turn to me and say, “Where does she get the red hair?” or “Does she get the hair…
Read MoreI don’t post about Zoë very often because, well, she’s a baby. She does baby things: covers her face with pureed carrots; scurries around the wood floor collecting lint and trying to get it into her eager mouth before I intercept her. She dances, rocking her body like the tiniest Deadhead when she hears any…
Read MoreI’m embarrassed to say that I had never read anything by Ellen Bass until last week, when one of my lovely students (thank you, Ann!) e-mailed me this poem after it had been featured on Writer’s Almanac. (I’m reprinting it here with the author’s permission.) After Our Daughter’s Wedding While the remnants of cake and…
Read MoreI suppose it is impossible to hold onto the refreshed, I’ve-just-had-a-vacation feeling for very long once you are home and have stepped again into the day-to-day responsibilities of work and family and life. A few days ago I slipped on my running shoes and I noticed that they were still caked with the fine sand…
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