Well good gracious. It has been a full six weeks or so since I last posted, which means it must be summer vacation. Which is, apparently, the most hectic time of the year. You heard me: more hectic than back-to-school, more hectic than Christmas. Heck. Tick. Mercifully, this hectic-ness is punctuated by sublime spurts of rest during which it seems wrong to fire up the old laptop and blog, when one could be doing nothing, for heaven's sake. So here we are. Mid-to-late July. How did we get here? By way of five summer camps and Bridgehampton, for starters. All while my office is ... [READ MORE]
On Bikes and Battles, and the Picking Thereof
June 12, 2013 by Leave a Comment
"It's a good thing I feel like I've been slapped with the happy stick!" I laugh, staring at the stopped Bay Bridge traffic in front of us. "Here!" I toss my phone at my husband, who, left alone in the front of the car, is quietly obsessing over the cause of the standstill. "Take our picture!" My knees are the most prominent feature in the photo, wedged, as I am, in the back seat of our Subaru Impresa (a "city alternative" to a station wagon), between Babygirl's car seat and LittleMan's booster. Little Man's new bike is riding shotgun. This is our very first family camping trip, and ... [READ MORE]
Hiatus
June 10, 2013 by Leave a Comment
On the last day of May, the Robot had to go. If you have been keeping up with my fashion posts at The Eagle's Nest you know about The Robot, which required the donation of a shoebox to the art class. As it turned out, LittleMan, upon learning his options, actually chose to use a boot box -- and if you know about women's shoes, or shoe storage in general, you will understand that the two are not the same. A boot box is considerably larger, and then rendered even more so with the addition of plastic-cup feet, a plastic-hanger antenna, some bottle-pump arms, and protruding eyes made of ... [READ MORE]
The Jelly Bean Jar
May 23, 2013 by Leave a Comment
"One forgets about parenthood — the on and on-ness of it." - Downton Abbey As ever, the Dowager is given the best line. Our darling daughter has reached a "stage in her development" where her only purpose in life is to interrupt (at best) or totally disrupt (at worst) any activity her brother is engaged in, leaving me in a constant state of vigilance to maintain a tenuous peace. Got a check to write? A lunchbox to pack? Too bad. In the two seconds it takes to uncap a ballpoint pen, Babygirl has parkoured across the livingroom and onto the couch, the better to pull out giant chunks ... [READ MORE]
Not a Top-Ten List
May 12, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Because it's Mother's Day and I'm drinking champagne, a short list of things that I say out loud now that I'm a mom, and they make me chuckle. (Who body-snatched me, again?) 1. "I've found his feet...Now, where, in God's name, is the rest of R2D2?" 2. "Guido rolled under the fridge again? Okay, just let me get the long-handled spatula and a flashlight." 3. "But seriously, babe, what do you think the audience reaction was in 1980? Because Empire Strikes Back is honestly SUCH a middle-child kind of movie. I bet people were sort of pissed." 4. "All right, you can have another ... [READ MORE]
My Kingdom, and a Half-Bath
April 9, 2013 by Leave a Comment
"I saw a slug on my walk this morning, LittleMan. Do you think he knows Jabba the Hutt?" "Don't be silly, Mommy! There are no big slugs like Jabba the Hutt in this neighborhood. Jabba lives on Tatooine. We live on a planet called San Francisco." Oh, LittleMan, you have no idea: Long long ago, in a far away galaxy, there was a tiny, shiny planet called San Francisco. Known throughout space as the last refuge of liberals, vegans, hippies, gays, and tech junkies, for the first decades of the new Millennium, the Planet San Francisco had been encased in a shimmering housing ... [READ MORE]
Hot Town, Summer in the City
April 3, 2013 by 1 Comment
Life is one big learning process, and one thing I am learning this month is that random school holidays are often the enemy of the working parent. It's funny, actually, because as an educator myself I have always loved school holidays and considered them a terrific perk of the profession. But now that I have a son in "real school" I am realizing that: 1) there are an inordinate number of school holidays; 2) all schools have different holiday calendars; and, of course, 3) the rest of the world keeps on turnin' -- meaning deadlines still need to be met, phone calls answered, dollars raised, ... [READ MORE]
