The kids have this writing curriculum at their school in which every year begins with "small moments". As a writer I get this: the moment begets the scene, which begets the idea, which begets the plot and so on. (I love this about their school.) If the blog died a quiet death in 2017 it wasn't for lack of small moments. It was because those moments weren't mine. The year belonged to other people. Other people's battles. Other people's pain. Other people's triumphs. The false starts and the great, big, smiling, deep, breaths. I was a bystander, and a support system. I ... [READ MORE]
Jump
July 17, 2017 by 1 Comment
This morning, I woke up and I remembered I like to write. Maybe it was the journal my friend gave me yesterday. (Maybe, the journal was a hint.) Maybe it was reading a blog post my sister texted me in the night, that struck a chord. Whatever. This morning, I woke up and I remembered: Yeah. This is a thing I do. In June, I watched my daughter -- little Babygirl! almost six years old! -- slide off the side of a pontoon boat in the Pacific Ocean to swim with sea turtles. LittleMan screwed his courage to the sticking place and leapt from the deck. It never stops blowing my mind, that we ... [READ MORE]
Recipe Roundup No. 12: Monday Musing
March 20, 2017 by 1 Comment
The clouds rolled back in with a vengeance yesterday afternoon. The kids and I were caught unawares, having been at a gymnastics birthday party that worked everyone into a sweat, but we emerged from the ritual pizza-and-cake to find that our spring temperatures had dropped and our t-shirts weren't going to cut it. I have a good spot here on my living room couch on Mondays. Through the sliding door next to me, the deck looks bright and pretty despite a gray sky (and windows that need a cleaning if this rain EVER STOPS), the bridge soars above the choppy Bay waters, and through the rails of ... [READ MORE]
Oscar Night in Wine Country
February 27, 2017 by Leave a Comment
I'm lying all curled up in a bed in a Hilton in Santa Rosa. For the record, I've been lying in this bed for THREE HOURS. For the record, it's 9:36pm. It's been grand. I literally cannot remember the last time I spent THREE HOURS -- three reasonably day-lit, dinner-bath-and-bedtime-ish hours -- doing so much of absolutely nothing. Besides watching the Oscars! Drinking wine! And doing an experimental "energizing Korean face mask" that my beauty-guru girlfriend gave me for Christmas! I feel simultaneously giddy and terrible. Surely, somewhere in this world, there is laundry to ... [READ MORE]
Strange Places
January 23, 2017 by Leave a Comment
These are strange days. The rain has been endless, the news has been relentless, and the children have been so sick. Fevers and sniffles and that croaking cough that haunts our sleep. I spent all of last Wednesday night in the octopus-like grip of Babygirl as she hacked her way restlessly through the long, dark hours, the humidifier bubbling steam into the bottom bunk. I awoke after intermittent rest with a stiff neck and a child no closer to being healthy. We have been housebound, all of us together in this apartment high above the city, for what feels like weeks. I am grateful for our ... [READ MORE]
Hello, Again
January 6, 2017 by 1 Comment
Further evidence of my incredible photography skills. The sun was shining straight into the Tahoe house and the kids were watching Home Alone 2, and I was finally (finally) revisiting the blog. I was going to write about how being a parent of small children sometimes just doesn't offer many chances for reflection. And just when I was typing that, my children decided they were bored and wrestled one another off the couch, so I stopped reflecting in order to keep the peace and set up a craft station. If that's not life in a nutshell half the time, I don't know what is. Part of the problem ... [READ MORE]
Six Year Itch
October 4, 2016 by 2 Comments
I came across this article today and it touched a nerve, largely because this is a topic I've been wrestling with a great deal lately. I'd love to hear some reader feedback on it, honestly...this blog has been around for six years now and it continues to evolve, and in recent months I've really grappled with the fine line between sharing myself and sharing my children in a public forum. They never asked for this. When I started Less on the Floor in 2010, it was a blog about food. Baby and toddler food, specifically, and the experience of interacting with my then-two-year-old son ... [READ MORE]
