When the Earth Moves

There was an earthquake in Virginia and we felt it all the way up here in New England. Well, some of us did. Now, unless you're at the epicenter, east coast earthquakes are unlikely to do more than knock over the lawn chairs. Living through one is no more traumatic than sitting on a porch swing with someone who fidgets, and it feels precisely like that.

On Becoming Ima

​We'd been together ten years before we got talking seriously of having kids. We'd always planned on children, but we needed to work out the when and the how and - unique to lesbian parents - the who.
Over those years, we’d frequently played something akin to Mr Potato Head, taking our favorite parts of ourselves and sticking them onto our future children: “She’ll have your legs.” “Okay, but your sense of humor.” “He’ll be really smart.” “But I hope he gets your hair.” Etcetera. We had talked often and at great length about our values and our views on discipline, education, creativity and chores, enough to know that we were well in sync. We had not discussed what our children would call us.

The End of the Summer and The Funnest Camp Ever

The kids went into full hysteria last week at the mall when they spotted a display of backpacks. Printed above the display, in something like 500 point type was “Back to School”. My son immediately began shrieking and keening, wordless sounds of melodramatic anguish. My daughter, for once, did not tell him to shut up and stop acting like an idiot in the store. “But we’ve only had two months,” they both protested. “TWO MONTHS, and it’s all gone and we didn’t get to do ANYTHING!” And so began a new round of their summer-long complaint about “having” to go to camp.

The Ten-Year-Old Entrepeneur

As I have mentioned before, my daughter will be a fashion designer. She has a phenomenal eye for style, a winning aesthetic and - this may be her most important asset - one wicked entrepreneurial streak. Oh, in recent months she's done the lemonade stand thing because it's something her friends enjoy. They never sell enough to recoup the cost of the lemonade but it's fairly cheap as an entertainment, so what the hell.

But a couple of years back, while the girls down the block were watering-down Kool-aid, my daughter set up a face painting stand.

Google Cycle

Psst, come here. We’re still a small group here, so come close. I’m 50, I’m a mom, I’m moderately talented and for once in my life, I’m working on making a living at something I’m good at and enjoy. And I do enjoy it. I run the dingoes in the morning, taking notes on my thoughts and ideas, come home and craft that into something worth reading, maybe cartoon a bit to make it more fun and entertaining, then post it.

ADHD Playdate

My dogs both have tracking transmitters. While our family doctor may raise all sorts of weird, fussy "ethical" objections, I'm hoping the vet may be an easier sell on my proposal to have one placed on my daughter.

Diva is ten - ten - and I haven't seen her for three days and perhaps only a dozen times since the start of summer. Oh, she's not missing, or anything. She just sort of has a life of her own which, at present, has taken her to a marathon sleepover/playdate. What the hell... it's summer, right?

Mashed Potatoes and Twigs

There is a phrase that I find so hysterically funny that merely uttering it in my presence will cause me to go into convulsions of helpless laughter; the breath leaves my lungs, my face spasms, something seismic rolls through me and I can't stop. It can go on and on — waves of laughter — for upward of fifteen minutes. Look at me funny at any point during an episode and it can start all over.

Perchance to Dream...

I'm having some difficulty sleeping. Oh, blame it on the heat, or my propensity for drinking coffee until very late at night, but I have another theory. I'm a night owl by nature; I get bursts of inspiration and tend to do my best thinking sometime after midnight, so on a typical night, the rest of my family is already in dreamland when I finally stumble up to bed (this time of quiet solitude may account for the timing of my inspiration, but there you go). Only the dogs snooze by my side or underfoot waiting for me to call it a day.

Wild Child and the Diva

My daughter is a rock star. That is to say, take away the wealth, the fame and the trips into and out of rehab, and whatever it is that makes someone a rock star, she has it.
The "new girl" in school doesn't typically have an easy time making a friend and fitting in, but when Diva started a new school mid-year, the girls (and boys) began competing for her friendship. She's not popular; rather - and we make much if this distinction at home - she is well-liked. She's funny and fashionable, she likes everyone by default, and she's kind.

First Person Shooter

One of the things we agreed on even before we had children was no “war toys”. Now, understand - I spent my childhood days with the neighborhood boys, all of us armed to the teeth, playing war. My evenings were typically spent in front of the TV watching coverage of the real war. My spouse was ROTC and a crack marksman. One would think that it might have occurred to us that our own childhoods, steeped as they were in violent play, nevertheless produced the kind of adults that, well...ban war toys.