Posts tagged “working mom

Seriously though, how are you?

Posted on March 31, 2020

We are in the third week of all five of us being home. The animals are bewildered, delighted, and exhausted. We’ve severely cramped their napping schedule. Sean and I are finding a rhythm. It’s inconsistent and unpredictable because we can’t forecast which of us will have an emotional dip. When we fall into the darkness, the other rallies and takes the lead on managing the schedule. The girls have been unbelievable. They tackle their school work, follow a loose daily plan, and actually hang out with one another. They haven’t had a miraculous turn around on excitement about changing the cat litter or doing the dishes, but I think I was bracing for way more fighting and complaining. Ha! The fretting is way more…

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Seasons of Marriage

Posted on October 27, 2016

A couple of weeks ago it was time to take the docks out of the water at camp. We had been stalling, partly because it was going to be the first time we did it and we were uncertain and partly because we weren’t ready for summer to be over. Summer, for us, has always been the season of now. Now we can rest. Now we can have fun. Now we can be together. We met during the summer of ’99 at Williamstown. Truthfully now took a while there and it had to be worked for almost beyond what was possible. Still, summer, and even the crisp days of spring that lead into it, have been our favorite.   We knew we had to…

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Small Steps to Big Things

Posted on February 17, 2016

I’ve been pretty open about the darkness I’ve experienced over the last 12 months. Looking back, there was never a moment when I thought, “Huh, I only write about shiny stuff here, I should explore the underbelly of parenting, marriage, and self-image.” It has felt right to put it out there. My gauge is how I feel when I lean back from the laptop and scan the letters staring back at me. Am I weeping? Do I feel relief or clarity? Every post is a walk or a run, I’m moving toward something and getting there can be smooth and feel effortless, other times it can feel like I should give up entirely. It doesn’t matter which way it goes down, when I hit…

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How is it February?

Posted on February 9, 2016

My last big act of 2015 was the culmination of wanting control over one part of my life. I ached to create a clearly defined and sustained period of time spent focused on the girls. I didn’t want it to be commercial or rooted in eating, no shopping, no Starbucks, no movie watching or even reading. I wanted something you can’t choreograph or even plan for, but I tried. I’ll say right now that I should let that be enough, to have tried and to have done so with love, I think that’s it. My method was to make the advent calendar a mechanism for bringing us together. All those days stacked up together, each with some element that would connect us, no matter…

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Love, Doubt, and Guilt Dance on the Head of a Pin

Posted on February 3, 2016

“Do you even know what I wore to bed last night?’ The question made contact like a right hook. Finley and I were waiting for the bus in a driving rain. I’d worked late the night before and, as I always do, I’d slipped into their room to kiss them goodnight. I brushed my lips as delicately on Briar’s face, knowing that despite her pleas for me to wake her, she would start disoriented and upset. Ave, up in the top bunk, is the heaviest sleeper, but never fails to murmur, “My mama, I love you,” before rolling over and back to sleep. “You know what, honey? I don’t know, but I did come in to kiss you last night.” I said the words…

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