the mud

No one hangs on my leg any more as I leave the house. Only the dog. No one wants to know where I'm going and when I'll be back. Only the dog. No one responds to my texts about shopping when I ask what everyone wants. No one runs to greet me when I return home. Only the dog. No one gets underfoot to carry the groceries in and help unload. Only the dog. Everyone comes when I start cooking dinner and wants to know what that smell is. Even the dog. 

Every day in August is a Sunday... maybe you've heard this before, probably from a teacher. Every day in June is like a Friday, every day in July is like a Saturday, and every day in August is like a Sunday. All that anticipation of BTS. My nieces have a rule not to use the "S" word. You know, the one that starts with s,c,h. Shh - don't say it. That time of year when everything ramps up - kids, paperwork, forms, shopping, planning, packing, scheduling, and trying so hard to fit in one more moment of summer and to APPRECIATE it before it's all gone. I don't have any advice. I don't know how to relish the days or to make them last longer. I don't know how to slow things down. I think trying to just makes it worse. I've tried countdowns and picturing today as the last day of summer and none of it works. I asked a teacher friend how many days he had left before returning to school and he said, "Oh, I don't count." So I'm trying that. ...

 One of the great joys of parenthood is when your child comes home. It doesn't really matter where they have been, just that they are home. Sometimes it can be from school and you were worried when you sent them out the door, about their friends, their tests, their work. Sometimes it can be from an outing and you were hopeful things would go as planned or as they imagined. Sometimes it is from their first job and they walk through the door exasperated and exhausted and you can cook them something and they feel better. Sometimes it can be from college and you are so grateful to see them again and hold them in your arms. And sometimes it can be from very far away after a very long time and they are transformed from when they left you. And you have to pause and say, Oh my goodness. Who is this? Where have you been? How are you? How are we now that you have this new story to tell?  This week Matt got home from Alaska, after 40 days working as a fishing quality control monitor on a...

  I have a recurring dream where we live in a house and we suddenly realize there is another whole room that we didn't know was there. It's usually cute and just needs a little touch up. They say these dreams occur when we learn something new, or have a new awakening. Well, this is about an awakening of sorts.  I am sitting here, in my back porch, which is enclosed in screens and windows and a little door outside, which is why I say in. And as I sit here, I've been working all day. And as I've been working, I've been literally lamenting the fact that I don't have a desk or a better place to sit, or a place to store things, or a place to do more. I am sitting on the couch with an old TV table from the attic in front of me and a little pencil holder and papers spread all around me. I lean forward to type and it's annoying. The cushions from the outside furniture are piled next to the windows and they are annoying too, haphazardly thrown about and piled. And I...

A crew mom from Charlie’s high school asked me for pictures from last year's end-of-year celebrations so that she can replicate some of the traditions we had. I was anxious to check through these emails so I could cross things off my growing list. But as I scrolled through old pictures, I got caught in a net of memories, people and places and smiles I’ll never forget, of Charlie’s days of high school rowing, which weren’t that long ago. Looking at his bright face through rowing, and prom and graduation, his seventh-grade awards ceremony, his third-grade class trip, then suddenly sitting in his college sweatshirt, not knowing yet what the future holds. How can this be? How can this moment have gotten here so fast? It still seems impossible to think that he is off to college. I just can’t help but see him as the little kid I relentlessly hugged without thinking, the little guy who ran around the yard chasing his older brothers and sister, the youngest and the easiest in so many ways....

 When my kids were small, I would watch things happen and think, "Thank God there is a guardian angel watching over them." They would just miss the corner of the table as they fell off the couch. The glass would fall just inches from their face. The baseball would just miss their head as they went for a catch. Once I came home to see police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks in front of our house. A woman had driven her car up on our front lawn and had just missed where the kids had been playing with my husband a few moments before. Guardian Angels. Then there were times when it wasn't a miss, but a hit: the broken bones, the cuts, and scrapes, the poison ivy that sent us to the emergency room. (Yes, it was that bad.) But there were angels in the ER too.  I thought that guardian angels were part of everyone's childhood. We used to say a prayer in elementary school, "Guardian Angel, my guardian dear, to whom God's love commits me here, ever this day be at my si...

 No these are not the words from my kids to me, they are from me to you: Moms out there who are doing it. Love you Moms, who show up Love you Moms, who do the toughest work behind the scenes. Love you Moms, who put a smile on when all you want to do is cry, or at least nap. Love you Moms, who offer a welcome to the newcomer, and a banana to the kids. Love you Moms, who show vulnerability and bravery. Love you Moms, who cut through the small talk and get to the good stuff. Love you Moms, who share the hard parts. Love you Moms, who share the recipes and the gardening tips. Love you Moms, who listen too. Love you Moms, who know what it is to pray, all day and all night some times.  Love you Moms, who are carrying the loaded bags of goodies for our boys, my boy too. Love you Moms, who are carrying heavy burdens. Love you Moms, who lightening each other's loads. You are amazing. You are beautiful. You are powerful. You are holding it all together and yet starting to breathe. You a...