A high-school friend of mine had only one older sister and didn’t understand the pains that younger siblings could be. She seemed to like being around my little sister and brother. In the summer of 1972, my friend drove over to my house. She decided we should take my younger […]
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Memorial Day and a Tantrum To Remember
I described my son’s tantrum in my last post, so it’s only fair that in this post I describe one of his sister’s—her first tantrum, in fact. It occurred on Memorial Day, when she was just two weeks old. My husband and I took our family to see his parents […]
Continue readingNeeding a Boppy (Don’t We All?)
My son and I were reminiscing about his childhood recently, and we got on the topic of tantrums. “You didn’t have many tantrums,” I told him. “Not like your sister.” And he didn’t. But I do remember one phase of tantrums he had. My son was almost always a good […]
Continue readingCelebrate Children’s Book Week
The 95th celebration of Children’s Book Week begins May 12, 2014. Children’s Book Week is designed to foster the love of reading in children. It is the longest-running literary initiative in the United States, and is administered by Every Child A Reader, a 501(c)(3) literacy organization. I’ve written before about […]
Continue readingIcing on My Cake for Mother’s Day
My daughter was born the day before Mother’s Day. Some years her birthday has been on Mother’s Day—including her first birthday. Obviously, a small child’s birthday takes precedence over Mother’s Day. Even a grown daughter’s birthday takes precedence in our family. But I’ve never minded sharing “my” day with my […]
Continue readingMother’s Day Memento
On one of the spring vacations my family took, we were in a gift shop full of tchotchkes. Neither my husband nor I am fond of tchotchkes, and I was ready to move on. Nothing in the store looked interesting to me. But our children wanted to browse, to find […]
Continue readingHopping Down the Bunny Trail
As I’ve written before, we didn’t spend many holidays at home when my kids were growing up. We typically went to grandparents’ homes to celebrate. And that was true of Easter as well as Thanksgiving and Christmas. Plus, my children’s spring break was usually the week before or after Easter. […]
Continue readingMy Son, My Mother, and Hallmark Cards
Several months ago I was cleaning out a drawer that should have been cleaned out long, long before. I found a file of greeting cards from the year my son was born. (I won’t say the year, but I will say he was born in mid-February, in the middle of […]
Continue readingMy Grandfather’s Quest for Sulfa
I didn’t know my grandfathers as well as my grandmothers. Maybe it’s natural for a girl to spend more time with her grandmothers. Maybe it’s because both my grandmothers had more forceful personalities than their husbands, my grandfathers. My maternal grandfather died when I was not quite ten, but I […]
Continue readingMemories of Cold
We are ahead of pace on snowfall for the season, and the average low temperature this month has been about 18 degrees below average. It is cold. Monday morning this week, the temperature in Kansas City was -11 degrees. As luck would have it, I was scheduled to be in […]
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