My son Henry turned two on August 22. On the eve of his first birthday, I went through his tiny baby clothes and heaved profound guttural sobs over the loss of my little newborn son. I remember him seeming so big compared to his first onesies, and...
I often think to myself, “One of these days I'm going to look up some charming ideas on Pinterest and spend the day with my son Henry making bumblebees out of pool noodles and painting every surface in the house with chalkboard paint.” I place...
We like to take our toddler Henry to the Monday night City Band concerts in City Park. But I'd be lying if I said he peacefully enjoys the music. While he listens, he also pokes his fingers in the irrigation control valve covers, smacks the metal...
Last month at my 15th high school reunion in Woodstock, Vermont, I had a chat with my class's valedictorian. She's nowhere to be found on Facebook, so this conversation was a genuine catch-up — that is to say, we didn't have to pretend we had...
Does “AXYDLBAAXR = LONGFELLOW” mean anything to you? In a cryptogram puzzle, each letter stands for a different letter of the alphabet. I don't like to brag, but I've been doing newspaper “Cryptoquotes” with my mom since I was a kid, and I'm a real...
My brain is like a cobwebby attic where I spend most of my time labeling boxes of things and putting them on shelves. That, or making sprawling lists of things to do or remember. Or just chasing rascally squirrels out with a broom. When I...
“No, no, no, we don't throw our food on the floor,” I find myself saying for the zillionth time, wagging my finger. I thought that when my toddler Henry mastered the fine art of cutlery he would stop flinging pasta all over the place, but...
