In the kitchen, Evaline is wearing a blue tank top, carrying a naked baby doll in one arm and a purse over her shoulder. She is in shorts, in February, because I am too tired to have that fight one-more-time. As I hear her feet… Read More
During one of the cabin-fever snow days of this month (which has had so many, I am losing count,) Lila came to me to ask if she and I could do each other’s make up. I had not showered, had no desire to have little… Read More
So, it’s Friday. But unlike last Friday, or next Friday, this is the Friday where we live in a sea of doily hearts and construction paper love. Our kitchen table has been painted over in smears of pink and dots of glitter glue. (Evaline has… Read More
I’ve cried more this week than I can remember in recent months. I wept for the family I wrote of recently. I prayed and then I cried, not because I’m terribly close to this family, but because in faith and in motherhood, we are alike. We… Read More
We’re sitting at the table, surrounded by a morning’s worth of Valentine craft scraps. Alex is in the middle, tapping his pencil ferociously, fidgeting his feet, shaking his head. I’ve asked him to write neatly. To copy sentences, instructions really. He is writing, over and… Read More
I stood in front of her, knelt to her level, eye to eye, for as much as she could look at me. Her eyes darted over my shoulder, down to the floor, back to mine, again and again. Her eyes fluttered, watered, welled up and… Read More
Wait. Expect. Ponder. Wonder. Eleven months of rushing, racing, scrambling over top of ourselves, for this. This short moment each year, where we sit and we wait. We expect. We ponder. We see the wintry world through the eyes of our children and through our… Read More
Evaline is my slowest speaker, but also the best of my children at saying what she needs, when she needs it. Lately, this need has been me. I will be standing at the counter when she comes alongside me and slides her little fingers into… Read More
I doodled with my kids this week, Christmas and winter themed pictures. Gift boxes. Trees. Snowmen. As I laid down a crudely drawn ornament on the table for Asher to color in, Alex marveled at the works of my hands. You’re a great artist, Mama.… Read More
It rained this morning (story of the this summer, I’m afraid.) Lila came in from the street, where I called her back from circling the brown murky puddles. Don’t go jumping in the puddles today, please. I said to her. But I’m not. I’m just… Read More
The Frozen Moon 