Five minutes seen + heard, and a prayer:

I am in Rite Aid buying C batteries and a 3-pack of scotch tape, and I pause in the isle of match box cars, considering a pair of matching red and yellow ones to stick in the boy’s advent calendar for tomorrow, and there he is. Towheaded, not quite waist high, in a blue action [...]

How to fall in love with your life: the wisdom of little boys

Bean is watching my every subtle move. We are in the middle of a game of “alligator” and Sprout, perched on the couch cushions above us launches himself suddenly through the air, chubby thighs bare, and lands between his brother and me, straddling my chest, laughter erupting. Alligator is a game that Bean invented. It [...]

No one prepared me for this: The end of my baby’s babyhood

He’s out in the sandbox, sunlight falling across his cheeks, and I am at the table writing. Through the window I watch him wipe his eye; watch as he rubs sand into his forever long eyelashes. He rubs it again, this time like I have taught him-—not with his sandy fingers, but with the sleeve [...]

On motherhood and messes, creative process and apple pie:

Today there is rain and the final splendor of leaves the color of the summer sun, sumacs flutter with fronds of flame, the poplars are already bare. There is wood for stacking, bulbs to be put into the damp, still-soft ground, and the last of autumn’s apples for picking: small and hard, with thick skins [...]

Surviving Summer: An In-Progress List Of Little-Boy Awesomeness

In the process of perfecting the art of moon walking, I’m also becoming increasingly adept at wrangling and loving and wrestling little boys. I’m starting to understand that this is a part of my art. This almost-balance, this in-motion gesture of my life towards and away from them in the very same instant. This push-pull, [...]