My kitchen sink faces the back of our lot one neighbor’s graveled yard literally five feet from the window. I’ve known the comings and goings of this neighbor from my post, heard her crunching steps and listened to the clip-clip of laundry hanging. I watch demurely, hoping she doesn’t catch my eye through the sparse […]

I know that the end of a five-day break with all six of us home is not the time for an introvert to be asking hard life questions. It is rarely the time for anything more than quiet, fresh vegetables, and sleep. And yet, here I am: wondering, asking all those questions, putting them up […]

Her hair, almost always unkempt, is so very HER: wild, untamed, feminine, beautiful. She asked me to snuggle with her last night, a request I’ve committed to always answer with a ‘yes,’ not wanting their smallness to pass me by because of long days and a strong desire to lay on the couch. It was […]

My boys took off on bikes the other day, just to ride a bit around the neighborhood. I stood in the parking space in front of our home and surveyed the outdoor toy box, amazed at how many of faithfully-played-with contents have gone unused in the last year or so. It hit me like a […]

Rainy season came a few weeks late this year, so it’s July 1st with a forecast of clouds and wet for the foreseeable future. All the fabric in the house has begun to feel a little bit damp to the touch, and our rock-garden yard is exploding with all manner of green. The kids were […]

I remember the moment I knew this would be different: sitting on the floor in my room at the midwife clinic, nursing my two-day-old while explaining multiplication tables to my oldest. How far apart these worlds are, I thought. The world of school and homework and navigating friendships, and the world of nursing and night-waking […]

Life is busy. It makes it hard to know what to write. Do I talk about the memoir I just finished reading? The books on my nightstand waiting to be opened? (My metaphorical nightstand, anyway. I actually haven’t had one in years.) How about my experiences with language, and my renewed desire to study kanji? […]

We are in the midst of a string of rainy days. It’s been this way for weeks: three days rain, one day of clouds, two days rain, one day of clouds. Welcome, Spring. (I’m over you, by the way.) Along with incessant rain comes the beginning of the school year. As buckets in the sandbox […]

I’m sitting in the creaky glide-rocker we bought on sale at Nebraska Furniture Mart when we were newlyweds and found out we were pregnant with Jones. Our duplex was still in boxes, and our first purchases for it were this rocker and a micro-suede loveseat that my kiddos jump on in the playroom next door. […]

I’m thinking God knew what he was doing when he decided to give me another baby. (Surprise, surprise.) Last night, it occurred to me while I was bathing 3/4 of my children that I’ve been much calmer about Jones’s homework since Ivy arrived on the scene. And also about sibling squabbles. And whether or not […]