Mamma Mia!
Aren't you lucky?
My boys were running ahead of us as we made our way through the forest. They were shouting happily, skipping and hopping, and dashing off into the bushes now and then to pick the wild raspberries that grew along the path. My husband and I followed them, accompanied by our friend and his two-year-old daughter. We were chit-chatting about this and that when we came to a lull in the conversation, and, as parents are wont to do, we all let our attention fall on the children frolicking ahead of us. Read more.
It's the Little Things That Matter
We had just gone swimming at the local indoor pool. My seven-year-old son and I were in the changing room after our shower when I pulled out the clean clothes I had brought for him.
"Here you go!" I tossed a pair of Bob the Builder briefs to him.
"What? Did you bring those? I don't wear those any more! I'm too big for them," he emphatically declared. Read more.
The Soundtrack of Their Lives
Won't you take me to Funkytown ...
won't you take me to Funkytown ...
won't you take me to Funkytown ...
won't you take me to Funkytown...
Lipps Inc. are blaring from the radio in the kitchen. I am grooving along with my best embarrassing-mother dance, with thoughts of junior-high dances in my head, when my eight-year-old interrupts my visions of ripped sweatshirts, bangles, and dangerous amounts of ozone-depleting hair spray. Read more.
The Real Truth About Mothering
(Warning: The essay you are about to read contains graphic details of real-life mothering. If you suffer from weak knees, a sensitive stomach or an aversion to others' bodily fluids, please read no more. You have been warned.) Read more.
May the force be with me!
I am old enough to remember when the first Star Wars films came out. My little brother, Lowell, was a serious fan of the first three films, paradoxically actually numbers 4, 5, and 6 in the planned series. He was the lucky owner of blue Star Wars bed sheets (with a hot Princess Leia kneeling in front of an odd-looking Han Solo), the soundtrack from the original film, and countless action figures about four inches high. We listened endlessly to the cantina music on the LP record and had long discussions about whether Chewbacca was a real creature or not. Lowell probably slept every night in those blue sheets. He set up battles for his figures in the sand dunes of the undeveloped desert behind our house...until the day he got tired of Star Wars and buried the figures in that same desert. According to family lore, Lowell did this on purpose as a new twist on the final fate of Luke, Leia, Chewbacca, and Han Solo. The Dark Side prevailed! Lowell, however, claims he just forgot them out in the desert. Forever. A house was built on that lot in later years, once and for all eliminating any possibilities for him to retrieve his childhood collection. No one in our family missed the toys. Star Wars was part of our childhood circa 1977-1983 and well, who needed a not-so-gently-used collection of plastic action figures? Like disco and pop rock candy, no one really expected a return of the Jedi or anyone else from Star Wars. Read more.
Mother Knows Best...At Least Sometimes!
To say we were shocked would be an understatement, although in retrospect I am not so surprised. After all, it was the late 1970s and my mom was as hip as the rest. She experimented with making tempura vegetables and eliminating white sugar from our diets, and some time between these projects, my mother gave away the television set. Yep, you read right. We came home from school one day and there was an odd empty space in our living room, like the gaping hole of a child's first lost tooth. She had simply given it away. Read more.