For whatever reason, Justin and I have lived near water together throughout our marriage. The two of us grew up about 20 minutes south of where we live in Santa Cruz, and spent some of our most formative years playing in the same sand that...
Read
"You look great, Steve!" I remarked as I passed our neighbor, dressed in his costume on Friday. "Thanks!" he fired back. "You look like a drowned rat"! I do now and I will always appreciate his honesty. I absolutely did look like a drowned rat after...
Read
I haven't quite grasped the practice of video taping my kids. Mostly I leave that up to Justin, and his phone fills quickly with all sorts of random clips of each child. There are baseball moments, first cartwheels in gymnastics, first rides on a two...
Read
When I was a little girl, I loved my teddy named Bobby and he came everywhere with me. As a pre-teen I cherished my Caboodle and coveted the makeup and nail polish that would fill it. As a teenager I was obsessed my guitar and...
Read
Like most adolescents, I was a pretty shy and self-conscious tween (like, before that was an actual term. I'm old like that). I fussed over my clothes and my hair, overthinking every single aspect of my appearance like my life depended on it. While I...
Read
Four weeks. I can barely believe it's been four weeks since Evvie was born. It's just like a new mother to say something like that, isn't it? A whole month. I want to mourn the time passing but the time has been so healing for our...
Read
I've been wanting to share with you the day that we brought Evvie home, but it's been a little raw for me up until recently. That day was so hectic, hardly the kind of serene and sweet "coming home" celebration we had hoped for, but...
Read
I've been downloading a lot of my mother's music lately. That nostalgia has been cushioning the walls of my mind like a thick security blanket as my emotions barrel around like wild horses. I can still hear the way her Crosby Stills Nash & Young and...
Read
About a month ago, I was closing in on my ninth month of pregnancy and going through a range of emotions because of it. I was physically and emotionally maxed out in just about every way; My back hurt, my legs cramped, I was generally...
Read
Walking into the our athletic club to take the kids swimming yesterday, a woman passed us and remarked "Wow, four kids. That ain't for the faint of heart." Little did she know exactly how faint in the heart I've been feeling the last week. It's...
Read
Jack started his second day of second grade today. It was a long and lovely, somewhat unstructured summer during which he appears to have grown about a foot. His hair went from brown to blonde from long days at the beach and afternoons playing basketball...
Read