I don’t believe in a God that rejects newborn babies from heaven because they aren’t baptized.
In fact, despite being a practicing Catholic, I don’t believe in a God that rejects any good soul from the garden of Eden. I believe my (baptized) dad is up there, hanging with George Harrison and John Lennon, playing guitar [...]

My family
***
Shaggy Boy was baptized last Sunday, on a chilly, perfect fall morning. It was a much smaller affair than when The Poo joined our Catholic faith, but the people who matter were there.
Everyone except, of course, my father.
The brunch afterward was fraught with peril; almost everyone in attendance is feuding with someone else who [...]

There we sat, in a McDonald’s rest stop just west of Buffalo, listening to a political ad.
The ad called Barack Obama a chicken, for voting “present” in the Illinois legislature. My husband pointed out that the number of votes called during the candidate’s tenure was so high as to render the statistic irrelevant.
“Disgusting,” I said, [...]

I want to be a mommy when I grow up.
You do? That’s great, Poo.
Yes, I will have many, many babies. They will be ALL OVER Meema’s house!
***
I need to go out in the world, Mommy.
You do?
Yes, I need to maybe go out in the world and find some humans to marry.

The Poo is making me crazy right now.
It is as if she finally realized that her baby brother is a permanent fixture, and her jealousy has been out of control. She gets my attention in any way she can, chattering incessantly, asking ridiculous questions that have no answers, looming over Shaggy and attacking him with [...]

I’m repeating myself.
Life is repetitive by nature, no? The sun rises and then sets exactly the same way every day. We get up, go to work, raise our kids, eat our meals, go to school, visit family, argue, laugh and cry with predictability.
I write about my family, my grief, my very, very minor and insignificant [...]

I am always melancholy this time of year.
I took The Poo on a girl’s-only date this afternoon, to Old Navy and for dinner at a local grease pit. She was a handful today, all wiggly limbs and sassy mouth. She’s worn out from playing with her cousins, and she’s far from her home.
She needed me.
Off [...]

He is at the helm, I stand next to him in the well between the cabin and the captain’s chair. He is laughing, sunglasses glinting in the copper-penny sunlight of a late afternoon.
I am bending my knees to catch the bounce as we fly over the water.
“The lake is like glass tonight!” he yells, into [...]

My bed is covered in suitcases and clothing.
We’re packing up and leaving town, and the kids and I will be back East for the next two-and-a-half weeks. It’s been a long while since I’ve been back to our hometown for any length of time, and I’m excited to settle in for a few weeks.
There’s nothing [...]