There are few things in life more sobering than waiting with a child who is about to vomit. I have been to funerals, ill-advised weddings, under-rehearsed school productions, and awkward Sunday brunches, but all of those pale in comparison to the dread-filled silence before your baby “yawns in technicolor.” I held vigil for four days…   read more

I was appalled in mid-January when I received a catalog advertising Easter decorations. I had just swept the last of my Christmas tree needles away, and was proud of myself for just putting up some Valentine’s window decals. “I’m not ready for this,” I thought. Easter, you need to pack up your moss and Cadbury…   read more

During one of the first years we really started observing Lent at IBC, I was pregnant with my son Drew. He was the size of a lima bean in February of 2007, but he might as well have been Andre the Giant Baby. I was so, so morning sick. And so, so tired. Every day…   read more

(Chatter Letter from the editor, December) Whenever my high school choir would get too rowdy and loud during the month of December, our director would punish us collectively by making us sing all eight verses of “Lo, How A Rose E’er Blooming.” An old-fashioned English Christmas carol, “Lo, How a Rose” is an undisputed classic,…   read more

(Chatter Letter from the Editor, November) Have you ever fallen asleep in a chair? Maybe an airplane chair? An easy chair? Sometimes I fall asleep in theater seats, or in the passenger seat of the car, but none of those chairs compare to falling asleep in a rocking chair, or a big leather armchair by…   read more

(Chatter Letter from the Editor, October) When my family showed up to the IBC parking lot 25 years ago in our long brown station wagon, I don’t think we could have imagined what awaited us. I was six, and had just left half a piece of Juicy Fruit gum under the pulled-up corner of carpet…   read more

(Chatter Letter from the Editor, September) I have a tendency to treat my One Year Bible like a Christian horoscope. I don’t always read my One Year Bible, just so you know. Sometimes I read a devotional book, or a passage of Scripture from the lectionary, or even blindly open my Bible (secretly aiming for…   read more

(Chatter Letter from the Editor, August): The other day I noticed Madeline in the back seat of the car. I was looking at her in the rear view, and I couldn’t help myself. She was beautiful, smiling, alert, taking in the fly-by world from the comfort of her Graco. I was driving down I-30 toward…   read more

(Chatter Letter from the Editor: July). I have a hard time relaxing. Maybe it’s all that pent-up angst about the season finale of “Smash,” or my steady Diet Coke drip. It could be that I have not taken a weeklong vacation in eight years (does your honeymoon really count?), or that the grime on my…   read more

(Chatter Letter from the Editor: June) Think for a moment about snow. Ah, snow. Yes. I remember snow. It’s cold. Sometimes slushy. Always mysterious and fleeting, but never neutral. It delights or horrifies. It makes you catch your breath, or breathe a threat — at least in Texas. Snow is provocative; you must pick a…   read more