On Saturday I had the privilege of seeing life from the confines of a 4 x 7 foot cell. Not as a result of petty theft or even because of solidarity with my imprisoned Christian brethren, but because I closed the door to the bathroom. And it was broken. And I’m an idiot. You have…   read more

Well, folks, it looks like I have a potty-trained child. Aren’t you thrilled? If you read this blog regularly, you are, because this means you will now get to enjoy a vast array of new topics related to world affairs, recipe mishaps, and celebrity speculation, instead of all things poop and poopy pants and pedestrian…   read more

I like to play a game called “Would You Rather” with my sillier friends. It’s kind of like Truth or Dare except without the dare and where the truth is entirely hypothetical — just the kind of game risk-adverse control freak first-born romantics love to play. Each person takes turns answering questions like, “Would you…   read more

On Thursday Drew begins preschool. It is a lovely preschool and he has a lovely teacher who has lovely dimples. The (lovely) doorknobs on his classroom doors are brass with an actual keyhole, like keyholes in movies where mice are always peeking through to spot blocks of cheese. I might have chosen this preschool for…   read more

I helped give a baby shower this weekend for a friend who is expecting her second son. There must have been trace amounts of progesterone debris orbiting my head because I was delighted every time she unwrapped a onesie. Jill’s most craft-y friends were the ones giving the shower, of course. And then there was…   read more

(Preview: Chatter letter from the Editor, September 2011.) Right now there is a man with a bad attitude in my house. I don’t know why he is so testy, but I am grateful for the opportunity to use the word “testy.” Well, maybe I do have a small idea. He is, at this very moment,…   read more

Last week was our first-ever bona fide family vacation. We went to Destin, FL with my in-laws, my sister-in-law and her hubby, and their 6-month-old baby girl. Gordon and I had been excited for months, but of course Things One and Two didn’t know what to expect, or what hit them when we finally arrived….   read more

OK, confession time: There MIGHT have been ONE or TWO times this week when I smelled that Drew had defaced his underwear and then pretended not to notice. Gordon was home and I was waiting for him to detect it “first.” I would find other pressing matters – the tiny weed sprouts emerging from the…   read more

Sometimes medical professionals have a hard time diagnosing me. It’s not that I’m made of steel or that I am from the planet Tatween; it’s that I’m somewhat of a hypochondriac plus there was that time I drank the tiger blood. My heart arrhythmia from college was first thought to be caffeine-related, then due to…   read more

I write two blog entries a week and sometimes that gets to be a lot. Not that I don’t like writing. I love writing. It’s just the sitting down to, well, write that gets to me. So I put it off, sometimes until 9 p.m. the night before. Which can really pay off. A lot…   read more