My aunt has no children, and my mother has only me, and this has been their shared sorrow and their shame. In their world, to have so few children is a mark of...
Family
My father hates Christmas. We have a picture of him lying on my parents’ couch, wrapped up in a blanket, wearing both a Santa hat and a look of utter...
In the middle of June, on a bright, hot, green, snow-is-the-furthest-thing-from-my-mind day, my middle daughter looked across the breakfast table and asked...
In 2012, for baptism preparation, my husband and I brought our 3-month-old son down to a musty church basement where a nun played us a 20-year-old religious...
Until I had children, I didn’t understand Mass as an athletic event. Before we even get to the homily, a point when many Mass-goers get to sit and relax, I...
Thwack. The kickball ricochets off the front of our house and the arguing begins. “Safe!” yells Henry. “Run to second!” yells Thomas. “I got you out!” yells...
On an exotic vacation our son took with my brother and sister-in-law, all travelers brought a playlist of five songs that said something about them. Fallen not...
When my husband and I decided to home-school our children, one major concern we had was about their socialization. I do not mean that we were worried about our...
I don’t know how old I was when I was first introduced to Henry David Thoreau’s admonition “to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life,” but it must have...
I should take them to Utah. Like all of my crazy ideas, this one popped into my head while I took my morning shower. As a divorced dad who lives six hours away...
