thematically fickle

…Ruby is enthralled with hers. I can’t say that I blame her. It is a fascinating, magical world down there and how is she supposed to know this if she doesn’t go exploring? Since she graduated to big girl underpants, she’s had easier access and lately, I’ve spotted her standing with her feet in second position, her legs slightly [...]

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Ruby was having her breakfast this morning and I was sitting across from her, tying my shoelaces, huffing and gasping for air, thanks to my pnuemonia which doesn’t seem to want to loosen it’s suffocating grip on my lungs. Who knew that bending over could be so rigorous?
As I sat up, the kid had one [...]

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Sam was straightening the bedroom and I was burying myself further beneath the pile of blankets, promising as I did so, to drag my ailing self out from under them in just one more minute.
From the kitchen, we heard Ruby exclaim, “Aw, mAAAAAn! What HAPpen my balOOn?!?”
And so began the explanation about a gas called [...]

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All I ever learned in school I get to relearn. 
My friend’s sixth-grade son Evan shuffled into my office the other day.
“Hey, Aaryn. Do you have a calculator?” He came around the corner, offering up a coy smile, his dark eyes partially hidden by a slightly askew, oversized baseball cap. He got braces two weeks ago [...]

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I swear a lot. Sam and I both do. But for whatever reason—probably because she’s an actual angel with an invisible halo and an agenda to deliver world peace and boundless love over the whole planet—Ruby hasn’t yet repeated any of our favorite expletives. And believe me, I’ve made every effort (including slow-talking, enunciation and [...]

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When I drive Ruby to “school” in the morning, I barely make it three blocks from the house before I can’t resist the urge to tilt my rearview mirror to reflect only her face. Seeing out the rear window is quite overrated, especially when I can look at the  silvery eyes of my child as I safely drive [...]

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When I was little, before my parents divorced, my father used to go out for a run every day. At least I remember it being every day but it may have only been on weekends. And on Christmas mornings. Which was sadistic since my brothers and I weren’t allowed to go downstairs to view the [...]

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I sat down to write this evening with lots to say. I was going to write about the three weddings we’ve attended in the past four weeks and my insights into what was fantastic about two of them and what was completely, utterly, bone achingly wrong about the other, which was every-last-thing, including the fact [...]

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There are days in my life, and thankfully they are relatively rare, when I feel as though I’ve never before left the house with my child. When I seem to be a complete novice at parenting in particular and human functioning in general. I walk out the door with purpose in my gaze looking in [...]

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