Of Mice And Kids
Photo: Oleg Kozlov For months, my kids begged me for a pair of pet mice. In fact, the word "beg" doesn’t do justice to the extremes my girls’ went to in order to convince me to invite mice into our...
View ArticleThis Is Not Your Father’s Pinewood Derby
Photo: Loretta Hostettler January 1966. Dad and I sat at the kitchen table for an entire weekend to make my first Pinewood Derby car. We took turns whittling on a huge pine block with my new Cub Scout...
View ArticleOregon Fail
I should know better. The man has four mounted elk heads in his garage. He casts his own bullets. He has been known to disappear for weeks at a time and return looking like Brad Pitt in Legends of the...
View ArticleOld Gorillas Never Die
Assigned to clean the storeroom during one of my wife’s semiannual organization rampages, I sift through the jumbled piles of stuff with the determined patience of a paleontologist. Broken toys,...
View ArticleA Squirrelley Tale
Photo: David Hart Sometimes life’s lessons are learned in the strangest ways. Perhaps it’s necessary. We might not recognize them if they came to us by more conventional means or they might not have...
View ArticleDriving Donuts
Photo: Peter Suneson “Mommy, can I drive?” I look up in surprise. Earnest, expectant blue eyes reflect in my rearview mirror. “Uh, no,” I say slowly. I’m about to laugh at the suggestion until I...
View ArticleAn Open Letter to My Sons
Photo: gardnose/stock.xchng To my sons (and young people everywhere who want to change the world): There is no "right" way. Especially right now. I can see it in your eyes: a fire, really a spark...
View ArticleCo-operative living as a family
Photo: notto86/Flickr When my husband and I decided to move to Madison, Wisconsin, several years ago, I was pregnant with our first child and planned to quit my job to care for our new baby full-time....
View ArticleA Frog Named French Fry
Photo: Adrian Gtz With boys, it is inevitable that on any given day, your house will become a museum for the many life forms that have been captured. I have tried to implement the rule that unless...
View ArticleWarning: Babysitters Come with Some Teen Angst
Photo: by Meggan DeJesus Babysitters are to a marriage as elephants are to a circus: both would be pretty lame without them. (And, yes, you might have guessed analogies were not my strength on the...
View ArticleOf Mice And Kids
Photo: Oleg Kozlov For months, my kids begged me for a pair of pet mice. In fact, the word "beg" doesn’t do justice to the extremes my girls’ went to in order to convince me to invite mice into our...
View ArticleThis Is Not Your Father’s Pinewood Derby
Photo: Loretta Hostettler January 1966. Dad and I sat at the kitchen table for an entire weekend to make my first Pinewood Derby car. We took turns whittling on a huge pine block with my new Cub Scout...
View ArticleOregon Fail
I should know better. The man has four mounted elk heads in his garage. He casts his own bullets. He has been known to disappear for weeks at a time and return looking like Brad Pitt in Legends of the...
View ArticleOld Gorillas Never Die
Assigned to clean the storeroom during one of my wife’s semiannual organization rampages, I sift through the jumbled piles of stuff with the determined patience of a paleontologist. Broken toys,...
View ArticleA Squirrelley Tale
Photo: David Hart Sometimes life’s lessons are learned in the strangest ways. Perhaps it’s necessary. We might not recognize them if they came to us by more conventional means or they might not have...
View ArticleDriving Donuts
Photo: Peter Suneson “Mommy, can I drive?” I look up in surprise. Earnest, expectant blue eyes reflect in my rearview mirror. “Uh, no,” I say slowly. I’m about to laugh at the suggestion until I...
View ArticleAn Open Letter to My Sons
Photo: gardnose/stock.xchng To my sons (and young people everywhere who want to change the world): There is no "right" way. Especially right now. I can see it in your eyes: a fire, really a spark...
View ArticleCo-operative living as a family
Photo: notto86/Flickr When my husband and I decided to move to Madison, Wisconsin, several years ago, I was pregnant with our first child and planned to quit my job to care for our new baby full-time....
View ArticleA Frog Named French Fry
Photo: Adrian Gtz With boys, it is inevitable that on any given day, your house will become a museum for the many life forms that have been captured. I have tried to implement the rule that unless...
View ArticleWarning: Babysitters Come with Some Teen Angst
Photo: by Meggan DeJesus Babysitters are to a marriage as elephants are to a circus: both would be pretty lame without them. (And, yes, you might have guessed analogies were not my strength on the...
View Article
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