Letters To A Dying Boy

January 19, 2012

(UPDATE BELOW) Tomorrow, Tanner will undergo a surgery that will, hopefully, prolong his life. But it’s a dangerous surgery, and he and his mom, my sister, have had to travel far from home and family for this surgery, and she’s scared, we’re all scared, and it’s hard. The struggle around the bullying before the holidays seems – for better or for worse – far away and insignificant; what matters now is that he get through this, that my sister gets through this, and that getting through this serves its purpose, that it yields more time with him, and good time [...]

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Now Is The Winter Of Our Discount Tents

January 25, 2012

So, winter came to New York. For, like, one day. Which caused Emilia to ask whether it only snowed in certain parts of New York City, because it’s so big, and couldn’t it be possible that there’d be different weather systems north and south of Central Park? It’s plausible. She also asked me if I [...]

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The Mommy Wars, Redux: Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?

January 12, 2012

Oh, hey! Remember when I posted about being unfriended on Facebook for being a stay at home? I received the following message via Facebook today. I think that it’s pretty awesome. And by awesome, I mean, so profoundly insulting and ignorant that I actually yelled out “REALLY???” Catherine – I know I probably shouldn’t say [...]

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Why We Tweet When We Tweet When Tweeting Seems An Odd Thing To Do

January 9, 2012

Last week, someone in our community lost her home in a fire. She tweeted about it, and the community rallied (not least because of this dear woman), and although there’s no real happy ending when someone loses so much, it seemed, at least, that one could keep faith with humanity as caring and good. But [...]

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Rudolph’s Shiny New Year: Big-Eared Brooklyn Preschooler Edition

January 3, 2012

If I hadn’t been present at Jasper’s birth, and very personally involved in that birth, I’d swear that there was some kind of ‘separated at’ thing going on here: I’m not even going to remark on the ears. Those ears. THOSE EARS. We would start calling him Happy, after the Rankin/Bass character that he so [...]

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So This Was Christmas

December 28, 2011

… and this – blurry, with shredded gift paper and monsters – pretty much sums it up.    

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The Most Real Things In The World, And Also Santa Claus

December 19, 2011

Scan any set of Internet headlines this week and odds are that you’ll see something along these lines: Imagine There’s No Santa, No Virginia, There Is No Santa, and Why I Don’t Tell My Kids About Santa. You’ll also see classics like Should You Tell Your Kids About Santa Claus? and When Should You Tell [...]

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The Week That Was (Pink Earmuff Edition)

December 16, 2011

So, you know. This week. This week was hard. But the whole thing about being a grown-up is, however hard things get, there is still always life to get on with. Work to do, kids to attend to, cats to feed. And, at this time of the year, elves to move from shelf to shelf [...]

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Seriously, World.

December 13, 2011

My sister met with Tanner’s teacher, to discuss the bullying. This is what one is supposed to do, as a parent, to address bullying. One goes to the teacher, and one sits down with the teacher to discuss what’s been happening, and an appropriate response is determined. In a case like this one, where the [...]

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Sticks And Stones And Things That Hurt, Badly

December 8, 2011

Tanner is being bullied. Tanner is being bullied, and it is breaking our hearts, and we don’t know what to do. All bullying is horrible, of course. I’m resisting the temptation to insist that the bullying of Tanner, who is disabled and terminally ill, is horrible by a whole different order of magnitude than ‘ordinary’ [...]

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If I Could Save Time In A Bottle

December 5, 2011

I did a gift guide the other week. It was kind of fun, not least because it was totally a tongue-in-cheek gift guide – not that Brainy Smurf isn’t good for awesome gift-giving advice, but still. That said, if I were to do a serious gift guide, which is to say, one that took seriously [...]

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← Previous Entries

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