Have you read Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking? It chronicles the period after the sudden death of the author’s husband’s and the concurrent illness of her adult daughter. It is starkly written and trance-like in nature.
On the back cover is an intriguing photo, one with such interesting composition and mystery that I found [...]

When I’m dissatisfied with someone, I can usually trace the feeling to a dissatisfaction with myself.
So, if I could truly love myself, would I more easily love those around me?
I’m critical. Don’t know if I get it from my dad or if I’m hard-wired for it. My dad always wants to make things better — [...]

All I wanted for Christmas that year was the fashion show stage on which to perch my Dawn doll.
And I got it. And a ton of other stuff, too. Christmas at my childhood home was always a little out of control, and these days, it’s a veritable orgy.
Which is not necessarily a good thing.
Here’s what [...]

During this holiday season, big thankfulness is what we usually aim for. Yet there are countless opportunities to feel gratitude for the small things. This is one of my moments of micro-thankfulness*.
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I’m well aware of my shortcomings as a mom.  I lack enough patience. I don’t engage deeply and often enough with my kids. I [...]

It’s November, and you know what THAT means.
Decisions and predictions. As in those two words that give me hives: open enrollment.
For those who are fortunate enough to have a job –  a job with benefits — this is the time of year to decide what coverage to pay for and how much we think [...]

I had long struggled with the idea of adoption as a second choice — pregnancy being the default setting and thus the first choice.
Why the struggle? After all, I had ended up in exactly the right place. I wouldn’t want my family to be any different than what it is.
But how to explain this [...]

A couple of Saturdays ago, I, PrincessDIE!, and my husband, Osama bin Skatin, took our children on a family date night. Where did we find good, clean fun?
At the Denver Roller Dolls matchup of the championship-defending Bad Apples and the challenging Green Barrettes. (Disclaimer: children are free, and the Denver Roller Dolls comped us two [...]

In January of 2003 I took a crash course on bi-polar disorder in children.
In a weekly email, our adoption agency told us and other waiting families about a situation. Normally it doesn’t happen this way. Normally, a couple waiting to adopt eagerly awaits The Call announcing they’d been chosen to parent a newborn.
But when circumstances [...]

CONTEST CLOSED. CONGRATULATIONS TO WINNERS JANELLE HRUBY AND ELENA DAVIS-STENHOUSE!
My face hurts from smiling. I’ve just taken my kids to JungleQuest.
And watched them fly through the air with the greatest of ease. And swing and squeal and climb and conquer a rock wall and expand their boundaries.
It was a thrill — as the parent who [...]

My Dad once told me that we are all TABs: Temporarily Able-Bodied. Being young and invincible, I dismissed his statement as a middle-aged mope.
Years later, I finally see what he means.
In February of 2007, my sister’s husband complained of numbness in the hands and feet. He got on to WebMD and self-diagnosed before [...]