Category Archives: Uncategorized

Girls are different. From boys. This is continually pointed out to me by my friends who are mothering daughters. This I already know. Awash as I am in this sea of testosterone that I live in, and drown in, the only female living with five men, believe me, I’ve noticed. I like boys. I birthedContinue reading “Part 7: Cain and Ophelia”

So I have spent the last couple days ruminating on this.Here’s what happened.A peripheral member of my husband’s family shared some thoughts with me recently. She said approximately this:I have to talk to you about your sons.(Sharp intake of breath…mine)I see how wrapped up you are in them and how wrapped up they are inContinue reading “Part 13: Old Bloody Home”

I would comment all the time when pregnant with Christian that he did not ever seem to sleep. Because he was not my first baby I started feeling movements early, as is typical. And it seemed that once I became aware of him, I was continually aware. What seemed at first to be a perceptualContinue reading “Part 3: Unusual Gifts/My ADD Romance”

I read a while ago in my new book “I Never Metaphor I Did Not Like” (that’s really the name of the book too) that the parents of a pod with a single pea are very likely to confuse it with the Hope Diamond. I found this both hilarious, and true. And hilarious mostly becauseContinue reading “Part 5: The Peas in the Pod”

I have always had dogs, at least one, my entire childhood and young adult life. A series of purebreds and pot hounds that I lovingly tended and cossetted and spoiled. In order of appearance: Jinx, Tommy, Gasparee, Rusty, Zulu, Skippy, Benji, Nikki, Lady, Jolie, Kyrie, Toddy, and lastly, weighing in at a hundred and twenty pounds, myContinue reading “Part 11: Of Dogs and (Almost) Men”

My friend Coco languished in a maternity ward in London last week. Thanks to the U.K.’s system of socialized medicine, wonderful in many ways, challenging in others, she moaned to me that she had seen twelve obstetricians to date and had been cheated of developing a relationship with the doctor who would deliver her child.Continue reading “Part 4: Deliverance”

I first came upon this idea of eating to remember while reading a cookbook. And yes I do read cookbooks. My mother, no fan of the culinary arts, would marvel that I would do this. I read recipes for things that I have never made, and likely never will make. While in the kitchen waitingContinue reading “Part 17: Food, Love, Memory”

Blue Footprints in Snow Marley was going. To preserve his dignity, and to bring an end to his pain, we chose when, and where. It would be on Saturday, and it would be here, in our home. Marley’s home where he learned to fetch and sit and shake paws. Where he stole whole slabs ofContinue reading “Part 15: Blue Footprints in Snow”

Yes I know. I was not blessed with any girls. I have four sons – but hoped each time for a tiny baby daughter, and at the start of each pregnancy I called my belly and the little bean it held: Mary-Meghan, Kaitlyn Elizabeth, Emily Rose, and Isabella Jayne. All the way up to theContinue reading “Part 19: Daughters – The Bipolar Bears”

choo•koo•loonks (n) i. A Trinidadian term of endearment, used especially when addressing a child. ii. A person of rounded form and ample proportion. My mother has always said that I was nine pounds when I was born. My baby book says 8lbs.10oz. so I won’t make her a liar for 6 mere ounces. Literally sixContinue reading “Part 16: Chookooloonks – A Love Story”