Are you done with your holiday shopping yet? We're not. Scott and I have been spending the past three mornings in various stores, our long list clutched in our hands. And although I wish we had done more of it earlier, it's nice that now that the semester is over, the two of us get some one-on-one time together to shop, and talk, and catch up. And kid-free holiday shopping is so much easier to get done. [more]

It's that time of year again--the time for endings and beginnings; for saying good-bye to classrooms and teachers and the old ways of an old school-year. I look at the second-graders at L.'s school and they seem suddenly all arms and legs and missing front teeth. They carry around Harry Potter books and beloved webkinz, and talk about big kid stuff like THIRD grade. At T.'s school the kids are coming into their own, suddenly, dividing themselves up by boys and girls; T. comes home with gossipy-like tales of who did what to her, and why. [more]