My Mother's Day couldn't have started any better than it did--after days of rocky sleep and after hours of instruction by Scott the night before, both kids let me sleep until 8:30. 8:30! This was a wonderful and much-needed change from Saturday morning, when L. woke us up at 5:00 a.m.--worked up we think from anxiety about the babysitter who was coming that morning to watch the kids while Scott and I headed off to our respective college's graduation ceremonies. [more]

We have a silly tradition at our house on Easter Eve. We have many silly traditions in general around here, but this may be one of our silliest. On Easter Eve the kids pick out teacups from T.'s plastic Fisher Price tea set and we put them out in our bunny rabbit Loopy's cage. Once a year, the highlight of Loopy's life is that he gets to have tea with his old buddy the Easter bunny. They wait all year long, those two, for that one night when they can get together, munch on some timothy hay, drink some carrot tea, and reminisce about the good old days. [more]

This past weekend was perfect--beautiful, cloudless blue skies and temperatures in the 60s all weekend long. On Friday, as Scott and I flopped, semi-comatose, on the couch, trying valiantly to stay up later than usual (because it was, after all, Friday), we decided that we'd set Saturday aside as a day of no worrying about things we can't change, no talking about where to send T. for kindergarten, no thinking about health insurance benefits (or lack thereof) for this and that, or workload woes. [more]

I was speaking with a friend recently about party-planning, and she confessed to me that she hates cooking. It stresses her out, and makes her feel incompetent and flustered. I'm the exact opposite: Cooking actually relaxes and de-stresses me. When I'm in the kitchen, mixing and pouring, or kneading dough, with the smells from the different ingredients rising up around me and my T. helping in her own messy ways, I feel a sense of peace and calm. [more]