I've had a love/hate relationship with February for most of my life now. Up until I met Scott, my feelings tilted strongly toward the hate side of things. February, the shortest month of the year, just feels like the longest one. I tend to spend most of February torn between wishing for a snow day and longing for the first breath of spring. February has always felt like a month to trudge through, face braced against the wind. Even the daffodils that spring up around here prematurely every February seem sad rather than cheery--it's all a big tease, and it's long. [more]

When L. was first born, a dear older friend (and mom of five children!) gave me a blank notebook with calendar pages and told me I should write down all the funny/interesting/important happenings in our new child's life. It would be especially important, she instructed me, to write down his first words--those first declarations of self out into the world. And I did try to commit as many of these as I could to paper, that first year and a half of his life. [more]

In one of my classes last week, we talked about the concept of universal truths--known also as absolute truths--and about the need human beings have for each other. An absolute truth, by the way, is an unalterable and permanent fact, and we all have different understandings of what absolute truths are in our own lives. In my class we talked about how humans need connections, and that it's impossible for a person to exist in isolation and flourish and survive. [more]

I ran to the store for the third time in three days yesterday. I hate weeks like this week, when time constraints prevent us from making one big shopping run on the weekend, because I spend the week shopping in bits and spurts and spending too much money in the process, I'm sure--no, I know. The other day I joked with the cashier at Harris Teeter about a giveaway she was plugging--log onto the website and enter my name to win $1,000 in groceries.

"Wow," I said. "That won't buy much."

And she agreed, and we laughed, but it's really not funny, when you think about it. [more]

I'm going to make a dramatic departure from my usual wordy (too wordy?) posts and give you these photos instead, not only because yesterday was a long day indeed, as most Mondays are, with too many things to think about and too much thrown into the mix, but also because I think the photos speak so perfectly for themselves. I'm sure they will strike a chord with parents of feisty, I-just-turned-FIVE-and-can-do-it-on-my-own-thank-you-very-much children everywhere: [more]