How many Lego pieces can you handle?

The Lego Mania starts something like this: You stumble over a Lego box the size of a small car in your living room two weeks after Christmas. 1,490 pieces of complicated machinery.Oh, and some Legos. “Are you ever going to start this?” you screech. This is your first mistake. Prepare for dinner on your lap […]

It’s a wrap: Christmas wrapping

Our dad once estimated that our mother purchased 250 gifts at Christmas. This was for us three girls with a few aunts, uncles, grandparents and friends thrown in (who were lucky to net one each). We think he was a little shy of the actual number. While we can see our father’s point that this […]

Hauling wood with Dad

Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from my work-in-progress — a novel about losing my mom and finding her again, leaving home and going back and about childhood. The parts like this, about my lovable swearing father, made me laugh when I wrote them and repeat them to my friends as long as they would […]

Gardening with kids

Best flower. Ever. In celebration of spring… here’s a little piece on trying to garden with children that I wrote back when the kids were smaller and drove me madder…. The only way to get any gardening done is to do so under the guise of a game. This is a fine line. Be careful […]

Gulf Shores family trip

Editor’s note: Many of you are suspicious that I am “Lainey.” So, confession: While some parts are fiction (if my dad is reading this, this passage is complete fiction), most of it is me, the me that misses my mom, loves to bike and to cuddle my kiddos. It’s a book that I hope talks […]