She ruined her tennis shoes. That’s what I think every time I walk into my OB/GYN’s office for a routine check-up. This woman, a decade older and millennia wiser, ruined her tennis shoes for me. She also saved my life and my babies, all three of them. So when I read in New York Magazine that we’re about to enter an OB/GYN drought, a shortage of epic proportions, I wish I could book my next …

Game of Thrones has destroyed my life. If John Snow could hold a hand out through the television, I’d take it. I don’t care if he died and came back. I don’t care if he’d rather hunt White Walkers than settle down. And that he’s  in love with Daenerys. We all still know he’s just a Millennial with his beard-grooming shears in his pocket and flannel shirt under all those furs. But it’s Cersei that’s …

The special needs life is small and big. It’s small in that you feel like 90% of the other parents you meet can’t even picture what goes on within your four walls on a daily basis. And it’s big in the fact that it opens your life and heart wide open to other people who can help you and at least feel for you if not like you. It also makes you brave. I shared …

GENESIS 3:8-13 8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” 10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” 11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the …

I grew up working in the yard. This wasn’t making daisy chains and dancing through the daffodils. This was dirt under your fingernails and grubs in the mud. By five I was the designated mulch spreader, by eight the lawn mower, by ten the the edger and weed eater. Adolescence saw me earning every penny of my ten-dollar allowance through sweat and blisters and grass stains. I never thought of it as exercise though. It …

“Rub some dirt on it.” It’s the standard-issue command to shake it off and move on when life knocks you down. Everywhere you look, the message is clear. Don’t worry. Be happy. Worry is every mom’s ugly step sister – the one who lolls about all day forcing her to do the heavy lifting and locking her up when the party starts. Worry, however, can be a good thing. Worry, in all its glory, can …

Do you remember the Y2K freak out? Were you one of the people in Time Square partying like it was your last night on earth? Are you still using up those canned goods and toilet paper from your emergency cache? Nobody knew what to do when the binary code flipped over, except the computer nerds of course. They never lost their cool. I’m a nerd myself, but I’m a literature-loving, crossword-working, NPR-listening geek. I can’t …

In my head, I carry a spreadsheet that consists of several pages with two running columns. The first column contains the imminent. The second column contains the long term, marathon-not-sprint, items. The twins share a page. Jody and I share a page. Charlie has a page. The Twin Page: Imminent: Long Term: Feed breakfast. Get them to navigate the food all the way to their mouths instead of their laps. Change the poopy diaper before …

EXODUS 3:14 14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” I’m still thinking about last week’s topic on aging. If it’s not a specific age that defines us, that leaves us satisfied, then what is it? Because we all have to explain ourselves somehow. We will pencil in a definition if none is forthcoming. If you ask my daughter …

Everybody touts the benefits of mastering the art of empathy. Feel your feels! It’s true, this is crucial. Empathy creates compassion, which fuels activism. It creates a fighter for the bullied, the oppressed, and the underrepresented. It builds a barrier against callousness. It’s the perfect vaccine against jadedness and cynicism. Hence, every parent wants to be an Atticus educating a Scout. We want them to walk in another person’s shoes for a little bit to gain …