Letter to my children: on catching leaves and turn down services

Dearest Beloveds,

I wanted to take a moment and say thank you for our amazing life. Thank you both for being bright eyed and bushy tailed (thank you Baba), for being curious, for being my hearts - jumping and running and balancing through this amazing life. Thank you both for looking out at the world this month and immediately exclaiming to your sibling, “Let’s go catch leaves!”

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Letter to my children: On being unplugged

Letter to my children: On being unplugged

Dearest Beloveds,

This story has echoes of "when I was your age we walked to school uphill both ways in the snow," but that can't be helped. I want to share this story with you because maybe it will make you feel that sense of time and change that I felt with Aunt Louisa told me that when she was a child there was an actual cow, named Betsy, who lived in the CowBarn.

A cow slept in the building where your father and I spent our honeymoon.

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Contented Baby and Contented Dementia

When we were pregnant with the Bean, I devoured Gina Ford’s The Contented Little Baby Book. Her unparalleled surety in her schedule was an anchor of sanity for me as a new parent.

A few months ago, I was recommended the book Contented Dementia by Oliver James. Aside from an apparent British obsession with the word contented,* I wanted to write about both of these tomes as they feel like bookends of my life right now.

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Letter to my children: On faith

Letter to my children: On faith

Dearest Beloveds,

I have recently been reminded, thank you again Amma’s Circle of Love Letters, about the myriad faces of faith. I feel like I spent many years thinking that faith and surrender were intellectually weak and hokey. Boy was I wrong. They are difficult to intellectually rationalize and not easily grasped by the thinking mind - but that is not a strike against them (as I thought at one point).

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Letter to my children: On choosing a mate

Letter to my children: On choosing a mate

Dearest Beloveds,

The word mate is so funny to me - it rhymes with skate, connotes zoos, and makes me feel as though I need a tail. Partner is a good word too, but it also works for businesses. Though, I guess, a marriage is rather like running a business (servant leadership, open book finance, negotiating, the art of compromise, long term planning, a vision - thank you Zingermans) especially once children get added to the mix. Husband and wife are loverly as well. But I think mate is the best word for what I want to talk about.

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Letter to my children: Privacy and Dictionaries

Letter to my children: Privacy and Dictionaries

My dearest Beloveds,

Dragon, you reminded me this week of a consistent pairing that happens with parenthood. The trace bit of sadness and heartache that accompanies the excitement, thrill and pride when you master a new skill - the both and of life. In this instance you told me that you no longer want me to sit with you when you go potty.

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Letter to my children: On regret

Dearest Beloveds,

The summer of my 19th year, I lived with Winkie. She was in her 90s. Several memories stick out from that time. After spending the whole night out with friends, swimming in moonlit pools and drinking, “hmmm, I guess I just need to get used to the morals of 19 year olds,” she said to me with a twinkle at the breakfast table, “pass the toast please.”

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