5 Waters Please, Mommy

Washing up quick between courses on Christmas Eve. A voice by my side, my nearly 7 year old son, asking: 5 waters please, mommy. First thought: I’m out here washing up and being asked for something? Second thought: Who does he think he is making demands? Almost give a smirk, almost say: Do I look […]

Dear Old People in Families

Dear Old People in Families, You’re not really old, I know that. When you look in the mirror you are surprised to see an aging face looking back at you while your insides feel no more than 25. I get that. I feel that way too, on my perch atop these past 40 years. I […]

Cameron

This is a speech from my new play hippopotamus. In hippopotamus four moms all have kids in the same pre-K. Their attempts to navigate a motherhood/work balance are complicated by being the stay-at-home mom in a two mom family, being married to the object of an adolescent passion, becoming a newly single mom in a […]

Pushed and pulled

Yesterday I felt pulled in two directions. I’ve talked to other artist parents about this, about this pull, and yesterday, not for the first time, I felt it. I’d had a super productive day planned. Work at my job-type-job in the morning, then drop off my brand new laptop for repair (I think I got […]

Bathroom bees, mornings, and saying “yes”

Bees in the Bathroom There’s a bee in the bathroom. He’s dead, and he’s next to the cabinet, on the floor. The bathroom’s been cleaned, but the bee remains. The first time I noticed the bee was was a few months ago. I asked my brother-in-law, who’s been living with us for a while, to […]

So long 2013, thanks for all the poop!

It’s not quite the end of the year, but I’m closing the category. 2013 was the year of potty training, a year when poop had to leave the comfy confines of the disposable diaper and make its way out there in the world. And what a way it was. We started potty training C a […]

Making mommy friends

My kid keeps asking if one of his friends from school can come over. My first thought was that the tables had turned, and now parenthood wasn’t a question of incorporating my child into my social life, but he asking me to facilitate his. My second thought was that this was sweet, that my child […]

Open letter to a long lost uncle

Dear my long lost uncle, I’m sure it seems a little out of the blue, my getting in touch like this. My grandfather asked me to write to you, and his being a person I respect, and care for, I agreed to do it. He mentioned that, since I’m a writer, I might have success […]

what lies inside the folder

When C started school this year, his teacher asked parents to get backpacks that would fit an 8.5 x 11 folder. On the first day of school, all the kids showed up wearing backpacks that were almost as big as they were. There were Avengers backpacks, Doc McStuffins backpacks, Elmo backpacks, backpacks that screamed girly […]

Moving

We pulled up to the house and all my stuff was on the sidewalk. Neat piles of childhood possessions stacked atop boxes, atop white furniture gilded with gold trim. I never quite got a handle on my childhood possessions after that. I didn’t have a family anymore, not the one I knew. My brother and […]