Perfectly Normal

Slipping the ring off her finger, Julie gave it to her mother for safekeeping while she swam with my kids. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it except her mother…

Maya, my middle school daughter, has one. “Trixie” was chummy when Maya had gum at lunch and when she was creating the invite list to her Laser Zone fourteenth birthday…

Almost everyone I know has at least one alcoholic in their family. Ours is no exception. A realistic depiction of our family tree would have some wine, beer and whiskey…

When I was young I had paper dolls. I punched out perforated girls and put them on stands. They sported outfits held up by square tabs. My daughters have an…

Attending a performing arts middle school gives my daughter opportunities to explore characters both like and unlike herself. The past school year found her in not one, but two Peanuts…

It was a last-minute decision to cut out the full-color photos of Lennart Nilson’s beautiful book, A Child is Born, and slip them into page protectors for my Sunday morning…

As I set up for our kindergarteners’ and first graders’ OWL class, several books are showcased on a side table. One is titled, One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dads, Blue…

2011 marks the 15th annual day of silence on April 15th. The website asks, “What are you going to do to end the silence?” On tax day, thousands of students…

Teachers know not to use the word butt in class. Instead when they want kids to sit down they say, “Sit on your pockets.” They will reference the bum, bottom,…

I’m a bit of a collector. I don’t have Starbucks bears, coins or shot glasses from around the world, but I do have questions. Since my own children started questioning,…

It was almost 9:00 on a Friday night when the phone rang. “Hey mom, it’s Jamin. There are a bunch of kids over at the sleepover and they are playing…