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A-Little-More
A Little More: Looking back, saying goodbye
It was a little more than a year ago that I received an email in my in-box from a woman named Kristin. She'd read one of my stories (I think it was an essay about my oldest son Carter's broken leg) and was wondering if I'd like to submit writing ...
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A Little More: What not to say
Nearly 5 years ago, I found myself at a wedding in a city far from my home, away from my 3-month-old twins who'd been born prematurely, and had recently been released from the NICU. The fact that I would leave my family at such a time to travel to ...
A Little More: Olympics, Special and otherwise
My middle son Avery is sitting too close to the television, which is an old fight and not one I'm particularly interested in revisiting at the moment. Like most of America, we've watched the dazzling opening ceremonies of the Olympics in Beijing ...
A Little More: Surprises of the green kind
A remarkable thing happened, here in our little valley where nothing much seems to be going on most days, where the grasses have grown tall and the seed-heads keep them heavy and nodding, sleepy, especially in the late afternoons. ...
A Little More: Heart moms
This was just after the twins were born and we'd gotten home from the NICU: the phone rang and my husband Tom took the call. A few minutes later, he hung up. There was a dazed expression on his face. "That was the pediatric cardiologist," Tom ...
A Little More: Saying grace
Here's one thing you might not know about my son Avery: before each meal, he insists that we all say grace. In our family, that means we join hands and say a little prayer, a simple rhyme for babies and small children that goes like this, "God is ...
A Little More: To ask, or not to ask
The man at the library, walking with 2 canes, drags his thin, weak legs behind him up to the water fountain, and one of my boys asks, "What's wrong with him?" I lift my finger to my mouth in the universal sign for "shhhh." All 3 of my children ...
A Little More: Red, white and blue
"You look like a flag," my husband Tom tells me and I smile, because I know what he means. We go through this every summer in the days leading up to the 4th of July. It's a bit ridiculous, I know: cheesy and sentimental and a little over-the-top. ...
A Little More: Pinwheels
I usually work in the mornings when the house is quiet, before the rush and hum of our lives takes over the day, like so many parents everywhere--trying to carve out a few extra moments; trying to keep my hand on the slim thread of my life before ...
A Little More: Bait-and-switch
My 5-year-old son Avery is a master of the bait-and-switch. This is what I mean: if we're working on his words, and I say, "Cracker," he'll say, "Dadah," and I'll say, "Try again, cr...cr...cr...cracker" in my loud, clear, speech-therapy voice, ...
A Little More: Now we are 5
The 2 little boys, Avery and Bennett, sit at the kitchen table and Tom is there and big brother Carter, too, and we are the perfect birthday scene: me carrying the homemade layer cake on a big white plate across the kitchen, everyone singing the ...
Stumble, fall, get back up again
If today were a book it would be Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. I woke to a puddle of puppy pee waiting by the back door. Bailey, the guilty party, doesn't like to be out in the rain, and it's been raining rainy-rain ...
Smells like summer
My 4-year-old son Bennett says, "It smells like the pool, Mommy" and I know exactly what he means. He's talking about the bleachy smell our new towels have, which reminds me, too, of the chlorine in the swimming pool at the hotel we visited ...
Believing in the impossible
The 2-track dirt lane that wanders into the little valley we've been calling home lately splits off from itself. You can follow it to the weathered and worn 70-year-old log house, or you can take the path that leads over a hill and through a ...











