Strange, the things that break your heart, then suddenly don't one day. A school bus stops across the street. It lurches and screeches and then starts up again. I watch it from my window, see the shadows of children inside, and I think, when did this stop hurting? For a long time after my youngest child finished school, that sound made me ache. I missed what it meant -
Read MoreThey stood at the bottom of an escalator at T.F. Green Airport in Providence Thursday afternoon, three little boys and their grandparents, the oldest boy no more than 4. He was holding a sign that spelled out with different-colored crayons, ``WELCOME HOME, MOM AND DAD.'' The sign was bigger than he was. I wasn't the only one riding the escalator who smiled and then swallowed hard seeing this. A lady who'd been on my flight wiped tears from her face. Even the hardest faces softened. I didn't hear the grandmother say, ``Look. There they are!'' But I watched her point and saw the boys - all three of them - find their parents in the crowd and light up the way only children can, everything that matters to them on that escalator coming back home to them…
Read MoreWe walked four-and-a-half miles the day before he was born. We didn't intend to walk this far. But city blocks go by fast because they're crowded with people and things, and before we knew it my daughter and I were sitting on a bench in Central Park, tired but not exhausted, though she should have been. But she was pumped then, and ready to burst like the forsythia and magnolia trees with their buds. Like the daffodils and the hyacinth, like all the unfurling things, she and they partners in creation, waiting for the sun, for warmth, for time, for whatever it is that coaxes new life into being. Waiting and waiting and waiting. `
Read MoreMiddle of the night is the worst. I wake now at 3 a.m., and hear the silence and think instantly about the noise on the other side of the world, and how lucky I am to be in my house, in my bed, safe. And how grateful I am that my son isn't over there. Or my daughters. These are my first thoughts. Then I think about other people's children, the faces I see in the paper and on TV - kids still - under all that protective gear, in harm's way, fighting an enemy no one understands.
Read MoreI wasn't surprised when I read that John Kerry was taking a break this week from the hard job of campaigning (talking out of both sides of your mouth CAN be exhausting) and jetting off in his own private plane to his $ 4.9 million Idaho getaway to spend down time with his lovely wife, Teresa. I wasn't even shocked to learn that his very luxurious bungalow is just one of five palatial homes he and his wife own. Hey, it's all relative, if you know what I mean…
Read MoreThe pregnant one can't come home to us these days. She's not supposed to stray more than an hour from her home. The baby isn't due for a few weeks yet, but babies are unpredictable, her doctors tell her. So Adam - he already has his name - could come sooner. He could come later. And while she waits, we drive.
Read MoreHer baby was 12 hours old. Her husband had gone home to get his parents. Her parents were in the cafeteria. She was with a teenage cousin when a stranger in street clothes - he never introduced himself, never said "Good afternoon, I'm Dr. So-and-So," walked into her hospital room and over to the bassinet and began inspecting the baby. "What are you doing?" the new mother - my daughter - asked.
Read MoreWe have a thing going, Al and I. Every morning, right after dawn, he stands across the street from my office window and he waves at me and I wave back. It's not a big thing. But it's nice.
Read MoreYou wouldn't want people, even people you love, phoning you every morning, then, heaven help us, singing their hello. A ringing phone plus a chirpy person before a second cup of coffee is definitely not a good thing.
Except when it's your birthday. Then you want the phone to ring. Then you're eager for everyone you know to do his-her rendition of "Happy Birthday to You," never mind how early it is because even though you're not a kid anymore, on your birthday you still are and you want the song and the celebration, the cake and the candles and everything - balloons, lunch, "It's your birthday, wow!" in between.
Read MoreBeth calls with another you're-not-going-to-believe-what-happened-to-the-kids-this-time horror story. She has five children. She never runs out of horror stories. One day last week she dressed the three youngest, sent them off to school and headed for work. At 11 a.m. she left work…
Read MoreShe wanted me to see the closet. “It’s so cute, Mom,” she said. “Scott did it.” Scott, the husband and hero, still. The guy who turned a patch of floor into a kitchen. The guy who figured out that if you moved the bed this way and coaxed the dresser that way, you could fit – not a crib – but a Pack-and-Play into the corner of their bedroom. The guy who transformed what…
Read MoreShe wanted me to see the closet. "It's so cute, Mom," she said. "Scott did it." Scott, the husband and hero, still. The guy who turned a patch of floor into a kitchen. The guy who figured out that if you moved the bed this way and coaxed the dresser that way, you could fit - not a crib - but a Pack-and-Play into the corner of their bedroom. The guy who transformed what amounts to a tall spice cabinet into a perfect little niche.
baby clothes
Read MoreTracey Newhart WILL get into Johnson and Wales. The powers that be will eventually see the light, because the light, in this case, is unflattering and neither the Commonwealth of Massachusetts nor Rhode Island's premier culinary arts school wants to be seen as the bad guy, keeping a young woman who has tried her hardest from fulfilling her dream.
Read MoreIt was tucked into the news Wednesday. Something about a treatment called "Gentle Waves" that can make old skin look young. You sit in front of a flashing light for 40 seconds and you can reverse the aging process. Except that it takes at least eight treatments at $ 100 each to begin to see a difference and the difference is, even then, subtle…
Read MoreHe came home New Year's Eve. I looked up and there he was, standing at my neighbor's door all ready for a party.
I didn't expect him. He'd spent Christmas in Scotland with his wife - her family's turn this year - and though she'd stayed the week, he'd had to fly back to work. I thought he'd be spending…
Read MoreOh, we have turned into a bunch of goofballs around my house. Look at us, oohing and aahing over a smile, a coo, a tiny fist wrapped around our finger, two arms fluttering like wings.
"Look how cute she is," we say 100 times a day. "Look how cute she is sitting. Look how cute she is sleeping. Look at her cute little lips and her cute little cheeks and her cute little hands and feet and fingers and toes." And on it goes - everything about this baby, exclaimed over and adored…
Read MoreThe world rushed to help the devastated city of Bam, Iran, first to rescue those trapped beneath mud, cement and rubble, then to bury the dead, feed the hungry, house the homeless - reaching out despite history and politics. A tear in the earth's skin, a shudder that buried 50,000 human beings, spurred this humanity.
Iran responded by opening its doors, waiving its strict passport controls, rebuffing only Israel. Seventeen hundred international relief workers…
Read MoreHe has a million good points. He makes me laugh. He cleans up after the dog when I gag and say I can’t. He takes the laundry to the dry cleaner. He never overreacts when I write a check or 10 and forget to copy the amount in the check register. He tells me I look good even when I don’t. He gives me his coat when I’m cold. And he gave me his car because it came with a Global Positioning System and I’m the one who can’t find my way out of a paper bag…
Read MoreTwo days before Christmas I logged on to AOL and there was the home screen reminding me that the nation is on high alert, because of a "possible grandiose terrorism attack." Directly underneath this, there were the "must have reads" for the holiday season. Now you'd think that the "top biographies" that we "must" read would enlighten us in some way because, God knows, we need meaning in our lives as well as a Sacagawea to help…
Read MoreWe added our granddaughter, Lucy, to the collage this year. But not sitting on Santa's knee. It snowed. She has a cold. So we sat her under the tree and clicked away making funny noises and funnier faces until she rewarded us with one of her blink-and-you'll-miss-it smiles. It's her first Christmas and Santa or no Santa, it was a Kodak moment….
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