

Graduation Parties, Pomp and Circumstance and the Parental Paradox
You are not alone, post high school graduation, if you are counting the days until they have to live on their own. The love is uncondition


ZagZig Memories of Ziggy Zagging at the Zoo
The zoo is one of my favorite places to go, and not just because it reminds me of our house with four kids, three dogs and at one point or another, cats, a fish and a lizard. Some days the kids are like the gorillas that choose when they want to engage with or ignore you behind the glass, and the dogs think I am the zoo keeper, ready to clean up their mess when they decide is it too rainy to use the outside facilities. Last week I had the privilege to take some kids from the


Warmhearted Wisdom from the Woman Who said Color Outside the Lines
This weekend we, in the United States (as it is a different date in other countries), celebrate a day dedicated to mothers and maternal figures. It also is fitting that we, multi-tasking women, share Mother’s Day with a number of graduation celebrations across the country. For the past couple years, Mother’s Day has been bittersweet as I am sure it is for most people whose moms passed away much too soon. She, who I called Mom, and our kids called Mimi, intuitively knew I was


Prying eyes wide open: accepting present over perfect
Perhaps my mom was right. (As I typed this I got a vision of her doing the told-you-so dance in heaven with a smile on her face.) She told me over and over as a parent to stop looking ahead at the next step and to just be present in the moment. I protested a number of times, explaining to her that if I caught something early, we could address it sooner -- a deficiency in large motor skills, a concern about hearing issues when a child slept through ANY noise, and uneasiness ab