Heptadecagon

It's Tim's birthday. I won't say which one, but he isn't celebrating a milestone. (Although, shouldn't every birthday be considered a milestone? I mean, really, you made it through another year. That's awesome, right?) But he's old enough now (and I'm not far behind him) that I think, what ? When did that happen? I'd like to write something witty and wonderful for today, but I attended a writing conference all day yesterday, and I'm wiped out. So instead, Tim will have to enjoy this little video: (I would never be able to reproduce what you just watched. Happy Birthday, Timmy!)

Eight years ago this morning, at 1:09 a.m. I gave birth to a little girl named Melina. You all know this because Tim documented that day , and starting sometime in 2010, I began chronicling some of what she (we) went through on a regular basis. I hope that by now, those of you who only know Melina via cyberspace have an inkling of what she's about. But like I said last year , it's actually difficult to say what Melina is about and I think of that on a daily basis, not just on her birthday. Because from day to day, what she says and does can vary. Sometimes, she's writing a story on a Google document. Other times, she's coloring in a notebook. Last night, she was dressed as Tim--complete with baseball cap and plaid shorts--and this afternoon, she jumped on the trampoline like there was no tomorrow. I think of all the times she reads and pretends and looks up historical facts and I wonder how I came to be chosen for this extra special kid. Sadly, I've been bogge...

Dear Zoe and Talia, Over the past several weeks, I've been working on a blog post that I hope to submit to The Huffington Post . The piece revolves around you (this isn't it) so my brain has been working overtime thinking of you wee beasts. And then, I realized that your birthday was approaching, and that fact, of course, threw you both front and center in my mind. (Not that you aren't always front and center, but sometimes, I do think about other facets of my life!) Each time I stopped to think about you both, I felt paralyzed by the fact that you would be turning 14 years old. FOURTEEN! Or as Daddy would like to say, 2x7, 3+3+4+2+2, 17-3, or even that it is the base of the tetradecimal notation. I should also add, since you've been using the periodic table of elements this past year, that the atomic number of silicon is 14 and it's the approximate atomic weight of nitrogen. Fourteen is also a number that seems too little and yet too big all at the same...

After today, for about one month, I will not be writing on this blog. I will only be posting . That fact makes me think that I should write the blog post of all blog posts today. I should be able to...it's my third child's birthday, after all. And today, Aaron turns 11 years old. Holy crap, how did that happen? I mean, where in the heck did that time go? (Imagine as I whip my head from side to side, looking for the lost minutes that have essentially evaporated.) As I'm wont to do on my children's birthdays, I think back to all the days that came before... The very warm Halloween I went into labor (I remember sitting on the front porch, in pain, and yet still handing out candy), the fact that I gave birth to a pale red-headed child (I was convinced he'd have dark hair), and the terror I felt when we had to decide on whether or not to circumcise the male child (we chose not to, but as many of you know, we had to reverse that decision when Aaron was five years o...

Warning! Disclaimer! Red alert! I curse in this post.  (Gasp!) Okay, now carry on. I wake up today with only two thoughts in my brain: 1. I am 42 years old, so Happy Birthday to me. 2. Good riddance to that fucking 41st year. Those of you who have been tagging along for this roller coaster of a year lovely adventure of mine probably don't need to be reminded of what the last 365 days have been like. However, I might need to help you recall how the whole year started... One year ago, on a rainy day in 2014 , I planned for the visit of two people to my home. I knew they wouldn't stay the night, but I had been told they'd have dinner. With me. With the kids. (Remember this now?) In the end, they stayed all of 27 minutes and didn't even wait for the kids to come home from school. In the end, I was hurt. So I took my wounded feelings, wrapped them up with no room to breathe, and tried to push them to the back of my closet. And I wrote about the experience, hop...

I'd like to say I have the time and inclination to write something eloquent today, but alas, I don't. I should, since today--July 10, 2015--marks Melina's 7th birthday. Seven! I can hardly believe we're already at that number. When the girls turned seven, Melina was a little over six months old. When Aaron turned seven, Melina was three and a half. I look at her now, at seven years old and think, Where did the time go? How did we get here already? And didn't we have a ball? I'm not kidding when I make that last statement. As many of you know, life with Melina is literally, at times, a ball. As in a full-out formal gathering where we all dance. In tutus. Or ballgowns. Or tuxes or bathing suits. You name it, we've danced in it. But what I really meant is that the last seven years of raising Melina have been (for the most part) pleasant. Fun. Super even. And part of that is because Melina is difficult to describe in one word. I don't want to say that she ...