Lindsay raced through the kitchen, eyeing the oven clock as she passed. If she left right away, she’d arrive at her son’s school just in time for the afternoon bell. Grabbing her keys and purse from the counter, she hustled through the door with a determined look on her face. Lindsay hated being late. “Okay, […]

One morning a few weeks ago, I woke up as usual, hopped out of bed (our bed is very high off the ground, so hopping really is what I have to do), and gasped in pain. My knee was locked at a 90-degree angle. Trying to straighten it was excruciating. I did the only thing […]

I’ve written more than a few posts over the years about a subject that’s near and dear to the hearts of parents everywhere: The car rider pick-up line. As a work-from-home parent, I’ve never been able to come up with a compelling reason as to why I couldn’t take the kids to and from school […]

I have news. And it’s going to shake some of you to the core. I’m not even kidding. At a dinner I attended last night, the small talk turned briefly to teens and tweens. “I just learned something horrifying from my teens, actually,” I said. (Because ‘something horrifying’ is always good for dinner parties with […]

“I’m going to make a quick phone call,” I told my 14-year-old son not long ago, after picking him up from school. “Who are you calling?” he asked. “You’ll see,” I told him. I speed-dialed Dennis Ferrier and put the phone on speaker. “Hello?” Dennis said. “Hey!” I said. “I just wanted to let you […]

Here in Nashville, weather conditions these last few weeks have been akin to those in… well, Hell. Temperatures have soared into the nineties nearly every day and the godawful humidity here makes it seem even hotter. Unless I’m poolside with a good book, I despise the weather this time of year. I hate the bugs […]

“I’m still coming to see you Thursday, but I have a Zoom appointment at noon that I can’t reschedule,” I told my mom on the phone recently, “So I’m just going to leave in the morning, pull over somewhere, and do the appointment in my car. Then I’ll finish the drive once it’s over.” I […]

It was 3 am and I was very much asleep when it happened. “Hey-low,” a woman said in a singsong-soft voice, her lips just inches from my ear. She said it quietly, the way my grandmother might once have gently woken me on a summer morning… but this voice definitely wasn’t my grandmother. “What?” I […]

You might assume that because of Pandemic Times, I no longer have any interesting adventures to report — and you would be right, barring That Time I Took a Walk and Saw a Really Big Turtle in the Pond. (Expect my memoir with that title from Doubleday in Spring 2022.) However, a couple of nights […]

My Facebook feed is overflowing right now with adorably filtered pictures of your kids’ first days of school-at-home. You’re all so sweetly optimistic; it truly warms my heart. You’ve repurposed your breakfast nook into a cozy learning haven! You’ve decorated your walls with maps and alphabet letters! You’ve replaced the stacks of magazines, old mail, […]