Home from Thanksgiving travel. My family has a decades-long tradition of spending Thanksgiving in Palm Springs. If you know me from elementary school, or summer camp, or college, or any other time, you may know about this tradition. My family likes traditions. There are traditional parts of our tradition (duh?), like three, or in some […]
Family
Countdown to Halloween: I’m a Tiger
Our sons make our job very hard. You know, the job of all parents: to embarrass their children. Our sons seem to be immune to embarrassment. Four years ago, when our older son was a freshman in college, the President of his college came to Boulder for a parent and alumni event. Here are Jim […]
Countdown to Halloween: I’m a Zebra
Halloween is next week! I love Halloween. I always have. One of my favorite Halloween memories is creating the three-person purple dragon costume with twin friends. Here’s another memory I like, starring one of my sons. When our son was two, he declared he wanted to be a hot dog for Halloween. See picture below. […]
Elastigirl
In honor of Father’s Day and the Wonder Woman movie, I am writing about my ultimate parental superhero: Elastigirl. Elastigirl doesn’t have the glamour or renown of Wonder Woman. That’s because she is too busy packing lunches, finding babysitters, and saving the world to work on her make-up and her publicity. In other words, she […]
I Hope This is the Day I Love You Least
My husband and I attended the wedding of a young couple. The groom had been my undergraduate student years before. I had met his wife, before they were even a couple, because he had sent her my way for help with her job search. She was a lovely, spunky young lady. She did improv, which […]
The Parent Prayer
My son attends a small Catholic college. I work at a large public university. In many ways the enterprise is very different. But in other ways, fundamentally the same. In the orientation materials, his school provided a Prayer for Parents: Almighty and all-loving God, you have given me this wonderful and treasured child who is […]
Three Little Kittens (Despicable Me)
The bedtime routine for the harried parent, courtesy of Despicable Me. How is it that I identify both with Agnes (“pretty please?”) and with Gru (“Did you brush your teeth? Let me smell….You did NOT.”)? 1:40: “This is literature?!” 2:30: “Though while you sleep, we are apart, your mommy loves you with all her heart.” […]
Magic Coffee Table
This is really funny. It’s so funny that my sons even understood why it’s funny.
Happy Birthday, Cyber Lil!
Tomorrow would have been my grandmother’s 101st birthday. I recently heard our new dean tell her origin story as a first generation college student. I am not. In fact, the grandmother I celebrate today, Lillian Bunin, was a math major at Hunter College, which makes me a third generation STEM nerd. In addition to sharing […]
Leaving Your Kid at College
I was asked to give some remarks to the incoming freshmen and their parents this week. Here’s what I said. (I changed the name of my son’s friend to protect her well-meaning mother). Good morning and welcome. On behalf of the faculty, I welcome all of you to our Leeds family. One of the reasons […]