
I don't sing my children to sleep as much as I used to. Now that they're older, and need more time to wind down after long days at school and play, bedtime has by necessity shifted to something more solo, wherein we read a story or two, kiss their brows, and then leave them to their own devices, letting them read or listen to audiobooks before they drowse into dreamland at their own pace. It's good to give our children the space to find their own rituals as they grow; important, as a [...]

Two years ago today I paid tribute to my youngest after a whirlwind week of cake and circuses. Now here it is her birthday again, and watching her hold her own with her little friends in the midst of a Princess and the Frog-themed swim party on Sunday afternoon, it's clear that the pre-kindergarten independence I anticipated at three has come to full-blown fruition at five. The wee one's grown a lot since we last featured her here , on the cusp of her first big girl bed. Her [...]

Elizabeth Mitchell: You Are My Sunshine [ purchase ] Gray Sky Girls: You Are My Sunshine [ purchase ] Norman Blake: You Are My Sunshine [ purchase ] You Are My Sunshine was a popular song written in a time when the audience fragmentation of modern culture had not yet taken place; songs back then were for everyone, and [...]

Today's NPR feature on M. Ward offered a rare chance for a wide audience to explore the power of coverage by playing Ward and Lucinda William's gorgeous, atmospheric cover of Don Gibson's Oh, Lonesome Me up alongside the original. In my own case, the experience was so startling, it sent me to the stacks to learn more about the old sad poet who wrote the song. Gibson's credibility as a songwriter is impeccable, and his coverage is vast; allmusic , which is hardly a comprehensive resource, lists somewhere around a [...]

By the time we finally caught pregnant, we had both been teaching for a decade, and that meant the baby name books were right out. After we discarded the archaic and the merely odd, the names that were left were invariably overfamiliar -- we knew "that kid", and thus the name came with baggage we just could not accept. So we took a look at ourselves. Liberal folk, to put it politically, with a sense of adventure, and a love of the world for what it was. We wanted [...]

My younger daughter turns three tomorrow, and we've spent the weekend celebrating with extended family: a trip to the circus yesterday, brunch and a slightly damp walkaround at 19th century "living museum" Old Sturbridge Village today. It's been exhausting, to be honest -- putting the girls in their spring dresses, driving back and forth the length of Massachusetts, and advocating for the kids sanity among the best intentions of so many family members is a lot of work. But I'm grateful for the distraction. Because if I had a chance to really sit and [...]