I worry that when I write about kids and tidying I’ll come across like a draconian weirdo. Or, more precisely, that I’ll have come to my own defense. No, I’m not constantly haranguing my…
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Last week, James finished a box of chocolate-covered salted caramels I’d slipped into his Christmas stocking. I fished the small cardboard box from the recycling basket we keep by the front door and, after…
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Colorful blocks of every shade +/or a blank-slate wooden dollhouse. Families of fairies (plus a rose flower fairy and a sunflower fairy),+/or bedding, a tiny tea service, and furniture. Headphones to fit little ears +/or a very special lap harp.…
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When I first posted about our plans for a clutter-free advent calendar, Faye was a wee thing of 19-months. That original list of holiday activities has all the hallmarks of a family with one…
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Both of my kids are off at school these days and it’s meant that at the end of the day they don’t have quite the stamina for the multi-book bedtimes that we’ve been used…
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The notes of the grinding truck bell rang through our open windows just as I’d taken my first bite of peanut-buttery toast. Clang, clang, clang. Clang, Clang. I left my breakfast behind, sloshed my…
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I’m a morning person. A slow, leisurely kind of morning person. A morning person who doesn’t want to be rushed out of bed. I’ll pad to the bathroom bright and early, but my goodness,…
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If you’re reading this on the day of publication then we’re likely either chugging along the Connecticut shoreline en route to my parents’ house—or else we’re running like maniacs through the corridors of Grand…
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It is easy to be decent to speechless things. To hang houses for the purple martins To nest in. To bed down the horses under The great white wing of the year’s first snow.…
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On my first morning of the fifth grade, I got dressed for school from the comfort of a campground. My three sisters and I, along with our mom, had spent the summer living with…