How to Recharge With Little Kids Underfoot

There are few things I consider myself an expert in, but truth be told: if recharging one’s energy with littles underfoot were an Olympic sport (missed opportunity, Greece), I like to think I’d at least take home a bronze. Whatever you call it: recharging, resting, Introvert breaks, “me” time — it can all feel so,

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A Color-Changing Slushie

If we’re paying attention long enough, and if our ears are bent low enough, it’s easy to find the magic in summer. The smallest caterpillar gliding effortlessly on the shivering edge of a paper thin leaf.  The cool shock of a juicy watermelon, pink swimming down your chin, your elbows, a seed to spit into

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An Outdoor Guide for the Indoor Mom

My 10-year-old self loved many a summer days – air slick with freedom, elbows slick from cherry popsicles. An entire universe whirling by from the banana seat of my lustrous purple Huffy. Cicada symphonies. Gingham feasts. Chlorinated hair. And then, I grew. From inches higher, the neighborhood creek seemed far less adventurous than the latest

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Sick Day Survival

Early this week, Bee fell ill with inexplicable fevers, midnight shrieking she couldn’t shake. Doctor’s visits, a 911 call. Night terrors, it was diagnosed. Common for her age, it was said. Our instructions: cold compresses to the forehead, a tepid bath, fluids. While water seems a small attempt to rush the wild vacancy from her

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A Room of One’s Own

Well, no, I can’t exactly claim the same perspectives (nor groundbreaking insights) of Virginia Woolf. But truthfully, I’d never deny the beauty of a room of one’s own. A space for writing or thinking, for arranging things just-so, for practicing what it means to make a small, seemingly insignificant mark on this world – or

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How We Homeschool

Update: Curious about homeschooling? You can follow along our own homeschool journey right this way! It happens like they say it will: you blink and she’s nearly 6. Long limbs, tangled hair, tiny bruises polka dotting her shins from rope-climbing, tree-jumping. I cut her pants into shorts for the onslaught of spring, smile at the

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For the Graduates

I’ve reached the age in which my nieces and nephews are graduating from high school, where gift-giving calls for a waffle-maker or a mini fridge rather than a Matchbox car, a stuffed teddy. It is jarring, always, for the adult to find she is the adult. I’d imagine it is even moreso jarring for a

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On Living

An italicized passage in Bee’s science book. She and I are weighted under a shared blanket, two dogs snoring at our feet when we read it. Dolania americana has the shortest lifespan of any mayfly: the adult females of the species live for less than five minutes. Is that true? she asks me with wide

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