Tag: elementary
“Why?” is a question I hear a lot these days. Sometimes, yes, my girls use it as a stalling tactic. But often my daughters genuinely want to know: why did the caterpillar, lovingly housed in […]
I haven’t always gone to church. It wasn’t until middle school that I started going at all and not until late high school that I started attending regularly and with gusto. So I can only […]
That first week the schools closed, a friend sent us a care package filled with hand-cut paper petals and centers—red, yellow, orange, and black pieces that, once assembled, would make paper poppies the size of […]
If there is one message I want my daughters to take with them when they’re grown, it’s not “Pay your rent on time” or “If some guy tries something fresh, remember ‘Gift of Destruction’ from […]
For over two years, the only library books we brought home were ones we’d put on hold. We were ridiculous about this, of course, and still managed to bring dozens of books home, one heavy […]
When our girls were little and some of them still didn’t exist, having a baby every two or three years felt just our speed. We weren’t a four-under-four-sized family; we were a pace-yourselves-and-aim-for-one-in-diapers-at-a-time family. Clothes […]
A few weeks ago my eldest daughter turned fourteen, and we celebrated by taking a ferry to the peninsula (if you picture Washington state as a mitten, I explained to my younger girls, we traveled […]
My youngest daughter is in kindergarten which means that, when I teach art in her class, I get to hang out with kindergartners, who are some of the best people I know. By the time […]
I love an Easter picture book that find an unexpected way into the story. But I love, too, an Easter picture book that tells the story itself, simply and beautifully, and that places readers (children […]
A few weeks ago I gave my pilea—a peppy little houseplant, with leaves that seem to float in the air like lilypads—a trim. By which I mean, I cut it down, all but an inch-high […]
