We're trying to get William to sleep in the same room as Penny so that Marilee can move into his crib and out of the bassinet and out of our room. We thought it would be pretty easy. We've been paving the way for the move with "sleepovers" for a while now. And on those nights, William lay in bed across ...

As we head into Father's Day Weekend, a few posts from the blogging world worth reading:

My friend and fellow blogger/author Margot Starbuck wrote a post for her.meneutics today: Searching for Abba on Father's Day. Margot describes her adoption as a young girl, the struggles she faced later in trying ...

We aren't a dessert-every-night kind of family. In fact, we're more of a dessert-once-a-week-if-you're-lucky type. So it's a big deal when our kids get a cookie or a scoop of ice cream or a cupcake or what have you. A few nights back, they had been primed for chocolate cake. But William was having trouble ...

Penny asks repetitive questions. So when, for instance, her dad was out of town last week, she persisted, "Where's Dad?"

"Pen, you know the answer to that."

"No I don't."

"Yes you do."

"Richmond."

"Right."

A few moments pass. "Mom, where's Dad?"

I finally figured out that she wasn't asking because she didn't ...

I was changing Marilee's diaper today and I remembered that I had meant to try cloth diapers this time around. I had the same lofty thoughts when William was born. I did some research and talked with my friend Michelle who uses cloth diapers and thought about all the economic and ecological reasons ...

We were sitting around the dinner table and Peter reached over and rubbed Penny's arm.

"Why you do that, Dad?" she asked.

"It's a way of saying I love you," he said.

She nodded. A moment later, she reached over to Marilee and rubbed Marilee's arm. "I love you, Marilee."

The same night, I read a essay by ...

For most of my life, I attended private schools. I grew up taking a bus to a cinder block building 30 minutes away from our 5,000 person town. The bus stopped at a trailer park to pick up students along the way. Not exactly elitism, but still a school where tuition was required. We moved to Connecticut ...

Is she ready?

Penny is five years old. She is starting to sound out simple words. She can identify all her letters and numbers. She can write her name and a few words. She loves school. And she has Down syndrome.

Is she ready?

I am planning to register her for kindergarten today. I haven't done anything ...

Five years ago, I sat in a theater watching little girls in tutus with tears streaming down my face. My response emerged in part from pride—my sister was the director of the dance studio and the girls were doing a beautiful job. But sadness lingered underneath those tears. Our daughter Penny was five ...

Is social media helping create a generation of narcissists? This is the question posed by Heidi Stevens of the Chicago Tribune in her interview with author Larry Bugen:

Q: Start by defining narcissism, because I think it means different things to different people.A: An uncompromising self-absorption ...

"Every baby is a little miracle to celebrate, support and protect."

Is it a trite advertising tagline? Or a profound truth? Take a minute (literally, one minute) to watch this ad for Pampers:

Should we celebrate babies born to teenagers? Babies born through in vitro fertilization? Is ...

I have a guest post today on Motherlode, the parenting blog of the New York Times. It begins:

Our middle child, William, had trouble sleeping as a newborn. And as an infant. And really up until he was eight months old. He fussed. He squirmed. He screamed. The slightest noise jolted him awake. Sunlight ...

Over the course of the past week I have soothed Marilee after her brother bit her on the arm (Look carefully at the oval ring of teeth marks in the photo to the left. In his defense, he seemed shocked by her tears and said, "Mom, I was pretending she was food"), cleaned up a "poo poo accident," rocked ...

Marilee goes to the doctor's every four weeks and they chart her growth as the pounds rack up. She laughs out loud now. She holds on to me when I pick her up.

William's 2T pants are getting snug around the waist. He has begun to be able to pronounce "l." He now can count to 20.

Penny now tells me what ...

I have a new post on her.meneutics. It begins:

I don't know how to explain Easter to my children — Penny, 5, and William, 2. I've tried two approaches so far. I've talked about it directly: "Some people killed Jesus and he died and God made him alive again."

When I said that, William asked, "What does died ...

I've written before about the ethical concerns raised by in vitro fertilization, and I continue to wonder how we as individuals can make choices that keep in mind the good of the community and not only our individual gain. As I wrote in October, after Robert Edwards won the Nobel Peace Prize for his ...

I wrote last week about the way William is teaching me to love music. Earlier this week, Peter took him to see a string quartet and they happened upon the orchestra playing nearby. Click here to hear and see William talk about it.

A few days ago, William held a stick up to his mouth and pretended to play.

"Are you playing the flute?" I asked.

"No, Mom. The piccolo." Of course.

Of everyone in the family, it's William who loves music. He runs to the front of the sanctuary at church so he can see the musicians. He found a book at the ...

I'm a happily married woman, but I've been thinking about divorce this week.

First, I wrote a piece for her.meneutics about Christian blogger Anne Jackson's divorce: "When Christians Get Divorced." (I'll post an excerpt below.) Then, I happened across an interview on Patheos with Rob Bell in which he ...

I recently reread a book by Kathleen Norris, The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy, and Women's Work. Thankfully, she includes a definition of quotidian as an epigraph. It means pertaining to the every day, and my life is consumed by every day activities, especially with a newborn. I wrote a post ...