Meredith Carson... Across the Pond and Back Again...

When I watched my Dad walk someone else’s daughter partway down the aisle at her wedding,   it felt a bit like all of the scoops of ice cream from my childhood had fallen onto the dusty ground with an unceremonious splat.   Suddenly I was filled with a completely surprising emotion: jealousy.    Someone else was holding my single scoop of mint chocolate chip, and I was nine years old again, sitting amongst the congregants, holding an empty cone and feeling completely, unexpectedly bereft. This sadness sneaked up on me when I saw another young bride, not me, with her arm through my Dad’s arm on her wedding day, and this image crystallized how much my Dad and I both missed out on. I feel compelled to say that I harbor absolutely no ill feelings toward my step sisters.   They are both incredibly lovely people.     It is a simple fact of circumstance that they both probably know my Dad better than I do.   They have both spent much more time ...

My friends and I agree; half birthdays are killers for the under fives.  Did no one ever warn you about the " Terrible Two-and-a-Half s"?  No? Right now Lili is approaching her fourth half birthday (which means she is just about three and a half), and we have all been riding the emotional roller coaster with her.  One moment she may be wearing a pirate hat and collapsing into fits of giggles as she salutes and exclaims, "Lili Carson: reporting for duty!  DOOODIE?!? What's duty?"  The next moment she is a crumpled, heaving mass of blond hair, purple fleece and snot on the bedroom floor, inconsolable over the fact that her mama didn't salute back in the proper manner. Here are a few photos I took over the course of five minutes yesterday helpfully narrated for your entertainment. "Here you go, my love.  Would you like a bowl of cereal?"   "No? Cereal isn't pushing your buttons right now?"   "Come o...

Firstly, instead of reading this blog, you should go and read this one which persuasively pleads the case for not going completely overboard with our children for every single holiday.  Normally I completely agree, but this year, St. Patrick's Day fell on a Sunday, and no one was expecting anything of me.  Sunday is the day I typically like to cook and be obnoxious, so it turned out to be a perfect day to get a bit silly with holiday mirth. Early in the afternoon we went bowling with lots of friends from church.  The fabulous person pictured below on the left made sure we all got in the Spirit of the holiday by showering us with green beads and festive temporary tattoos and by feeding us heavenly little squares of grocery store sheet cake, the kind you eat guiltlessly, pretending not to know that the icing is made out of partially hydrogenated Crisco and sugar, because it tastes like the sweet ambrosia of childhood. Thanks,...

I am having blog deja vu.  I am fairly certain I have used the above blog title at least once before.  I wish I were actually singing, "Here comes the sun doot'n-doo doo... it's alright..." but I am still waiting for the sun.  As I sit here on March 18th, the sky is white and the snow is falling rather confidently outside my window.  Much like the fearsome Honey Badger, Michigan don't care that the first day of spring is two days away. I have struggled this winter.  I have been very tired and lethargic and blah.  I have slept quite a bit, often unintentionally in the middle of the day.  On many days in February my bed seemed to magnetically draw me back to it after I had shuffled my older kids out to the school bus.  Lili, my three year old, would sit beside me watching Sesame Street, and when the show ended with Trash Gordon reminding everyone about the letter and number of the day, she would shake me violently and scream, "MOM...