The girls were playing school with their stuffed animals. As the teachers, the girls stood next to their chalkboard easel and led a math lesson. Their students were arranged in a semicircle, and each stuffed animal had a piece of paper and a crayon for...
"That's enough!” Ella exclaimed. Emma was adding drops of vanilla extract to a bowl of cookie batter. Gently, Ella covered Emma's hand with her own and tipped the bottle of vanilla upward.It’s the secret to our family’s sugar cookie recipe – an extra bit of vanilla....
Sometimes I am called upon to consult on very important and time-sensitive matters. I received one such request very early one morning this week, before I even had my first cup of coffee. There was urgency in the tone. I knew it was important. It sounded...
The idea to leave things a little better than you found them is known as the campsite rule. It reminds us to pick up a stray piece of trash or clean up messes – even if they weren’t ours. In these small acts, we do...
What a time we are living in. My news feed is updating frenetically with story after story projecting what will happen with the election results, when a vaccine will be developed for COVID-19, speculating about what comes next. It all feels very big and overwhelming.Today,...
I looked down at my to-do list, which right now is in the form of about 25 neon-colored sticky notes all over my desk, each one full of my handwritten notes in black ink. I've arranged them in neat rows, but glancing at them as...
Last Sunday afternoon, I was torn. I could continue to read a novel next to the pool. Or I could get on the spin bike. The two committees in my head were arguing back and forth. The first said, "Relax! It's the weekend! Stay curled...
Ella’s school assignment was to make a bridge out of two items we had at home. The bridge needed to stretch across a two-foot gap between two chairs and hold at least 10 pounds. Ella started by moving two chairs to face one another. She then...
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was often asked to share wisdom for living when she spoke in public. In response, she offered advice she was given on her wedding day by her mother-in-law. “In every good marriage,” her mother-in-law had counseled, “it helps sometimes to be a...
In the pre-COVID days, the girls used to be in a weekly swimming class. The swim school was indoors, and parents would sit in red chairs and observe the swimmers through the glass. I often sat next to a woman who had a son in Ella’s...