Potty-Training: Almost There!

I think that potty-training was Amie’s first real challenge. It’s not like “learning” to walk and talk, is it? Those come naturally and very gradually – for both the kid and the parents. Going on the potty is the first fully learned skill, one that requires physical training, and patience and a resilience to failure …

Dinosaurs are Extinct: Death, Mourning and Our Children

I’m reading an interesting book called Talking with Children about loss, written by “Good Grief” counselor Maria Trozzi and co-authored by Kathy Massimini. I’m always picking up books like those. I read Hope Edelman’s Motherless Daughters, for instance, when I was pregnant, and got many comments, mostly in the vein of “how can you read …

Animals seen at our new House to date

Birds: Chickadee Northern Cardinal (male and female) Blue Jay American Robin (male and female – one sitting on her nest in our carport) Hummingbird (probably the Ruby-throated hummingbird, not because I identified it as such, but because my books tells me it’s the only one that visits Mass. in summer, and it was green) Yellow-throated …

Question to my Readers: Cover Crop

We’re back from a week in Toronto, mostly recuperating at my Aunt and Uncle’s place. Soon, I promise, there will be news about Amie’s now incessant “why?” question, her need for getting naked to go “swimming” at the most inopurtune moments, potty-training (almost complete), and more puzzling (with 24 pieces) and drawing (clothes are now …

A path, a wall, a gate – space into place into home

We’re closing on Monday. We’re going to do this! And even before it begins, I feel the urgent need to document it all. Hopefully I’ll have the time to write here more often again. Last week a new septic system was put in, which tore up the entire front and back yard. We knew about …