Month: June 2000

“If you have a kid, a house and a car, you always have trouble.” That’s how my friend summarized life for her and me. She had asked how I was. It will be a while before she asks again — I told her. I have half a dozen kids (counting stepsons) plus eight grandkids, a…

When it rains, it pours is more than just a good sales campaign slogan for salt. It’s a maxim of life’s harsh unpredictability. It has been pouring at our house. At first it was a summer storm. My daughter-in-love called to talk about her mother’s most recent hospitalization: Pneumonia on top of the terminal illness…

Taking care of pre-schoolers is a wearisome unrewarding job. My daughter-in-love says the 18-month-old toddler prefers to play with the real phone. He sneaks to the phone in his parents room to play with it. When he sees his mother’s shadow in the doorway he throws the phone away, flops face down on the bed…

The great thing about having the children move out to be on their own is that they welcome the overflow of our household for that first apartment. Visits to our far flung family include loading up a few useful items or a box of the stuff left behind in our attack and closets. Inevitably, each…