Whoa. As parents, we make hard choices every.single.day. It’s the job, it’s what we signed up for. We name them at birth, we choose a pediatrician and a childcare setting and decide on religious influence and we choose their clothing and whether they ever get fast food and before long the choices we make for them seem so routine that we don’t even realize we are making them. 

These days, the choices seem harder. Masks, and wher...

… at how lucky we are to be alive right now. 

Truly, we are lucky. Because half a million people around the world have died from COVID, and the end is nowhere in sight. Because most of us reading this and definitely the person writing this lives in a house with air conditioning and Disney+, more devices than people, and a second fridge in the garage (it sometimes freezes things if you put them in the wrong spot) with plenty of...

Sitting on the screened porch of the beach house where we’ve summered for 26 years, it feels like nothing has changed. As I type, I’m sitting at one end of an 8 foot table and my dad is at the other end, reading the paper. We both have coffee. Every once in a while, he silently pushes the paper to me - a ritual we have enjoyed together since I was in high school - and points to an article. There is no talking. 

However, it also...

Guys, not sure who needs to hear this - but COVID is not over. You may be over it. We may be over it. But it’s not over. New hot spots are emerging in other states, just as Delaware approaches 60% capacity at stores and restaurants and - praise be - salons. All eyes are on the school reopening plans which right now look a lot like a map of the US drawn by a toddler. And all we know is that we don’t know much. 

Still, our pediat...

When I relocated here from New York in the mid-80s, Rodney Square was a block from my dad’s new office on Market Street (his old one was on Wall Street) and a few miles away from our new home. The only thing I knew about it was that it was rare to see a statue of a horse *only* on its hind legs — I had never heard of Caesar Rodney. They taught us about New York’s signers in New York; at the time, the only thing I knew about De...

Usually, the end of the school year is the start of the season of Summer Mom - she who takes much-needed break from worrying about nutrition and screen time and instead focuses on making sure the cooler is packed for the pool and she’s got a dishy novel to enjoy while the children are protected by lifeguards and happily enjoying junk from the snack bar. 

This summer? So far, at least at our neighborhood pool, there is no snac...

Masks. Protests. Reopening. Riots. Graduations. Police Brutality. Social Distancing. Looting. Peaceful Protests. Summer Camp. Elections. Justice. COVID-19. Conspiracy Theories. Black Lives Matter. 

The safety of our children, the health of our parents, the wellness of our communities. 

THERE IS SO MUCH TO WORRY ABOUT RIGHT NOW. And it is all urgent and important at the same time. 

Here are Ten Things You Can Do - because we all w...

Remember March? I sorted through closets, cleaned out the tupperware drawer. We had family game night, I made a “Quarantine Bingo” chart on a piece of posterboard. I made complicated, multi-step recipes. I folded in the cheese. It was Blizzard Mentality, and we were hunkered down, ready for movie nights and books by the fire. We went for long walks and talked about how nice it was to have a little break. I took the elastic out...

In no particular order, here are things that brought spontaneous tears this week. 

1. Driving home from the recycling event at North Star Elementary, windows down and Indigo Girls up, and I passed a house with a front yard riddled with signs and balloons celebrating a graduation. There too were the family members, spread out like a twister board, all in their own space but all together. 

2. Dixie Chicks singing Wide Open Spaces...

Last year for Mother’s Day, all any of us wanted was one day like almost every day of the past 8 weeks — one day of no crazy rushing around, one day of no tournaments and no hurry up we’ve got to go and where are the shinguards. One day of dinner at home, peaceful and quiet. 

Now? Yeah. We’ll take anything else. We’ll cash in every bargain we’ve ever made with Mother Nature for a cancelled practice and we’ll pinky swear to neve...