When he was a teenager, I used to give Dylan a really hard time because he hardly ever wore sunglasses. I’d sit in the passenger seat of the car as he drove us around and say, “Don’t you want your sunglasses? It’s so bright out today!” He always replied with some B.S. to the effect of, “Sunglasses? I don’t need sunglasses. My eyes have a sun-resistant coating.” Commence eyeroll. I have not let him live this down a decade later, making comments about his sun-resistant eyes whenever I find myself near him on a sunny day. That’s why I have to laugh at myself on these chilly winter evenings when…
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When Children of Bloggers Grow Up…
When children of bloggers grow up, the tables get turned sometimes.
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Okay, I Stand Corrected.
Something good that has come out of this election is the seemingly unending stream of thoughtful political conversation I’ve been enjoying with my twenty-four-year-old. It’s really something special to be able to have intelligent discourse about world affairs with your own grown kid and as much as this election and the post-election developments have had me tied up in knots, it’s been a bright spot. That said, I have a much more entertaining conversation to share here. The scene: my kitchen. I’m lighting my Clean Cotton-scented Yankee Candle. Dylan: “It’s too bad they don’t make a candle that smells like lighting a match.” Me: “YES. That would be amazing.” Dylan:…
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Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut and Sometimes You Need to Learn How to Share.
I received some devastating news on Saturday*: my twenty one-year-old son said that he enjoys an Almond Joy candy bar now and then. DEVASTATING*. I thought I was the only one in the family who consumed Almond Joy bars. I mean, I have enjoyed the heck out of grabbing the fun-sized Almond Joys out of the boys’ trick-or-treat bags after they spent Halloween night ringing doorbells for sweets, because they ranked Almond Joy down there with Circus Peanuts and Whoppers. I’ve loved buying the occasional Almond Joy and leaving it on the counter where it would stay untouched until I was ready to eat it. Making sure that Almond Joys…
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On Being Me, Him, and Us.
D has been living at home for the past few months, commuting to the city for his full-time job and taking on extra freelance projects at night. While he’s got the normal twenty-three-year-old desire to get back out on his own because living with his parents again is just annoying in general, it’s been really nice having him around. As I watch him juggle all the things, all the time, I alternate between smiling and cringing. On one hand, I love that he seems to have my sense of overdrive; on the other hand I feel terribly guilty for passing that gene down to him. This conversation actually happened last…