Yesterday afternoon, the younger boy came home from school and as I was performing my daily inquiry into how his day went, he was moving away from me slowly, getting himself towards the stairs that lead up to our bedrooms. He faced me the entire time, and after a moment I realized he was doing his best to politely get away. I thought he had to use the bathroom, since he just got home. He said, “Hang on, I’ll be right back!” I heard him trying to locate something in his room before running back downstairs, a printed piece of paper shaped like a big bookmark held tightly in his…
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Some Activities Are Higher On The Priority List Than Others
This past weekend, Jim, the younger boy and I took a quick trip to Tennessee to hang with the in-laws. As a group, we didn’t have any set plans to speak of. (My individual dance card, however, was full: I had plans to lunch with my favorite Dad-of-triplets on Friday as well as a visit with Kate, Bean, and Squeaks on Saturday.) Overall, it was going to be one of those great, lazy weekends during which we wouldn’t do much except hang out. Pretty exciting stuff, because having no firm plans is a once-in-a-blue-moon thing for us. About eight hours into the ten-hour drive, the younger boy leaned forward from…
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Special Delivery…Elsewhere
I’m over at The Chicago Moms today, for the first time in a while. (oops) Please take a walk (technologically speaking, of course) over there and check out my new post. Hint: I think you’ll enjoy it. ©2010 Suburban Scrawl
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An Open Letter To Customer Service Representatives
Dear Customer Service Representatives (specifically those of you who manage customer calls for your company’s 800 number), I understand that you field all kinds of calls from all kinds of people in all different kinds of moods every day, and I know that you have a tough job. However, when I have to explain my problem five times in order for you to get to a place where you stop interrupting me to offer solutions that have nothing to do with my needs because you didn’t let me finish, it’s annoying. It’s also annoying (to say the least) when, in response to one of my complaints about some of your…
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What Comfort Zone?
Even outside of this blog, I am a writer. You know that. I have a specialty, though. Did you know that? I write non-fiction. I believe I am good at it. I can write the heck out of an informational magazine article or a business letter*. Even the book I wrote, though it reads a little like fiction, is a true story. The idea of writing works of fiction terrifies me. That’s why I said, “Sure!” when Tara asked me, a few months ago, to be one of the contributors to a tag-team blog on which we collectively write a novelette. (Uh yeah, that’s fiction.) Actually, I said, “Sure!” because…