Growing Pains

I walked across my living room floor, strewn with textbooks, Chuck Taylors, Sun Chips, and a dizzying mix of settling hormones and Smith’s songs. My thoughts? Maybe I should have had more children. Earlier, teenagers had filled the house. Laughing, eating, joking about school, comparing stories about classes and teachers, and exuding the powerful force of rawness and youth.

I floated on the periphery, in the kitchen on a rare evening off, cooking some meals for the week so the leftovers wouldn’t go bad. I soaked up their energy. I worked five feet away, yet they seemed unaware I could hear them.

Hoarders

A friend came over last night, she had asked me to record “Hoarders” for her and wanted to watch it after dinner. So I gathered my knitting and settled on the couch to watch it with her. After 20 minutes, I had to ask her if we could PLEASE turn it off. It was really freaking me out.

The Home Date: A budgeter's dream

"Family game night" is my husband's idea of his own personal hell. The idea of sitting around playing board games and "gee golly-ing" all night makes him throw up a little in his mouth. And I get it. We were, just a few years ago, Lawrence scenesters in our own way. We went out to bars, saw movies at Liberty Hall, or took in a local band several nights a week.

Now, there is a baby. So not only is there no time for all of that gadding about, but there's really no money for it either. We find ourselves at home more and more all the time, and we're getting more and more used to it.