Golden Idyll
When Charles Scribner was shown a copy of the manuscript that would become The Wind in the Willows, he experienced a sense of profound disappointment. This wasn’t at all, he ...
Harry Potter and the Deathly Reading List
If you have school-aged children at home this summer, I feel pretty confident that you, like me, have spent a certain amount of time inducing, bribing, or possibly outright dragooning ...
Feckless Yuletide Layabouts
’Tis the season of peace, and from the front hallway comes the shriek of artillery as a boy who is supposed to be bent over his history homework takes advantage ...
Ditto Rod’s Point @ French Rioting
Earlier this evening I listened to an NPR report about the French riots, and
it wasn’t until well into the reported piece– not in the intro, not in the
first 2 minutes ...
In Which Flora Arrives, and We Say Goodbye.
“Lovely baby Flooooooraaaa… we’re in a tuxedo and you are groooowwwwing…” Phoebe sings in a soft falsetto, as she pets the new baby. “You have a braaaiiin, it’s a ...
(For) Now We Are Six
It is mid-morning and the sun is slanting into our bookroom-turned-schoolroom, forcing Paris and me to press together into the one shady bit of the long table that serves as ...
Burst Levees
“I’ll get it!” Molly sings out, leaping out of her chair to answer the phone. This promptitude is an amusing and largely helpful aspect of having an 11-year-old around the ...
The American Association of (Abdominally) Rotund Persons
At the church our family attends, there is an elderly married pair who always, when I see them, cause me to make little inward vows to strive for poise and ...
Fetal Pain
Many readers have complained that in last night’s post I unfairly lumped
together under the label “pro-choice” those who believe abortion is
permissible at all stages in pregnancy according to the desire ...
Re: Fetal Pain
Just had a sonogram, myself, today, and almost wept at the sweetness of the
sight of daughter #4 SUCKING HER THUMB. Had heard this happens but have
never seen it. ...