Caitlin does a wonderful job of taking care of her kitten, Finnegan. (I still can’t get over that my daughter has turned out to be a cat person rather than a dog person…) Except for one thing. She’s not loving cleaning the litter box, and so needs to be reminded.
When I ask her this morning, she replies that she hasn’t. I suggest that she take care of it, while it’s still fresh on her mind.
She starts walking out … Read More
I would order up an hour of silence every day. All human-generated noise would cease. All cars and planes would stop. Bass booming radios thumping out of car windows would go silent. Construction of any kind would momentarily end. TVs, computers, radios, and all electronic equipment would be turned off. And all humans would go stand outside in nature and rediscover what they’ve been missing.… Read More
Cait and I have a longstanding bedtime tradition. She snuggles in, I sit next to her, and we talk about the day. We always start with Best Part, Worst Part, and Don’t Tell. Best Part is for talking about the best part of our day. Likewise for Worst Part. Cait came up with the Don’t Tell some years back when she’d desperately wanted to tell me a secret. It has morphed into sharing with each other … Read More
A couple of years back, Cait was facing some difficult changes. No amount of putting a happy face on how it would all work out made a dent. She was focused on the loss and the feeling that she couldn’t control what was happening to her. I watched my happy-go-lucky, optimistic daughter turn into a despondent worrier.
Having spent my professional adulthood looking deeply into people’s lives, I fully understood how, sometimes, it only took one life event to cause … Read More
I started my first garden when I was twelve; I went out to the back field and dug myself up a quarter acre. I’ve rarely missed a summer since. I do some of my best thinking digging in the dirt.
This picture is of two of my garlic plants nuzzling each other. Aren’t they beautiful!… Read More
When Caitlin was little, she liked using me as her jungle-gym. She still loves to sit on my lap and cuddle, but lately I’ve been telling her she’s getting too big, and the weight of her is starting to hurt my legs. I make her sit next to me instead.
When Kiera was little, she liked to lean against me and use my feet as her personal headrest. As she’s grown, she’s gotten into the habit of lying on my … Read More
When I’m training, I’m always thinking about why Kiera does or doesn’t do what she does. I’m always trying to see if I can understand it from where she is and go from there. For example, once upon a time, I wasn’t having any luck getting Kiera to remain calm when people came over to our house. Whenever someone would arrive, Kiera would go into overdrive to make sure everyone in the house was safe for posterity. I’d tried the … Read More
