Yesterday I went to a real estate closing. For months we've been trying to sell my mother's house, the one she was living in when she died of lung cancer a year and a half ago. For a while it looked like one of my sisters might move in, but finally that didn't work out, so we put the house on the market. It lingered and lingered, and eventually sold for 20 percent less than our mother had paid for… Read More

This is going to be a less polished column than usual, really more of a primal scream. Here it is, in plain English: I feel like a failure. Not with Larkin, not in my role as her dad. Just everywhere else in my life.

Aaaarrrrggghh!

The problem is time, time, time — the lack of it. Molly and I both work a lot, and we were already too busy before Larkin. Now, with her as our number one priority, we can't keep… Read More

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For the past few months Larkin has been helping me make coffee in the morning. This began as a way to pry her free from the books she makes us read as soon as we take her out of her crib. "Want to go downstairs and have breakfast?" we ask, after the third book. "Want to help Dada make coffee?"

"Yeah!" she says.

So I take my little barista downstairs and into the pantry. She stands on the countertop, and… Read More

You know how sometimes, before your child is born, or when she's still a tiny infant, you and your spouse raise these hypothetical questions about how she'll turn out? What if she hates sports? What if she's uninterested in school? You reassure yourself that everything will be fine, you'll love her no matter what she does or doesn't like.

But what if she doesn't like to read?

Of the things Molly and I hope to transmit to Larkin, a love of books… Read More

Twice a year, we visit the World's Most Amazing Children's Yard Sale, a three-day extravaganza, one town over from us, run by a woman who started it small and grew it to epic proportions. Molly and I have bought some of Larkin's favorite outfits there, as well as Baby Freaky, the doll who is her inseparable companion. For $50 we haul away more swag than you'd believe. But the real reason I go is the high I get from seeing how insanely well-organized the yard sale… Read More