^{Ever wonder what Catherine sounds like? Listen to her read this blog entry.}

If Birdy suddenly cocks her elbows in the air and starts wagging her bottom back and forth with that kind of look on her face a puppy might get when she's sprinting past with your underpants in her mouth, well, you can guess what'll happen next. Oh — you can't? Then I'll tell you: you're about to be treated to a song. You know, just a regular song, only with all the regular lyrics swapped out for their scatological doppelgangers. For instance, the Sesame Street classic "Your Face," might go like this: "Your poop, your poop. No one has your poop." Which is funny enough, even before the clinchingly hilarious second verse: "Your pee, your pee. No one has your pee." It'll be so funny, in fact, that you might forget to laugh! Although the sight of Birdy's gleefully swaying callipygous self might actually elicit a… Read More

^{Ever wonder what Catherine sounds like? Listen to her read this blog entry.}

Once you learn to ride a bike, the idea is that you are still constantly making all the little adjustments you need in order to keep your balance — but you learn to make them unconsciously: you lean a bit this way, a bit that way, you tip the handlebars, turn your head a fraction of an inch, and stay effortlessly aloft. And I have actually… Read More

^{Ever wonder what Catherine sounds like? Listen to her read this blog entry.}

When Ben was two months old, Michael walked out on us. To attend a philosophy conference. For three days. But still. I prepared meticulously for this abandonment, stewing up an enormous pot of meat and vegetables, stocking up on diapers and beer and Good N Plenty, laundering nursing pads and swaddling blankets, washing my own straggly, falling-out excuse for hair. It was like taking a huge… Read More

^{Ever wonder what Catherine sounds like? Listen to her read this blog entry.}

It's easy for me to forget that the children don't always have all the information they need. Information so as not to make choices that send me Thelma and Louiseing myself into a canyon. Tonight, for instance. Michael's working, so the kids and I have upholstered ourselves to the big bed, all of us bundled down together for the duration, to write in our journals and… Read More

^{Ever wonder what Catherine sounds like? Listen to her read this blog entry.}

Because it's such a lovely evening — a rainy blue twilight, the birds trailing banners behind them with the word SPRING written in flowery loops, yet still chilly enough for a crackly-cozy fire in the woodstove — the children are, naturally, feeling a bit cantankerous. All the obvious problems arise. For example, this urgent question: Who is better at the kazoo version of "Oh My Darling… Read More

^{Ever wonder what Catherine sounds like? Listen to her read this blog entry.}

Here's what I don't understand: daylight savings time. Not the principle, which I grasp: you're already grouchy in the morning so you won't even hardly mind the extra hour of frigid darkness, but then later when you're happily drinking your nice glass of beer, you get to enjoy the last of the bright evening out your window. Fine. It's the math that baffles me. If x… Read More