I wrote last time about Larkin's clothes, imagining her as a 12-year-old and what she might wear. This got me onto the much larger topic of thinking about the future generally.

I've never been very good at it.

To me, the future has always been the least engaging panel in time's triptych. The past, I can cherish and scrutinize and preserve. The present I can enjoy. But the future is a blank. I've always marveled at people who fix on the future with a steady bead, pondering their five-year plan, their ten-year plan. I'm way too backward for that.

For her part, a 2-year-old has no past, a gargantuan present, and a future that she is wholly incapable of thinking about. That, of course, is what you have to do. I sometimes feel pretty inept. For instance, I'll be at the park with Larkin, talking with another toddler's mother, and she'll mention the early-childhood learning center at the nearby… Read More

Remember the old saying, Clothes make the man? If that's true, I'm not much of a man. My morning work commute takes me all of twenty feet from bedroom to office, and I don't dress up for it. Sometimes pajama bottoms and a tee shirt are enough.

Larkin, on the other hand, has suddenly developed an eye for fashion. This morning, when it came time to get dressed, she decided to practice civil disobedience, throwing herself on the floor and stretching… Read More

I found myself the other day — I mean my self, the person who has gotten a little bit lost since Larkin was born.

I was going through the 3 feet high stack of folders in the corner of my office. This nightmare pile contains things I've been intending to sort out and file since before Larkin was born, always saying "I'll get to it." But I never do. Now I needed to find car documents. A year and a half… Read More

Here it comes, Father's Day, and as a new dad I'm wondering just one thing: Um, when exactly is it again?

You might think I'd have marked the date with a big calendar star. But somehow I've never taken Father's Day seriously. When I was a kid, Mother's Day was a major event in our family. My sisters and I served our mom lavish breakfasts in bed, we did our chores without the usual groaning and stalling: it was a highly… Read More

Instead of taking up some issue or theme, today I'm going to sit back, relax, and chronicle the aimless pleasures of a still-new dad hanging with his two-year-old girl on the first warm day of spring.

It begins with one of those funny nonsense conversations one has so often with a toddler. Larkin and I are at the kitchen window, and she's standing on the sill, watching the morning sun navigate trees and rooftops. I stand behind, lightly bracing her. "Dada,"… Read More

First, thanks to those who posted after my blog on failure. It's nice to know that so many other parents of toddlers live half-buried amid mountains of stuff they're forever shoveling into the "guest" room. And laughing ruefully at the occasional reminder of life without little kids. Last week I saw a lifestyle article in the New York Times, titled "A Weekend Affair With Plants." The writer discussed how " the challenges of nurturing flower beds and vegetable… Read More