The Burrow

How is it possible that our Playgroup babies are now entering their thirties? I would like someone to explain it to me. The Bride wonders if the Cuters can meet her in Atlanta for her big day.  I read the query on Facebook, and it stopped me cold.  I read it and reread it and tried to smile.  Really, I tried to beat back my beating heart and my flushed face as I looked around for some joy. The kids ( kids?!?!?) have been friends forever; there's never been a time when they weren't invested in one another. Now she's turning 30 and looking to share March Madness with alums who might also be in the Final Four.  Kansas.... Georgetown.... Indiana.... I'm sure great basketball wasn't the only reason they chose those schools, right? I try to avoid thinking about the fact that Little Cuter set off for her freshman year a decade ago.  She's still my little girl, with the untamed hair and the feisty attitude.  The hair is neater, the attitude remains.  She...

My kids are nearly thirty years old. Can you hear the screaming from their desks right now?  " Not til May!"  he cries. " Not for two more years," she yelps.  NO! It cannot be. I share their perplexity (have I just coined another new word?). Thirty years is a very long time.  Decades begin to be counted.  Humans are born who have never seen a land line, a pager, a world where the Red Sox never win the big one. I knew my grandmothers for thirty some years; they were always old and I was always young.  They gave advice.  I listened dutifully.  There was never a question about it - I was young, they were old. I never thought to ask if they saw me as an adult.  It never crossed my mind.  I was always their little girl; Bubba called me tateleh  til she died.   Tateleh, little one, was how she saw me.  Though I had her first great-grandchild, the only one she knew before she died, I was still her eldest grandbaby, her ta...

wereaditlikethis.blogspot.com I heard about Maurice Sendak's death on the radio, driving to one of my therapies.  I try to find a positive frame of mind on these trips; sometimes that's easier than others.  NPR was chirping on and on about his life and work;  I heard none of it.  I was on the floor with The Cuters, everyone smelling newly bathed and feeling snuggle-worthy, watching anatomically correct Mickey fall through the dark and out of his clothes and into The Night Kitchen. The naked little boy was surprising to the kids the first time they saw him.  After that, he was just Mickey. tvtropes.org And then there was Max, mighty, brave, beast-defying Max, who turned lemons into lemonade Where The Wild Things were. Mom could send him to bed without supper but he didn't mind.  He took himself someplace wonderful and wasn't bothered when the beasties roared their terrible roars .  Neither were we, leaning against Big Cuter's bunk beds,...

This is the week I throw out my old spices. I'm not a good enough cook to use anything but the freshest ingredients; I need all the help I can get. This is also the week that I move the "wear me or toss me in here" bag into my closet. White shirts with ring-around-the-collar are always the first inhabitants. As soon as I put away the last of the holiday decorations I'll give the potting shed its annual cleansing. January may be long and dark and c-c-c-cold in the mornings but it's time for my Boris Badenov imitation -- out with the bad..... in with the good. I made my first serious New Year's Resolution in graduate school in 1974. In truth, it was more of an assignment that I transformed into a resolution. Behaviorism - think B. F. Skinner rewarding pigeons for appropriate pecking - was all the rage and we were a class of skeptics until the professor had us create a personal program to change one of our own unwanted behaviors. I will not bite my nai...

There's an emptiness in the old homestead this evening. The Little Cuter landed safely at O'Hare this afternoon, and the Big Cuter is packing as I type. His plane leaves first thing in the morning, and I am already feeling bereft. I was never one of those mothers who longed for the first day of school. The house echoed with the sounds of my footsteps .... and nothing else. No teasing, no poking, no whining, no screeching - all the sounds of kids who knew exactly how far they could go and who went there with glee. I could skip lunch and no one was the wiser.... or the hungrier. Groceries went into the cart without discussion. Errands were silent endeavors, devoid of explanations and side-trips to the toy store next door. I was efficient, but I was lonely. I missed the unscheduled chaos of summertime. Don't get me wrong - I love the fact that the kids have their own lives separate and apart from their parents'. I'm just wishing that those lives were lived in...

We were sitting on the steps in the main hallway of Annie's Washington abode, watching the 2 little girls play in their fantasy land, when he asked the question. Not "How does the seed get into the egg, Mom?" Nope, that one was just before the Fullerton exit on Lake Shore Drive in a raging snowstorm on barely plowed roads when we were already 15 minutes late and traffic wasn't moving. Peacefully watching the girls, the sunshine through the magnificent beveled windows making rainbows we were, I thought, busily counting, out of his 7 year old mouth came " Santa's not really real, is he, Mom?" He noted my pause, and, ever the Big Cuter, his face took a serious cast as he reassured me: "Don't worry. I won't tell her. She really believes he's real." What followed was a precise analysis, continent by continent, time zone by time zone, of the why-nots of Santa's voyage. He was quietly demolishing every possible rational explanation ...

I'm having a very nice day. The sun is out, the sky is blue, and the temperature is clement enough that G'ma is comfy in just her sweatsuit. Old ladies in sweatsuits is my favorite sartorial statement of the last quarter century. It's such an obvious solution to a universal problem - old people are cold all the time and many don't have the manual dexterity to make buttons and zippers useful appurtenances. The home economist in me loves them. But, back to my nice day. The Little Cuter sent me several heart-warming emails, most of them dealing with how much she loves this season and how she channels me while making a gigantic mess creating her latkes. She's gushing over the fabulous gift tags she found this season, and I know just exactly what she means when she tells me that she crumbles with joy as she attaches them to her presents. She's my girl, and I love her. The Big Cuter woke up early to be functional for his last exam of his first semester of law schoo...