adoption

His Own League

His Own League

Recently I got a text message from another dad at school. “My son’s interested in joining/playing baseball with yours, can you tell me more about your league?” he asked. “Also is there a get-together at Fenton’s Ice Cream for the team tomorrow afternoon? We’ll try to make it.” In one way this was not a…

An Hour of My Own

An Hour of My Own

It’s Girl Scout cookie season, and you’ve got to hit it early and hit it hard. We had our booth set up on Solano Avenue. It was normally chilly for February, but somewhat of a shock after a hot, gorgeous week that was anything but normal. It’s fun to see the girls sell in a…

Scream
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Scream

It comes in waves. When you watch the ripples on a lake, and two big sets of waves come together and it’s all foamy and turbulent? That’s the state we reached this morning. The screaming was epic. New year, post vacation, then Monday was a holiday. It sounds nice, but getting out of the routine…

Birth Mom

Birth Mom

This is the story of a confusing but important relationship. She created two of the best things that have happened to me, my kids. She gave them their lives, and perhaps some of their biggest life challenges. Her own life has been difficult as she tried to overcome addiction and other problems. Pregnant with our…

My Children Far, and Near
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My Children Far, and Near

We’re just back from a week at family camp. It was our eighth year, and there’s much to love. For one, the corny entertainments. There are singalongs and sketches and silliness that benefit from being performed in such an improbable spot, tucked into the trees in the Sierra Mountain wilderness. There’s barely electricity, but these…

Not Just a Sick Day

Not Just a Sick Day

No matter how routine life gets, adoption has some special spikes in the road that are as predictable as they are surprising. I doubt I’ll ever be fully ready, but I’m getting better at it. All was calm, almost peaceful aside from the hectic pace of school, work, life. Kindergarten and 4th Grade rumbling along in…

Not Ready For This

Not Ready For This

The horror movies that scared me most when young (back when I watched such things) were not the “jump out” gotcha movies, but rather the ones where there’s a slow-dawning realization that you’ve missed something important. Invasion of the Body Snatchers is the classic. By the time you realize your girlfriend was replaced by a vicious…

The Second-Worst Day

The Second-Worst Day

Shayla is attuned to everything going on around her. Precisely aware, for instance, of what her brother is getting away with, and whether it’s fair. But she doesn’t like to dwell on the past, whether 5 minutes or 5 years ago. Her therapist has long tried to get her to talk more about “before” our family, but…

Puppy Medicine
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Puppy Medicine

It wasn’t long after we started trying marijuana that we realized we wanted another dog. Even though the pot was being ingested by our elderly dog Finnegan, I’m sure more than one person hearing this news will think we’re high on drugs ourselves, but no. (For the record, the canine cannabis is non psycho-active. You can read more here.) We’d…

Four Years

Four Years

We just saw Laurie Anderson’s lovely documentary Heart of a Dog, about losing her mother and her Rat Terrier Lola Bell, and obliquely about losing Lou Reed. It’s really about memory and loss and the strange business of being alive. Anderson tells this amazing story about a long hospital stay when she was a kid, and while…

Animal Story
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Animal Story

In my (priviledged) experience, you have to look pretty hard in Berkeley to find somebody who’ll object to gays, or two guys raising children, polytheistic and vegetarian. (We’re actually omnivores, that last bit just an example). I don’t think my expressive dance therapy, Ojai psychic, or Reiki training could manage a rolled eye for at…

Spring, Break

Spring, Break

Jaden and I were driving back from getting his kindergarten immunization records. He’s off. It’s our second Spring Break for 2015, a bit more pragmatic. We’re getting errands done. When it’s just us in the car, he gets to roll down his window; we drive on the freeway, in mild rain, all sorts of times…

Happy Mother’s Day

Happy Mother’s Day

Did you ever set out with clear sights and end up doing exactly the wrong thing? I’ve swerved with my 6-year-old, between working to help her face the tragedy of her mom, who not only can’t take care of her, but can’t even manage a visit or card, and letting her forget about it and just be…

The Art of Not Doing

The Art of Not Doing

It’s only the first day of the kids two week vacation, and maybe it’s time to admit I’m not as skilled as I’d like to be at relaxing. In my defense, the run-up to Christmas has been quite a sprint: kids’ class parties and shows, present shopping, near-misses with Disney Boxes arriving by UPS, fistfuls…