It's Dilovely

“Mo-om.” (In the whiny voice, unsurprisingly.) “Why do you just make me cry all the time?” I had to laugh. “Dude, I have no idea.” For the past few days, any time I get a little stern with E, he says something like, “Mommy, you’re scaring me!” or “But now you’re really making me cry!” [...]

{Actually, I make no guarantees that the segues will be brilliant. But whatever.} My last post was a downer, I know. But now! I am able to lighten up for the following reasons: 1. I have awesome friends/family/Di-hards. THANK YOU for your sympathy and support, and offers of help. I hope I haven’t worried you [...]

So I finally got to see the new Les Mis movie in mid-February, when it had been in theatres for a month and a half. This is rather a travesty. I’m a musical geek. I could sing you most of the soundtracks for about a dozen different musicals.* I was also a French major; I [...]

My three-year-old is a child of many faces. These days, E alternates between jollity and tragedy with the dizzying finesse of goldfinch in flight. I know I was just complaining about this very thing, but I must admit we enjoy the way he makes us laugh, even whilst we want to tear our hair out. [...]

My son was so sweet as a young toddler. Happy, affectionate, compliant, funny. You could just eat him up. Then he turned two, and indeed became a two-year-old. Now he’s three-and-a-half, and I thought the “terrible twos” baloney was supposed to end. Instead, we’ve got a throbbing case of threeyearoldism. It’s a rare day he [...]

Let’s take a walk! What could be more invigorating, more wholesome, more beneficial for body and soul? I can take the kids, we can all get some fresh air, and the baby can have a nice lung-cleansing nap. On Wednesday I took my children for a walk around the neighbourhood. We have been graciously handed [...]

This Christmas has been special. I am grateful for many things. Especially: The presence of my big brother – Uncle Ben – which means that all four of us “kids” were together at Christmas. This has not happened often in the last decade. Furthermore, you can’t imagine a more doting uncle. He is the first [...]

Sean asked me yesterday if I blog to try to “make sense of the world.” Yes. Absolutely. That has never been more true than now. I also blog because, as I know from keeping a diary for so long, it helps a lot in painful moments. It’s a way for me to remove a piece [...]

Images dropping before my mind’s eye like slides: lockdown drills suddenly in sharp focus, children huddling with their backs against the wall, invisible to an intruder, teachers shushing them and hoping they’d manage in a real emergency. Now there are real pictures. Children who will now always feel sick at the sound of a loud [...]

As a girl born between two sisters, I was, in childhood, emphatically girly. I loved unicorns, ballet, pink things, dolls, My Little Ponies. The tendencies of our elder brother didn’t hold much sway with us back then – he was outnumbered – and he seemed happy enough to make his Lego projects and wooden models [...]