Category: koala update

  • Fellow working moms – it gets better.

    Fellow working moms – it gets better.

    I came home from the office one day last week and had this realization. It’s gotten better. Or… it becomes *different* as the kids get older, and so much becomes more tolerable, doable, and you know what? Also better.  Do my pre-teens still mime at me from behind my laptop while I’m on a Zoom, thinking I can…

  • Koala update: twelve years

    Koala update: twelve years

    To the boy who is ~5 inches from towering over me, It’s getting real. Twelve years of you, of figuring all this out, it’s always been real, yes, but now it’s puberty real. It’s preteen real. It’s who is this giant boy in my house real. So we’re both navigating it. You have questions, and…

  • Zooey update: five years

    Zooey update: five years

    My youngest turns five today. Zooey, we’re full-on into that tug-o-war over getting bigger and staying baby… It’s not even day on, day off; it’s sometimes in five minute intervals. But I don’t begrudge you that; it’s been a year of fading boundaries, loose definitions, lost assumptions. Out of everyone, this year might have done…

  • Bebe update: ten years

    Bebe update: ten years

    I’d say that over the last decade, this feeling I’m about to describe has always been present in amounts, more often taken for granted – the swath of peace that came with you as a newborn, the displays of empathy that radiated from you as a toddler, the abundance of friendliness you have displayed as…

  • Nettles update: seven years

    Nettles update: seven years

    If last year’s birthday felt totally eye-glazed and desolate… the year that followed was like being trapped in a box but actually, the box helped you break out while stuck inside. I’m not sure where to begin as far as how you’ve forged ahead, and continued growing, refusing to fall behind or be let down.…

  • Koala update: eleven years

    Koala update: eleven years

    Memes and friends and global outlooks warned me that as my son would get older, you’d become less affectionate or more wary of showing emotion. You wouldn’t know it by looking around our house…

  • Zooey update: four years

    Zooey update: four years

    You might think, Zooey, that as the fourth or last to do something, it would be less exciting. We’ve seen the others take steps, we’ve seen the others ride bikes, we’ve seen the others draw a face for the first time. But that’s not what makes you, or any of you, special or interesting; the…

  • Bebe update: nine years

    Bebe update: nine years

    I am new at this having-a-daughter thing, even if I’m nine years in. In fact, each passing day I am new at it. Are we ever not new at it? You may have an older brother, but you’re definitely the oldest sister; your sisters look up to you – especially Nettles, who worships you at…

  • Nettles update: six years.

    Nettles update: six years.

    “Ima, I want to call Grandma.”  That’s how it’s been for days since we left New York, rushed, unplanned, in the style of not letting dough rise.  We basically fled the city, across the ocean, back to the Middle East, straight into quarantine. Straight into days of looking into your eyes, which have been glazed…

  • Hammock for one.

    Hammock for one.

    It gets harder every year. Yom HaShoah. Yom HaZicaron. Every year the ticking accelerates. Every year I realize all over again how important it is to not take any of it for granted. Every hug, every cuddle. Every whispered secret. Every question. Every silent moment, holding hands. Feeling up-down-up-down of a tiny chest against my…

  • Koala update: Ten years

    Koala update: Ten years

    Ten things I love about you this year: 1. You read like I do. Viciously, hungrily.  2. While you’ve always had your own sense of style, it’s starting to become sharper. And you care. 3. The girls in your class respect you. Because you respect them. 4. You still find it hard to control your…

  • Zooey update: Three years

    Zooey update: Three years

    Three is crossing the sometimes thin line between ‘noket’ and kid… There are things about you that go beyond age.