Small town girl with big world vision
Meet The Fiancé. In one week, he will be The Husband. He makes me laugh and think. He loves my quirks and gives me grace for my flaws. He is a companion and partner beyond what I could have imagined. He makes me better. He is the love of my life. In this little house…
It’s a surreal thing, holding a baby that has the nose of someone you love, and the chin of someone you love, and changes everything about the life of someone you love. I guess that what it means to be a grandmother. For one short week over Thanksgiving, I got to spend time with Sunshine…
She’s here! I’m a Nana!! I’m so excited to announce that Sunshine had a little girl yesterday. This little Pumpkin was born in the early hours of October 31st and weighed in just under seven pounds. Sunshine was in labor for over a day, and is tired, but very happy. She’s already the best mama…
Peter Pan has returned home. He left the way he came, with very little fanfare. He didn’t say that he would miss us. He just said goodbye and walked away. I still don’t know why he came in the first place. There has to be a reason. I just don’t know what it was. It’s…
I have a daughter who lives in Latvia. She is sassy and spunky and so much like me. I recently got to share the story of how we became a family at Listen to Your Mother: Pittsburgh. It was an amazing experience that was uplifting and encouraging in ways that I am unable to fully…
Building bonds across an ocean feels crazy a lot of the time. The spaces of silence fill up and I wonder if maybe the distance is too much to sustain a connection. Perhaps we have grown apart, and the next time we meet it will feel like a high school reunion—politely awkward and frozen in…
It has been two months since we got the news that Peter Pan did not want to come to America on a student visa. Two months since Little Man and I decided that we needed to go to Latvia anyway because love shows up. Our hearts may have been breaking, but the only thing that…
In the age of Instagram and Twitter and all things social, I feel like I’ve been falling behind lately. I’m a fairly social person, and I like to take pictures. I have been labeled as a “paparazzi” by a certain sassy Latvian, who claims I would take a picture of her on the toilet if…
Imagine you are coaching a Little League team. There’s a lot of things you need to track—the batter at the plate, the play in the field, the kids wriggling in the dugout. You look over to the bench and see Kid #1 spitting sunflower seeds at Kid #2. You explicitly told them not to spit…
It’s amazing how your whole world changes with a few words. “I’m pregnant. I need you.” “I’m not coming to America. I don’t need you.” Both these phrases have reframed my future and the future of the ones I love. It’s taken me a while to process what this means for all of us. The…
