Hello. I am here. I am fine. We are all fine. We are all also totally, absolutely, five billion percent not fine. You know how it is these days. I never understood bloggers who just one day, out of blue, stopped updating, you know? At least announce that you’re closing up shop or pivoting full-time to TikTok? Post some kind of goodbye entry, farewell, The End? Now I get it. You don’t always plan to stop. In fact, it can be the exact opposite – I just needed a break, I told myself. I needed to find my sense of humor about…oh, ANYTHING, EVER, AGAIN. I couldn’t bring myself to document the days—the endlessly-bleeding-into-each-other days, full of a million tiny parenting microfailures and cliched complaints and inconveniences. I just needed to shut up about myself and let others drive the conversation for a little while. Plus, for three full weeks, the most recent photo on my phone was one I took at the grocery store, on the day when Clorox Wipes finally came back into stock. I told myself I would write something when I had something to write about, something I WANTED to write about. And sure enough, eventually... Read more →

Jason randomly came across this video the other night, and after a good laugh at his six-year-old self, Noah asked us what in the world we were thinking, letting a six-year-old watch Wrath of Khan. It's so not age appropriate, Mom and Dad! Jesus Christ. v I asked him if he'd let me record an updated Wrath of Khan According to a 15 Year Old (Who Has the Entire Movie Memorized and Regularly Regales His Family With Dramatic Reenactments) version, but his only response was a withering look of Pure Teen Pity that I would even suggest something so unbelievably lame. Nobody blogs anymore, he reminds me on a fairly regular basis. I know, I know, I tell him. I don't even really blog anymore. You had a good run, he says. He doesn't mind if I blog about him -- he puts this blog in the same category as my minivan, or my affinity for Jeopardy! reruns and Taylor Swift. Just another Uncool Mom Thing That Moms Do. Moms! You gotta love 'em! So he's not the reason I haven't been writing. Nor is there any sort of family drama or offline intrigue or work kerfluffles or anything like... Read more →

Ezra's always been particular about his shoes, at least compared to his brothers. For years his sneakers had to be red. Then they needed to be Under Armour and red. Then he went through a phase of preferring the "fancy" shoes we bought him for a school concert. (They were essentially just gray slip-on sneakers we found at Target on the way to school because shit! There's a dress code! Their closets are not stocked for dress codes!) Last summer he picked out a pair of Vans and has literally worn nothing else since. I knew they were getting small for him but he wouldn't even consider replacing them. Then, during his second or third re-watch of The Babysitters' Club on Netflix, Ezra fell madly in love with a pair of shoes. He wanted those shoes. He NEEDED those shoes. He rewound the episode to pause on a scene so I could get a look at the shoes. The shoes in question turned out to be a limited edition Converse Pride/Miley Cyrus Chuck Taylor high top from several years ago. He was a little disappointed, but asked if he could get a similar pair from this year's collection. I told... Read more →

On the one hand, getting out of the house once in awhile to do something "normal" is Very Important from a mental health perspective, as is supporting local businesses, especially bars and restaurants that are doing their best to keep everyone safe. On the other hand... Everything remains weird and terrible and I hate it. Things I do NOT hate, however: Watching the new Babysitter's Club series on Netflix with Ezra. We binged the entire thing in a day, highly recommend. Then I made the mistake of looking for the original books on eBay for him and remembered that I gave away my massive, almost-the-complete-series of first-edition books (INCLUDING EVERY SINGLE SUPER SPECIAL!) to my niece before I left for college and holy shit, I should've saved them. Not just because I know Ezra would love them but because they're now worth enough to be like, a down payment on a goddamn car. (Good news is that the collection of 1980s Strawberry Shortcake figurines that I DID hold onto, and have lugged around in a trunk from my parents' attic for the past 22 years, would probably sell for about 20 whole dollars. So I've at least got that investment... Read more →

Hi. Hello. What's up? Not much, what's up with you? Wait, are you talking to yourself or your blog readers? HA HA HA "blog readers." That's cute. Very circa 2009. ANYWAYYYYYYYYYYY. I haven't gone anywhere, I haven't done anything. (Besides watch Hamilton at least once every other day, because it's honestly the only nice thing we still have at this point.) I haven't been on Facebook in weeks and the latest photo on my phone is a blurry shot of my black cat lying on my black work laptop, so you absolutely 1,000% have no idea what you're even looking at and no Instagram filter can fix it. Jason still takes pictures of literally every plate of food we make, but even he'll admit that the early joy that came from the near-constant pandemic baking and ambitious cooking projects has worn off and it's kind of boring now. Everything is boring now. (And I know "boring" has never stopped me from blogging like...ever, but...I mean. Sometimes I leave the house and it feels really weird and dangerous? Most of the time I don't? Yesterday the most meaningful interaction I had with my teenager involved a lecture about eating seven sleeves... Read more →

Why, hello there! If anybody is, indeed, still there. I am very tired. This week "school" officially "ended," officially making me the mother of a high schooler, middle schooler, and an elementary schooler. I did the math on when this split would happen a few years ago, and immediately decided that the Worst Part would the three hours of staggered school starting times and bus departures every morning. How silly of me! There will be no school starting times because school will likely still be here! At home! It won't so much "start" as "NEVER FUCKING END." We are trying to continue with our children's educational experience this summer, with each week getting its own summer-camp-like theme and activity list. This week's theme was I Haven't Seen My Kids In 8 Hours I Hope They're Okay. (Featured Activity: Self Sufficiency & the Art of Making Your Own Sandwich.) Next week is Advanced Streaming Channels, with lessons in self0service remote-control battery changing and how to flip and rotate the couch cushions to prevent perma-butt-grooves. Very STEM, obviously. And after that? It's Infrastructure Week!!! On the job front, I was a technical writer for all of a week and a half, tops,... Read more →

Hello! It's been a minute. Or a week. Or eleventy million utterly exhausting news cycles. Or all three! My new job! Is great! As are all my new coworkers, at least as far as I tell by their smiling avatars and cheerful voices on our conference calls. Despite thinking this was going to be a huge transition back into the world of commutes and professional office attire, I am still working from home for the foreseeable future. So that whole "actual pants and having to wear them" thing has not yet come up. (I wasn't sure of the video call situation before my first day, so I finally colored my hair last weekend and woke up early on Monday to put on makeup and find some sort of respectable-looking top. But our meetings are mercifully webcam-free so day to day I can continue to look a Vitamin D-deficient hobbit.) (I had to leave the house one time this week for an employment drug screen, and was almost out the door when I realized wearing a Steel Magnolias/Ouiser Bordreaux tank top that asks, in all capital letters, ARE YOU HIGH CLAIREE? miiiiight not be the best wardrobe choice for the day.... Read more →

I hope everyone is doing okay. It's been a lot. We had a long talk with the kids about what's happening right now and it resulted in everybody bursting into tears at the dinner table so I don't know if that means we did a good job or a terrible job. Either way, they know his name. George Floyd. *** /awkward transition back to the usual navel-gazing inanity Hey, speaking of jobs. Remember that job I accepted in March? And then finally got my badge for in May? Did you think I actually started that job, or something? Surely I must have started that job by now, after all this time, right? No? NO. I did not start that job. (Amy...does this job...exist? Does...anything...exist? OMG, Amy, is your whole online life nothing but an elaborate decade-plus fantasy built off photos you're stealing from someone's old defunct MySpace page? HOLY SHIT.) Anyway, the very last step involved getting a sooper secure and speshul government laptop. Due to...well, YOU KNOW, EVERYTHING...the laptop would be shipped to my house vs. issued in person. When would it be shipped, exactly? Eventually, perhaps. At some point, maybe. Who can say for sure, when one is... Read more →

Happy 9th (!) birthday, to my beautiful, beloved Baby Ike. And his Hairz. Today isn't the sort of birthday I hoped for him. There will be no party at the roller rink, no cupcakes and goody bags for his friends at school. I'm making his favorite pumpkin cake, at least, and Jason managed to track down what seemed to be the very last number 9-shaped candle in our town. We'll be able to get ribs from an actual restaurant and eat them outside, which is more than seemed possible just a week or so ago. Noah had to draw him an IOU because his present didn't come on time, because ha! Remember when things came on time? Remember how annoyed you used to get when things didn't come on time? This isn't the sort of world I hoped for him either -- the sort of world that, in all my naive white liberal bubble privilege, I thought already existed. A world that wasn't a fragile, roiling tinderbox of chaos, hatred and ignorance about to fully erupt in flames. And justifiably so. I am so angry. I can't stop crying. I hate how many times I've mentioned myself already, like I... Read more →

I left the house! For the first non-essential time! Jason and I ordered curbside pick-up in Old EC and ate it a socially-distanced picnic table by the river. Then we put on our masks and took a walk around the downtown, while occasionally sipping from our YETIs that were totally full of iced coffee and not premixed to-go margaritas, oh no, definitely not. I take that first part back, actually. It felt pretty goddamn essential. Weird and different and a touch depressing in a way (it's so...empty and somber out there), but still. I really needed that. *** In this week's edition of I Believe Children Are Our Future, here are some homeschooling highlights: This is what P.E. looks like during a pandemic, FYI. And here's a field trip to an art museum. This is a very serious STEM experiment. And this, apparently, is "take my picture while I break my creation so I can post a funny picture and caption to the class discussion board," so I guess they're teaching them how to Instagram now? *** More close encounters with baby wildlife! We haven't found any dead bodies so we're just assuming everyone is fine and okay!!!!!! *** Obligatory... Read more →