A conversation with . . . Jennifer?
Find me over at my colleague Denise Schipani’s blog today. The conversation may be with me but you can imagine who we’re talking about!
Find me over at my colleague Denise Schipani’s blog today. The conversation may be with me but you can imagine who we’re talking about!
Last year, when Jess and I were at Disney World for her birthday, I hired someone to create a special event for her. The event organizer arranged for Jessica to receive a letter telling her that Princess Jasmine (her favorite character ever) had bought her some birthday presents, but that evil Jafar had spotted her,…
There is a girl at the coffee shop with her mother. She is ten or eleven, and dressed in the way girls her age dress, with flip-flops on (it is a warm afternoon) and pink polish on her toes. She has a thick book under her arm, held casually in the way that makes…
I wrote this essay about five years ago, and reading it today, realized how much it still captures who Jessica is and what my life with her is like. I hope you enjoy — My eight-year-old daughter Jessica is a friendly soul. From the time she was tiny, she would march right up to strangers…
We are watching a movie, a romantic comedy, and I don’t even remember the title right now because the movie doesn’t matter; the movie never mattered, it is just the thing we are doing together when I look up to see that Jessica is crying. I have no idea why; there is nothing we have…
Years ago, Jessica had a big plastic castle that she got for Christmas, and a number of princess figures that fit inside. One day she came to me and she said, “I let all of the princesses out of the castle and now they are free!” She was beyond excited; she was thrilled. And…
People often ask me parenting questions, saying, “What would you do?” I know why they ask; it’s because I am extremely positive that I know the answer to everything except when I don’t. And yet the question always strikes me as somewhat misguided. I may be absolutely convinced that a certain course of action is…