Children

A discussion about children and parenting

  • A Mother’s Gaze

    My life is now viewed through the lens of my children’s children. They call me Bubs. Karen and I spent this past week with Jenna, Andrew, and their newborn girl, Charlie Ann. This brought back memories of bringing home our daughter Lauren after a few days in the hospital. I remember thinking it incredible that…

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  • Into the Woods

    Whenever I see a Slow Children at Play sign, I picture kids running in slow motion and I make a comment about children playing deliberately and my wife rolls her eyes. I’m just glad the idea is still alive. Children playing I mean, alone, away from adults, preferably not on streets but near streams of…

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  • Tell me your life story in 4 minutes. This is a question I have been asking my friends and family. Their first reaction is stunned silence, a deer in headlights. Then slowly, the wheels begin to turn and they speak, measured and careful words, maneuvering around covered landmines. The years roll away and they become…

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  • An Unwrapped Christmas

    I have received many Christmas gifts, but can only remember a few. Likewise, my wife remembers the magic of Christmas, but not so much specific presents received. Karen’s father, Thom Mason, worked three jobs to provide a magical Christmas for five children. His third job was bartender and he left a glass tip jar filled…

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  • The Unfolding Highway…part 1

    I remember watching my Dad fold a road map on vacation while driving the highway. It is a lost art and the original texting while driving. Those maps had memory, and if you ignored the memory creases, there could be a thousand ways to fold the map, but only if you got in a hurry.…

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  • Country Driving

    My mom, Charlotte Taylor, recently attended a York University retreat and was challenged to write and she did, writing a story called, Country Driving. Mom instilled in her children a love of story. She read to us, her captive but nevertheless attentive audience, as we drove to California or Florida or Mt. Rushmore. She read…

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  • The Eyes of a Teacher

    What is astounding is not that I remember any of that, but that Mary Brock remembers. Would Mrs. Brock be surprised that the kid who was good at math is now an amateur poet? Or did she already know, because that is what teachers do, help us become who we are? It’s the reason why…

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  • I was holding Jude when I realized why I steal babies. We were at Jace and Carly Davis’ wedding and Jude looked like he wanted me to hold him so I held out my arms and he held out his and we sashayed about the dance floor doing the Baby locomotion. More about baby stealing…

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  • My New Tattoo in Old English

    Yogi Berra was describing his own version of Einstein’s Relativity theory when he remarked, “The future ain’t what it used to be.” I thought of the future that used to be as I sat in a deep leather recliner at Eggbert’s cafe, waiting for a table on a Saturday morning, a pager in hand while…

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  • Reading to my Children

    I’m a lousy Dad. At least it feels that way sometimes, the feeling you get that you didn’t say enough or share enough or that you put on a mask and didn’t reveal your inner self to your children, that they never really “found you out.” And maybe that’s best, because as my wife often…

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