Category Archives: eoe

There Was Joy

rear-view-mirror

There are so many things I had to refuse her.

I was newly a mother of two when a doctor – a kind doctor, a thoughtful doctor – told me that my new daughter would almost certainly end up in the hospital with every respiratory infection she got. Not a great idea, he said about twice-a-week daycare. Probably not, he said about baby-and-parent music classes. No, I don’t think so, was his answer to my hopeful questions about baby swimming, a smaller daycare, a playgroup. After two hospitalizations in her first five months, I believed him.

Through that first winter watched through front windows into an empty courtyard or through car windows into big sister’s preschool, my new daughter and I eyed the world with suspicion: me because it contained too many germs and her because nothing in it made her feel quite right. There was no sleep, no break, no time apart for the two of us to learn the beauty of missing each other and being reunited. There was just us, with the world outside the window a mystery.

The winter turned into years, isolated and treading water. Continue Reading…

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10 Foods That Saved My Soul

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In 2010, my youngest daughter, Sammi, was diagnosed with a disease called eosinophilic esophagitis. Though it turned out that this diagnosis was incorrect, we didn’t learn that for three more years. During the first year of her diagnosis, we had to eliminate dairy, soy, eggs, nuts, and wheat from her already-vegetarian diet. During that time, these ten foods became the most important staples in my kitchen, making me grateful beyond anything I had ever known before. If you or someone you love is following the “six food elimination diet,”  these foods might be just the things you need, too. Continue Reading…

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Daughter, Whole

bat-mitzvah

Several weeks ago, my triumphant, thriving, sensitive and sweet daughter Sammi read from the Torah for the first time.

In the Jewish ceremony known colloquially as a “Bat Mitzvah,” my daughter consciously took her place in her community by chanting three verses of a chapter from Leviticus. Like all children who become a Bat or Bar Mitzvah (literally, a daughter or son of the covenant), she studied for months to learn the melody and the Hebrew words she’d be chanting and all the prayers she’d need to know to share leadership of the service and analyze the chapter of Torah in English. She has a lovely, clear voice, and she spent weeks with headphones on listening to the sound of her tutor’s voice chanting her verses, and singing along. I’d heard her practicing, but nothing really prepared me for the feeling I would have on the day she became a Bat Mitzvah, as I stood next to her at the podium as she chanted in front of the congregation of our synagogue and all of the friends and family who gathered to bear witness. It was not what I expected. Continue Reading…

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Carrots Are Miracles

carrots-are-miracles

Some time during the 10th century in what is now Iran — but what was then Persia — the precursor to the modern-day carrot became a part of the human diet. It started off purple in color, and then eventually mutated and changed until it emerged as the bright orange carrot we know today. I know this because of research available on the web site of the World Carrot Museum. As best as I can tell, there is no way to visit the World Carrot Museum, which is a shame, because I would love to see it.

Carrots, to me, are the perfect combination of natural miracle and human ingenuity. Root vegetables, in general, are unlikely food sources. I am awed by the path they had to follow to make their way into our diets. At some point prior to their emergence in the diet of the 10th century Persians, someone had to discover them.  Continue Reading…

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We Just Do It

lunchschoolEvery day, parents everywhere let go of their children’s hands and put them on busses, wave goodbye to them after a morning walk, or kiss them goodbye from the front seat of the cars they drive through a long line of other parents and guardians. Parents send their children to school and into someone else’s arms.

The phrase in loco parentis is one I learned early in life, helping my father proofread the textbooks he wrote on educational administration. It is Latin for “in place of parents,” and it forms the legal standing for schools professionals to act as responsible for and in guardianship of the students in their care. On a practical level, it allows them to call an ambulance for a child who has been hurt, to administer medication with a legal guardian’s permission, and to supervise those students throughout a school day. “In place of parents” is exactly how all parents hope their children’s schools are behaving. Continue Reading…

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