Sometimes people notice the cookie jars right away. Other visitors have likely sat in the kitchen for collective hours and never noticed...

This summer the boys have been schooled in the art of fishing. Aaron’s once-in-a-lifetime best friend, John, somehow got the two younger...

Only through the photograph of a friend did I see the shades of fireball orange, candy pink, and smoky lavender that painted the sky....

The hill at the back of my dad's childhood home separates a modest expanse of grass--a tiny backyard haven where we picked apples from my...

He stands proudly with stiffened shoulders, cheeks puffed as to nearly usurp his smug stone smile. The sparkle in the eyes of this...

He's joyful as he glides like a stunt plane along the cement hills and ramps at the skate park. He's riding a scooter, the...

It must have been an imposter: leggy, medium green, and without fanfare, it grew in great bunches where there had been mint last year. I...

He plotted his escape, because he knew he had to go. Forty years after first reading the beloved story, I am still learning the lessons...

To be so tied to someone that their hurt, disappointment, and fear mix with what's inside of you and become indiscernible: that must be...

A shadow flashed across the road ahead of me. As the light changed and I moved through the intersection, there it was: frozen, small...

I got a new bee suit. It's white, with three layers of mesh and a double zipper system to keep me completely covered and to prevent...

I have been fighting the demons for a long time…and I’m not speaking of my children. Deep inside of me I know, even when no one else...

You can’t possibly know the glory of the rose’s bloom while the climber lies in waiting. The thatch and nettle push their way in front of...

“Can I say a bad word?” At least he asked permission. “If you really have to, go in the bathroom and yell it into the toilet,” I offered...

He had spun me from what was left of my childhood, turning me toward the rich path of motherhood by his very existence. I made...

It always seemed like by the time I would notice that the magnolia blossoms had opened, the petals had begun to fade and fall from the...

The property was maybe a forty-five minute drive from my grandparents’ house in the St. Louis city limits, but the contrast between the...

“Mom, why are you crying?” His question came from a place of innocence that I feared was about to fade before my eyes, which could no...

The six year old practices every bad word he knows in one long stream, shot directly at my quiet request to put on fresh underwear. Three...

Once, I cried at a baseball game. It was dark, so no one probably even knew. By some sort of twist in the interpretation of a rule…or...