I must have been a very small child, because someone was holding me up, carrying me on their hip and standing before the window so I could see outside. “Yeah, that’s your brother and sister out there,” the person holding me says. Identification is necessary not only because we’re looking down from a height — [...]
Swistle has posted a great list of Things Not to Say to Anybody, Ever. One thing I’ve had said to me that would fit perfectly on this list was said by Mr. X, back when Acorn was a teeny baby:
“I don’t get to take a nap. I have to work during the day!”
For [...]
And then there was that one summer, the summer I was in college and supported myself working for minimum wage at a bargain-priced movie theater. After weeks at the concession stand, I got a promotion of sorts when the managers moved me to the box office. No more fake-butter stains on my shirts’ [...]
Constant chaos, kids careening about the house.
Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Mousie OneFeather.
Pajamas. Toothbrushing.
And she lived with her mother and father
Television still going while a big sister, with a later bedtime, finishes watching a show.
and her brothers and sisters
Another sister studies at the kitchen table, while a brother snacks on a [...]
“I do not want to do this.”
When I was a kid, I was a smart little goody-two-shoes. I was a teacher’s dream: I learned quickly, did my work willingly, and was quiet both in and out of class, following all the rules. (Years later I would realize this resulted in part because my [...]
I used to think writing was easy. And it was easy, for me. It came easily. Teachers gave assignments, some of which restricted my work (use three similes and three metaphors in this five-paragraph essay; write about Lizzie Borden) and some of which were minimums I laughed at (at least two pages, [...]