My Hairy Beasts

In a day and a half, I will be surrounded by baldies (yet again). I know both Mark and Braedan look spectacularly handsome without their hair — Braedan in particular becomes all eyes and eyelashes (and man, does that kid have eyelashes!). Here they are, following Braedan’s first at-home head shaving last Christmas: But my […]

Popping Up

You know how once you start thinking hard about something, it seems to pop up everywhere? Well, this kindergarten things seems to be popping up everywhere. Yesterday, I read this article from a recent Newsweek, which focuses on parents who hold their kids back from kindergarten (often upon the recommendation of the private schools to […]

Everybody’s Doing It

OK, this will be my final public mulling over when to send Austin to kindergarten. For a little while at least! My big issue right now is that I feel like sending him this coming fall is the RIGHT thing to do. Yes, he would still be only four for the first few weeks, but […]

Every Advantage

Thank you for the many thoughtful comments. A few responses: I have certainly talked this over with his preschool teacher, but that has still left me hovering between my two choices. She thinks that he is ready both academically and socially for kindergarten. Her concern is the much less predictable “What about when he’s 10 […]

To Send or Not to Send

You know, it’s sort of funny because last spring and summer when we were dealing with the enormous burden of deciding whether or not to remove Austin’s kidney — and even back into the previous fall and winter when we were dealing with the same enormous burden — I kept saying how I wished I […]

Toward Springtime

May seems an awful long ways away right now, as I look out at this winter wonderland, layer upon layer of snow and ice covering every visible surface. But May is the next time we’re scheduled to go to the hospital. Three months away! Everything yesterday was fine. His chest CT was clear and the […]

Look Away

Well, it’s been two months since Austin’s had labwork and nearly three since he’s had an ultrasound or CT scan, and that’s about as long a break as we can hope to get around here. We are due at the hospital tomorrow, following Austin’s morning at school (assuming he has a morning at school — […]

Chiming In

I’ve been asked to chime in with my thoughts on the whole Tiger Mother debate. Of course, the entire thing has been commented on by thousands and thousands, but you know I have an opinion, so here goes. First of all, we simply must accept the fact that everyone has the right to parent in their […]

A New Year

A rousing goodbye from the Gallagher family to 2010. It has had its high points, that much is true. But, boy, has it had its lows. Last New Year’s Eve, Austin was in the hospital for chemo and radiation. It was, remarkably, our very first holiday to spend in-patient (but not our last). Braedan went […]

Quiet Beauty

A few more juicy tidbits from yesterday. Before we had our walking plan in place, we had indeed called Mark from the hospital to see if he could “swing by” and pick us up on his way home from downtown. Now that I’ve seen the news reports and heard the stories of twenty minute commutes […]