Playtime

I just finished listening to a library book, Dealing with Dragons, by Patricia Wrede. The book was recommended to me by Annie Carl, owner of The Neverending Bookshop in Perrinville, as I was shopping for a Christmas present for a tween. Sure, it’s a fantasy book whose age range is 10 to 12 year olds…

Sometime in the last few weeks, amid an iOS update or a well-intentioned yet ill-advised choice, the notifications for my reminders on my phone were turned off. The length to which I depend on this function answers the question, Would I remember as much without my phone? The answer is a resounding “no” over the…

After checking on the Summer Music School page of the Edmonds School District website for good news (for what seems like the entire last two years,) it finally reads “Summer Music is Baaaaaack!” in bright red type. While slightly amended, Summer Music School in the Edmonds School District is happening this summer — the main…

Spring break in the Edmonds School District is April 4-8. My kids are at an age where they definitely require less spring break maintenance but it seemed to sneak up on us this year. Maybe it is because I feel like it is going by faster now that one is in high school or maybe…

Cherry blossom pictures have been a large part of my social media feed this week. The trees in the University of Washington Quad are in full bloom and while this year my only view has been via other peoples’ pictures, it looks incredible. I have seen how incredible it is in person once before. We…

The first semester in the Edmonds School District wrapped up and now it’s time for summer camp registration?!? I understand all of the reasons cities and other care providers have to plan this far ahead, but it doesn’t mean that the gauntlet of finding care and predicting the needs and interests of your kids isn’t…

In an effort to fill the time while I sit in the car waiting for a kid to do their outdoor sports practice in a spot that’s too far away to come home for (with something other than doomscrolling), I sought out some options. I tried reading, and also an audiobook but then I needed…

A couple of years ago at Edmonds Comedy Night, when we freely shared aerosols, either carefree from lack of knowledge or carefree from the generous pour at Edmonds Center for the Arts, Kermet Apio — local parent, comedian, host and co-founder of the event — made a joke about his daughter injuring herself rolling her…

Just this week, I was sent a video of a friend’s kid finding out she was accepted to a college she applied to, saw a post about another friend’s teen driving themselves to practice, and got a text in a group chat that included info on Running Start via Edmonds College. If you are interested…

From time to time, one of us will randomly remember something we miss due to the way our lives have changed due to COVID. The most recent one was the Alaska Air Fruit and Cheese plate, which is something you can purchase on the flight between here and where most of my family lives. While…

Being somewhere between a “drive-by” birthday celebration and a “room full of aerosols” birthday makes celebrating your baby turning 16 weirder than it already is. No one but me is surprised that I am having the mushiest pangs of nostalgia about this milestone, which feels less like a milestone due to COVID and also because…

The morning of the last day of school before winter break, I realized the gift card I had intended on gifting my son’s homeroom teacher was an actual gift card that needed to be mailed and not the e-gift card I had expected to have delivered to her inbox. As my son wrote the card…

The definition of “Christmas movie” is changing at our house. I think the four people in my house agreed for a long period of time that a Christmas movie was something like Elf or Klaus (this movie is on Netflix and we love it). More recently, if I say I want to watch a Christmas…

This year, the call to keep Christmas from seeping into Thanksgiving was coming from inside the house, if you will. So while a few of the tiny trees made it onto the table before Thanksgiving, by Friday I was chomping at the bit to put up my other countertop tinsel trees without (as many) comments….

October is hockey and Halloween heavy at our house. The NHL’s newest expansion team, the Seattle Kraken, have started their inaugural season. The best way that I can quantify what a big deal it is in our orbit is that our oldest son’s hockey game was rescheduled once they noticed it would conflict with the…

Hearing drums from outside at our house is akin to hearing the ice cream truck. It means that most of us are going to run out of the house toward the end of the street where, at least once a non-COVID fall, we see a drumline from what we assume is a local high school….

There was a lot to learn in the first full week of school. For starters, the Kennelly Keys in Lynnwood doesn’t seem to have the same hours as they had pre-pandemic, but then again, I don’t have the same memory as I did pre-pandemic. I found this out when I got two days notice to…

My first experience with “Friday Night Lights” as an adult was in 2006. It was a week of record-low temperatures while I was around 39 weeks pregnant. With little to no awareness of the goings on at Edmonds Stadium, I had just been admitted to what was then Stevens Hospital to have my first baby….

This has been a big week for back-to-school information in the Edmonds School District. We have had an Edmonds School District News email, many virtual school information presentations, and on Friday, a message from the Superintendent. If you missed your school’s virtual meeting, many are posted on YouTube.com/EdmondsSD. I checked the district site and there…

The Back-To-School talk is inevitable at this point, even though I have been informed by a teenager that it’s “cringe” to talk about it ahead of time at home. I don’t want to be a summer buzzkill so I try not to bring it up too early in August, but there have been some Edmonds…

We are right on that line where it’s warm like summer but I got a response to a text that was basically “I’m at PTA meeting right now.” I was just in Target and entered the school supply section lightly, no list, no stress, just the aisle in front of me. This is when I…

Sometimes the hardest part about making dinner is deciding what to eat. There are just so many variables with ingredients you have on hand, time, energy and — when you have kids, what will they eat without me explaining that they will like it. Picking things to do with the kids can be the same…

A young reader and his family, including a few other kids, came into the Edmonds Library while I was there to pick up the Find It! Scavenger hunt flyer and as it turns out, renew my almost-expired library card. This young person said “Daddy, this is amazing,” motioning to all of the books in the…

This week, my kids went to camp. It was pretty exciting to get a taste of the before-times and see kids find familiar faces and new friends even though they’re still wearing masks and some camp activities have been amended to follow safety guidelines. We are also starting to see more and more of the…

As I get older, I struggle more and more to choose the name of the member of my family I am trying to address on the first try. Add in over a year of COVID and the “ding” associated with the kids being let into their Zoom classes and I sometimes resort to “tall one”…