Lori Duff Writes
I have absolutely no idea how I birthed a girl who is so cool that, while she might have asked me what the homework was or to borrow a pencil in high school, she would never have given me ten seconds worth of thought outside of school. My daughter is in a garage band, for…
I’m having to sleep train my teenage daughter. You remember sleep training, don’t you? When your sweet precious angel baby was six months old and you thought if you didn’t get three whole hours of sleep in a row that you’d leave that sweet tender thing out for the dingoes? So you let her cry…
In the division of labor in the Duff house, my daughter has what is probably the easiest job – emptying the dishwasher. It isn’t hard to do, or particularly time consuming. Rather than thank her lucky stars that she isn’t required to clean around the toilet her brother aims at poorly, she complains that this…
Note: This piece won 3rd place in the spring 2017 Fan Story non-fiction essay writing contest. One of the most interesting things about being a parent is how often you find yourself saying things that you never thought you’d say. There are plenty of sentences that have flown out of my mouth using common words with…
My son turned 15 a week ago, and that means in this neck of the woods that he got his Learner’s Permit. That’s right. My bitty baby, born two and a half weeks early, smaller by every measurement than my housecat, is now legally allowed to have primary control of a one ton projectile moving…
My hall bathroom looks like someone tasted the rainbow and it didn’t agree with them. Pink, blue, green, bleach and black stains have seeped into the marble and tile and long outlasted the hair for which the colors were originally intended. Both of my children, the boychild and the girlchild, have decided that the color…
Some other Moms of pubescent girls and I have been talking, and we think we’ve found a solution to our problems that will not only make our lives easier, but possibly make us a metric ton of money. I’m talking about a reality show, Tweenage Drama Island: Where EVERYTHING Is Personal. Imagine this: twenty-five 12…