family

Seré Prince Halverson's debut novel, The Underside of Joy, is the breathtaking story of what happens when your world changes in an instant. A rogue wave takes Ella's husband, Joe, and in an instant everything changes. For three years, Ella has been the only mother their children have known. When Joe's ex-wife Paige shows up at his funeral, intent on reclaiming her children, it becomes clear that nothing will ever be the same again.  Read more >

Rumor has it that 2012 is upon us. While I was trying to figure out what my resolutions or goals should be for the year (think: reading, organization, weight), I realized that there are some things I’d like to add to and or change in my parenting. Some are goals -- actual things to be done at some point. Some are resolutions -- concepts that either need changed or accomplished. Either way, while there aren’t many, these four parenting goals should keep me busy this year.  Read more >

Nearly every day I drive my car past a sign that announces a watershed up the road. I say the word out loud all the time. Watershed. It is a word that I want to harness. I want to own. I think about marked points across time and space. I think about Judeo-Christian mythology and the fall of Eden. I think about wars and love and the way people turn on a dime and walk into the forest of regret. Watershed.  Read more >

I am receiving good prenatal care. But I am also receiving extraordinary prenatal care. My midwives have sat with me and listened to my hopes and dreams and fears about this birth. They know how close I am to my parents and my siblings and my grandparents. They know how difficult it is for me to see my grandfather, who suffered a severe stroke just two weeks ago, so sick and frail and vulnerable, caught in between life and death for the time being. And so one of my midwives has checked in on me every single day since my grandfather’s stroke. To see how he’s doing. To see how I’m doing.  Read more >

My great-grandfather came to this country from Italy in the early 1900's.  His supposed intention was to send for his wife and children after he got settled but his family never heard from him again. So his daughter, my grandmother, came to America when she was 16 years old to look for him.  According to my mother, my grandmother said she never found out what happened and wouldn't talk about him anymore.I often think how sad it was that my mother and her siblings never got to know their grandfather or really anything about him.  Read more >