The other night, my husband sent himself a package to his mom’s house, one he will catch up with when we arrive for Thanksgiving.  To be sure to whom the package belongs, he included his middle name “Byron” in the name for the addressee. You see, his dad was “Charles Allen Black.”  My husband is “Charles Byron Black.” Punctuation saves lives; middle names add interest and depth to who we are.  They are a source of intrigue, prompting the ubiquitous question, in one form or another: So, what’s the “Z” stand for? Huh.  “E.W.”  Wonder what her middle names are?…

A mother drops, (yes, drops) herself down next to me at a “Mother of Multiples” meeting.  She recently delivered babies seven and eight, twin boys.  You read it right.  Babies seven and eight.  I was already acquainted with this Wonder Mom as our husbands were colleagues, and was, needless to say, in awe of her ability to make babies.  Given it was four years of real effort to conceive my husband’s and my twin boys, I was (and still am) amazed by women who only have to think the word pregnant and bam!  They are with child.  Or children, in this case….

  So well-loved it’s often transformed beyond recognition:  tangled shreds of a sickening brownish hue and still adored.  Sometimes tragically lost and never found, irreplaceable.  But sometimes the attachment is fickle; any soft square of material will do.   It can have its own persona, have a cute name, and even take its own adventures. What is this amorphous being of which I speak? The blankie.  Aaaahhh, the blankie. The cherished, most comforting “lovey” (psychology parlance for any item a child finds comforting) outside of Mom and Dad, is that bit of softness-to-cheek that children become so attached to.  …