JP’s great aunt got him a bat and ball for his birthday, which we took the playground for some BP (insert oil-spill joke here). I have to say, JP isn’t all that bad. When he manages to make contact he can put a pretty solid whack on the ball, which makes me inordinately…relieved. Now, don’t …
Author Archives: Theodore
The Meaning of Giving Life, or Why We Screw in Summer
So JP’s birthday is tomorrow, which is not what this post is about. This post about sex, late-summer early-fall sex, the kind of sex that results in children born … on Memorial Day weekend. Am I imagining this, or are half of the children that I know having birthdays coming up this weekend or week? …
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Relatives: Who Are You?
My mother is town for JP’s birthday, with my step-father and her mother (my step-grandmother). On JP’s birthday we will be joined by my father and his third wife, or in JP’s somewhat confused parlance—Grandpa Steve and Grandpa Lucie. At some point on his birthday JP will see his mother’s parents—Ong and Ba (they’re Vietnamese). …
International Adoptions: Ambiguities, Anyone?
I just finished reading John Seabrook’s article in the New Yorker, “The Last Babylift,” which recounted his experiences adopting a child from Haiti. Seabrook, who is married, in his fifties, and already has a biological (I think) child, is set after much bureaucratic difficulty to bring home a child from Haiti. When the earthquake hits, …
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