Hi. I’ve neglected you. I want you to know that I have been thinking about you these last few months. Since we last were together, I made a quilt. And I threw a big birthday party, filling the garage with small children and a bounce house. I sent out 50 Christmas greetings, addressing each envelope by hand. I taught myself to make some cute fleece hats using a pattern. I’ve trained for hiking the Chilkoot Trail this summer. I think it’s really going to happen this time. And I wrote a story. It will be published on Friday. It’s my first piece in a year, and it feels great.

Mostly, I’ve been raising two little kids. My girl, age 4, is working hard on properly pronouncing her words. Her grandma (the Bottle Washing Fairy) is helping. My boy, who turns 1 next week, is working on walking. He is so proud when he takes several consecutive steps.

The children’s father is getting ready for an adventure. Alec is returning to Nepal for a climb this spring.

And I would like to introduce a new family member, Carolyn Simpson, Alec’s birth mom. She came to visit us in December. To meet us. And to get her hands on Alec. She hadn’t touched him since he was six-or-seven-months-old and she felt a pressing need to get her hands on him after months of talking on the phone. She’s funny and spunky and hard-working and she fits in nicely around here.

I feel like I should give you more. If you are still reading Murphy Dome Diaries after four months of silence, you deserve more than a few paragraphs. But I have two kids begging me for lunch and to go outside. They haven’t played outside in a week because of temperatures of 20-to-40-degrees below zero. Today, it’s hovering around zero at our place. It’s colder in town. I promise I’ll be back soon. We’re making Play-doh this afternoon. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Advertisement