Dear Girlfriends, I close this series on happiness and what my mentor has taught me with what might be the most important truth modeled by Ava: to live with unfettered joy – learn to care… less. One Sunday evening, while our family dined at a neighborhood restaurant, I took Ava out for a stroll to “work out the wiggles” while …

Dear Girlfriends, For our family vacation with the kids last summer, we headed to what’s called a family-friendly “resort”. This was definitely not Steve’s and my typical get-away scene, as the wine-tasting events were displaced by sippy cups of milk and reading a novel by the pool was replaced by “Sugar, catch me!” as Ava torpedoed down the slide. One …

Dear Girlfriends, Several weeks ago, while I was sitting on her bedroom floor, Ava brought me a book and unceremoniously plopped onto my lap. Today’s reading would be “Olivia”. As I read with great expression (I’m totally into these kid books), I saw that her attention had drifted from the crazy antics of the famous piglet to the inside of …

Dear Girlfriends, Last Sunday evening our family gathered around the table for dinner. As we all chatted and laughed, Shauna broke from the conversation ever so often, to try to coax Ava to eat another bite of broccoli. After the fourth or fifth attempt, Ava leaned over and took her mother’s face in her tiny little hands and pulled her …

Dear Girlfriends, Being a two-year old is not all fun and games. Every minute of every day, someone else is bossing you. Adults refer to the age as the “Terrible Twos”; I sometimes wonder what two-year-olds call it. Ava is not big on direction. She rarely complies with her mother’s insistence to eat meat; she has very definite opinions about …

Dear Girlfriends, Q: Bavaria is a state in what European country? This is why I will never be a contestant on the television game show “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” I’m an idiot by today’s academic measure; kids, these days, are incredibly intelligent. And, as I watch my granddaughter grow, I realize they are often very wise. Many …