It’s Father’s Day as I write this. The end of the day, the kids in bed, and they’ve survived, once again, this day our family does not celebrate. It was the first year Claire was really aware of Father’s Day, because her kindergarten class did a project for their dads. I’d given her a head’s up, of course, when she was thrilled with her first elementary school Mother’s Day project.

Guess what, sweetie. You’ll do this again next month, but it’ll be for dads. You can do your project for someone else, for me or for Grandpa. She chose Grandpa, and on Friday the project came home, duly wrapped and labeled for my father, who lives 300 miles away and will get it when we visit this summer. […]