0:06
My Kids Fought Summer Reading... Until I did This!
We’ve tried a lot of different summer reading ‘systems’ over the years to encourage more reading in our house. This year I’ve landed on something that’s working out incredibly well so far!
I got these cute bookmarks on Amazon that my kids can use as they read and then fill out as they complete a book. These bookmarks are their currency!
They can save them up and decide when they want to turn them in to redeem for a prize.
I made this reading reward chart (you can print it off for free below) that outlines the various prizes.
0:30
No One Eats Each Other’s Lice Anymore These Days
I came down with a bad case of head lice on Thursday. One minute I was just going about my business, putzing around picking up toys and loading and unloading laundry, and the next I was thinking, Damn, my scalp itches like hell.
About once a week, there’s a message from someone in the mommy group chat for my daughter’s preschool about “les poux” (lice, in French). So-and-so’s mom will announce that so-and-so has lice, so check your kids! It seems to always be the same couple of kids, and it’s hard not to be a little judgmental about that, especially since the father of one of them comes to school to drop off his child barefoot every morning. It’s all I can do not to look him in the eye and be like, “you know, I don’t think the organic home remedies are working.” Instead, I just tell my daughter never to let that kid touch her hat. Ever.
I have thus far prided myself on the fact that we have not had any battles with lice, a fact I attributed to my eminently wise decision to use tea tree oil shampoo to wash everyone’s hair (look, I’m not above organic home remedies either), but which is probably just down to the fact that my children still speak shitty French and therefore have no friends. Apparently, my daughter made a friend last week, and as a sign of their commitment to one another, they traded hats. Bam, game over.
As a result, I found myself sitting in the garden on a plastic chair last Thursday, wearing only a bath towel, dripping wet from the shower with loads of slimy conditioner coating my hair, waiting for my husband to patiently comb through it, section by section, in search of living proof of the colony of tiny insects that had taken up residence on my scalp.
Obviously, I was grumpy. I am working on an important book, you know, and I have other things to do besides sit around while my husband searches my scalp for bugs. But the longer we sat there, with the birds tweeting away in the trees, the warm sun shining on my back, feeling my husband’s rough hands parting and combing and parting and combing and stopping every now and then to examine a little speck of something he found, I started feeling, despite my best efforts to the contrary…really good.
When he announced that he had found something with legs — the proof we needed — I was honestly a little bit bummed. “You better keep going just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke,” I told him. He dutifully continued and I closed my eyes and enjoyed it. Unfortunately, within the next five minutes he had managed to amass an incontrovertible quantity of hard (squirmy) evidence that I was, in fact, dreadfully infested, and the ritual ended.
The take-away here is that while I don’t enjoy having head lice, I really enjoyed having my husband pick them out of my hair.
Am I a weirdo, or am I just a primate?
The two are not mutually exclusive, you know, but although I have many bizarre qualities as a human, I am going to venture that I am squarely in the norm on this one.
Allow me to try convincing you. Whether or not you have recently had the pleasure of waiting for a loved one pick through your hair for lice and nits, you almost certainly have had the experience of having your hair washed at the salon. And I am willing to bet you liked it, even though, by objective measures, it should be miserable. The experience as a whole doesn’t really have a lot going for it. First of all, the whole place smells like chemicals, leading you to wonder whether your time there (1, 2, even 3 hours) might somehow lead to an unnatural early death. Then they outfit you in that black smock that makes you look like a floating head, and I don’t care how pretty you are, after they put you in that you start thinking, Shit, there’s no haircut that can save me now. Then they escort you to the back of the salon where there’s a chair and a sink with a little cut-out in the side where you’re supposed to put your neck, and it’s always so fucking uncomfortable. Does anyone actually feel like lying their head in those things is comfortable? But then — then they turn on the warm water and pick up their little hand-held shower and start running it over your head, and massaging the crap out of your scalp with truly copious amounts of shampoo, and despite the fact that your neck hurts like hell you’re just thinking, “ahhhhhhh, please never stop doing this.”
I only do that once, maybe twice, in a year, if I’m feeling plush, and apart from that, and this odd moment last Thursday in the garden when my husband was picking through my hair with a fine-toothed comb looking for live bugs, nobody ever really touches my scalp. Which is not just a shame, it’s probably one of the most glaring cases of evolutionary mismatch in modern society. Where are all the academic papers on the lack of social delousing in industrialized nations? If we want world peace, we had better start eating each other’s nits, and fast.
Virtually every primate species on the planet spends a huge amount of time grooming each other.
3:43
the take home folder vol 123
One thing about me - I fall in love with almost every place we visit, imagine our life there, and jokingly try to convince Todd to move. Anyone else like this? Today we head home from our friends’ cabin which is nestled into the forest of Northern Wisconsin and it’s just been lovely. At the same time, it always feels good to come home.
What is something I can do for our home?
What is something I can do for/with our family?
What is something I can do for myself?
Today for me it’s getting everything unpacked and starting on laundry, putting all four of us to bed early, and generally going easy on myself. Summer has felt like a sprint so far and the introvert homebody in me is looking forward to a lighter schedule this week.
Did you know that July 2nd is known as “halfway day”? It’s wild to me that we are halfway through 2026. If you’re up to it, it’s a great time to reflect on how your goals for the year are going and adjust your sails if needed.
Probably like most people (?), my year has been a mixed bag of triumphs and blunders. I don’t feel like I’ve been overly focused on my word of the year, curate. Whoops. But I have been successful in crossing off/working on a good amount of my 26 for 2026 list.
I’m also experiencing a desire to be more gentle on myself. Not in an abandoning goals way, but in a gosh I’m trying hard and doing a lot but can’t expect myself to do things perfectly all the time.
Rooting for you to work towards your goals in a way that honors your need for rest, whimsy, connection, and good ol’ battery recharging.
I’ve mentioned before that I’m a points and miles newbie. I have watched others cover flights and hotels using points and miles for years but the thought of travel hacking felt overwhelming to me.
Late last year, I listened to The Reframe podcast episode 66 about travel hacking for beginners and it was the first time I could see it fitting into my life. I signed up for my first credit card in over a decade and got the bonus. I went with the AmEx Gold because it earns 4x points on groceries and restaurants, 3x points on flights, had a solid signup bonus, and the points easily transfer to Delta. (Here’s my referral link.) For the first time ever, we used points to pay for a portion of our flights for spring break. It was awesome!
Now I’m thinking ahead to 2027 travel and - especially with current flight prices - I want to accumulate as many points as possible to soften the costs.
I’ve continued to use my AmEx Gold to bank 4x points on groceries and restaurants, but am considering:
adding one more card to the mix for the signup bonus and/or
referring Todd to AmEx Gold for the referral bonus
This feels advantageous points-wise but also manageable for the limited capacity I have to manage this.
Big sister energy here - I’m begging you not to open a credit card unless you can pay off the balance in full every month.
If you have any travel hacking wisdom to share, I’m all ears.
Turkey burgers get a bad rap for being dry and flavorless. But these Juicy Turkey Burgers are delicious, promise. Don’t skip the slaw - though I recommend keeping the cabbage mixture separate from the dressing mixture until you’re ready to eat. My kids eat these but skip the slaw in favor of pickles and ketchup.
We have been making these burgers for years but last week was the first time I thought to double the recipe and eat the leftover cooked patties on top of a big bed of slaw for lunches. Yum.
I used this fabric glue to repair my Rothy’s clogs when a thread came loose and it worked perfectly. What I wasn’t expecting was that I would appreciate having fabric glue on hand for other things. I have also used it to quickly repair a hole at the seam of my son’s favorite t-shirt and to secure a Little League patch that was peeling at the corners. Sure, I should learn how to sew and would like to at some point! But in the interim, fabric glue has been a big help.
My kids are highly interested in time with their buddies. Something that has been creeping into our life with our 11 year old is sleepovers.
If you would have asked me 5 years ago, I would swear that we were a family that had never and would never do sleepovers with friends. But we actually changed our mind in the last year and he has done a few sleepovers with friends whose families we know well.
Sleepovers are thrilling for him but the day after he’s been tiiiiired. Turns out that staying up into the wee hours of the morning does have an effect on the next day.
Enter: the Late Over. He wants to hang out with his pals and we want him to be a functioning human the next day. A 10pm pick up followed by sleeping in his own bed? It’s sort of perfect for this season.
While we’ll still occasionally allow sleepovers, I’m certain Late Overs will continue for years to come.
Do Late Overs feel like a good option for your family?
recent favorites
Skorts - my robust (and strong!) thighs make finding good shorts tricky but skorts are chef’s kiss.
6:55
Five Phrases I Constantly Say to My Kids
Lisa Damour’s quick‑hit reel boils down parenting to five simple, empathy‑first lines. First, “Man, that stinks!” validates a kid’s frustration without trying to fix it. Then she asks, “Do you want my help or just want to vent?” so the child can decide whether they need guidance or just a listening ear. The third phrase, “Is there anything I can do that won’t make this worse?” signals you’re present but mindful of over‑stepping. For safety talks she says, “Don’t worry about getting caught; worry about whether you or someone else could get hurt,” keeping the focus on real risk. Finally, “What’s getting in the way?” frames the problem as a joint puzzle rather than a blame game.
The writer shares that these five have become staples in their own house, alongside a few personal favorites that work for an 11‑year‑old and a 15‑year‑old. The overall message is simple: pause, validate, and ask before you jump in. It’s less about a magic formula and more about consistently showing you’re on the child’s side, whether they’re venting, seeking advice, or navigating a risky situation.
7:39
Sunday Scroll #147
Hey there, I just wanted to catch you up on the whirlwind week we had. We started in Greenville, South Carolina, where we spent a couple of days settling in before dropping Caroline off at Camp Greystone. The camp’s nestled in the woods, so she’s already talking about hikes and campfire stories.
After that, Brady and I headed over to Asheville, North Carolina. It was a quick drive, but the mountain air felt refreshing. We arrived just in time to pick Tyler up from Camp Carolina, and funny enough, the two camps overlapped by a single day, so the kids swapped a few stories about their different adventures.
Overall, it was a busy stretch of travel and family logistics, but the kids are loving camp life and we managed to squeeze in a little scenic driving between drop‑offs. Hope you’re cozy and enjoying a good drink while you read this!
8:13
Men's Hair Loss - A Big Deal or Are We Just Big Babies?
My hair started falling out in my early twenties. I’d just graduated college and was heading to New York to pursue a career in acting when I started noticing little wisps in the sink every morning. I tried to ignore it at first— thought maybe it was just normal wear and tear, but the longer it went on, the more each strand began to resemble a little exclamation point on the porcelain. I hadn’t yet wrapped my head around what I was going to do if I started balding - this was the early aughts and the only treatment that had hit the mainstream were those Hair Club for Men ads with older dudes getting out of pools with water draining off their fake looking hair. So I just let it ride. After a year or two, as my forehead began to resemble a half-eaten arugula salad, the generic version of Rogaine hit the market and I started slathering foam on my scalp. But I didn’t really notice much of a difference.
When a role I was playing in grad school called for me to shave my head, I jumped at the chance— maybe this was the solution. Maybe I’d look so good with a shaved scalp, I wouldn’t have to worry about keeping up the hair routine for the rest of my life. But to my disappointment (cue sad trumpet sound, “Wah-wahhhh…”) I looked terrible. See, I’ve got what some might call a cromagnum brow, which takes over my whole head, so I looked like a walking version of Half-Dome. You could free-solo that thing.
So with any hope of being the next Bruce Willis or Jason Statham flushed down the hair-covered toilet, I started seeking out other treatments. Because I was, and still am, quite vain. My whole life, it seems like a pretty large part of my identity has been tied to my looks, which I know, is not a super-cool trait, but hey, honesty is the best policy, right? But that’s why (I’m told by my therapist) I might be more concerned with losing my hair than other men. But I’m not so sure I’m actually much of an anomaly. When I polled my group of dude-friends, almost all of them admitted to having some insecurity around their hairline, even the ones with thick scalps. So it’s obviously not just me. And it makes me wonder if the stress over our hairline is connected to a deeper, more existential kind of anxiety. It’s so obvious and trite to say that men worry about balding, but maybe there’s something more profound going on in the process? Or maybe we’re just cry babies. Let’s find out.
First, let me say off the bat - I’m super envious of the men out there secure enough to shave their heads and not concern themselves with the hair thing in general. I wish I could do it. I’ve got buddies who shave their heads and look amazing and don’t have to deal with all the BS that comes with middle-aged hair loss. If you’re one of those dudes, or married to one of those dudes, I salute you.
Secondly, I’m not advocating any sort of treatment here or suggesting that all men are the same. I’m more interested in the notion that men aren’t supposed to be vain or think about their looks. Like, how did that become associated with manliness? I’d venture to say the alphiest of the alphas care about it. Because it’s the one physical attribute we can’t really control. Not that losing our beer guts is easy, but there’s always diet and exercise. Hair is different. That train is going no matter what. And, at least for me, I feel like there’s a connection - even if it’s made up and subconscious- between losing my hair and losing my youth and virility. It’s like a physical marker of time. And that can spur a bit of an existential fluttering.
It’s also the most forward facing, visible attribute we have (other than height, which is a whole ‘nother can of squirmy worms) and therefore the thing that gets noticed first. I mean, I never want to imply that men get judged on their appearance anywhere near that amount that women do, y’all get the short end of that stick and it sucks, BUT, I do think the hair thing is something we can’t hide. Like boobs. They’re out there and get judged. Although I’m told that women aren’t nearly as concerned with follicles as we are with chesticles. We’re the worst. But even if we are misperceiving the importance of our hair to the outside world, it doesn’t make it less of a minefield for anxiety. Which I guess could be said for any body issue.
11:00
I Remain Convinced Policing Can't Be Reformed
I can’t stop thinking about 1-year-old Kohen Kartier Wiley, and his mother, Vellesiya Wiley. On June 14th, she took her baby to Walmart to pick up some diapers, paid for them at self-checkout, and walked out to her car. A very normal errand. Someone at Walmart accused her of stealing the diapers (to reiterate: she was not stealing, she had paid for them), and called the police. The police showed up and shot at her while she was holding her 1-year-old baby. The police killed the baby and injured the mother.
A beloved child killed over diapers. A beloved child killed for no reason.
The story is so disturbing that you might be tempted to argue with my retelling, just so you don’t have to accept it as real. You might be tempted to think: maybe the police were in danger! we don’t know their side! But you need to stop. This news story is as horrible as it sounds. There is no angle that makes it better. As of this writing, the police won’t release the bodycam footage, so we can assume it doesn’t make their actions look justified. And remember, even if the diapers had been stolen (they were not), it would still not justify pulling out a gun and shooting a baby. We are not allowed to kill people over diapers. Period.
Just the day before, on June 13th, Marie Marseille was in her own home, watching the New York Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs, and win the NBA finals. As a Knicks fan, she was joyous and celebrating. A neighbor heard the celebratory noise and called the police. The police showed up and knocked on her door. She answered, and her two-year-old dog, Jameson, who was wearing a New York Knicks jersey, came out to see who was there. Within seconds, the police fired four shots and killed the dog. There’s a video of her, collapsed over her dead dog’s body, wailing in profound sadness.
Again, there is no other-side-of-the-story that will make this better. In this case, the police officers did release the bodycam footage, but the footage was edited, and the officers’ faces were blurred. An NBC4 reporter named Eric Leonard said, “We’ve been looking at these body-worn videos for years. I don’t remember another instance where officers’ faces were blurred ever before.”
These stories should prompt us to ask lots of questions. Both Vellesiya Wiley and Marie Marseille are Black women. If they were white, would the outcomes of their stories be different? If they were white, would the police have been called at all? In what scenario would it make sense to show up with a gun in response to an accusation of stolen diapers? Is there any product in Walmart or another typical store that would be worthy of killing someone over? That would be worth the risk of injuring or killing someone? Is it okay that any person can summon men with guns (sometimes women, but usually men) to another person’s door, anonymously and based on nothing but a phone call? If police knocked on your door with guns drawn, what would you do? Would your pets or your kids come to the door?
Six years ago, before Substack existed, I wrote a 29-tweet viral thread about how my views on policing had shifted. I re-read it as I was thinking about Vellesiya Wiley and Marie Marseille, and I concluded the shift in thinking still holds for me. I’m going to share an essay-form of the Twitter thread in full here. If you read it, I’d love to hear what you think, and if you’ve experienced similar shifts in thinking.
This is how I, a 45-year-old white woman and mother of six, currently at her peak Karen power, went from thinking about police work as a deeply flawed system that needed to be reformed because it is a necessary part of functional communities, to becoming a passionate advocate for #abolishthepolice and #defundthepolice, over the course of one week.
Have you ever been to a gymnastics hall? You walk in and the whole environment is set up so that it’s really easy to jump, tumble, flip, handstand, and cartwheel. It’s like you walk in, and can’t help yourself. You start doing gymnastics immediately.
Have you ever seen a cop’s uniform? They carry their “environment” around with them, and the whole thing, including every accessory, zipper, and badge, is designed to intimidate and make it easy to inflict violence. It’s like they can’t help themselves. Their uniform creates an environment where defaulting to a violent solution is practically inevitable.
“I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” Have you heard that saying before? Let’s apply it to police. If you’re always prepared to easily inflict violence, then the chances of inflicting unwarranted violence go way, way up. Cat in a tree? Got locked out of your car? Kids prank called 911? Found a brutally murdered body? When called, police will arrive at all four of these scenes equally armed to the teeth.
