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Rachel Turiel
Position: Staff reporter

After injury, kids are the best medicine

Three weeks ago, I got a concussion after losing my footing at the ice rink and falling on my head. I know. Highly cautious middle-aged mothers are not the typical profile for co...

Be playful, be silly, while there’s still time

Rose and I are walking Lucy, one of Rose’s canine clients, in the snowy woods behind our house. Rose is bouncing along and inventing icicle jokes. “What do you call an icicle in t...

Sweet traditions invigorate this cold, dark season

Rose is balanced on a chair, placing candles in our family’s menorah, while I am hitting the household “hot spots” (couch clutter, table crumbs from breakfast, bathroom sink) before our Hanu...

To savor kids’ many seasons, live in the now

Every morning, I sit at the kitchen table with an alarming level of gratitude for coffee, while gazing out at the two crab apple trees we planted when Col was just a wobbly ride-along. ...

Everyday offers an opportunity to live our values

It’s Sunday morning and Col and Rose are circled around a pile of Legos. They could stay here all day, or at least until their fingers have begun the evolutionary adaptation of sprouting the...

From the murk of conflict to the light of harmony

We’re in the late afternoon vortex, everyone milling around the house like they’re auditioning for the role of most irritable, lethargic family member. The kids are bickering for...

The business of growing up is complicated

I feel a little blasphemous admitting to you that I am feeling just fine about transitioning out of the perma-freedom days of summer into a little more structure. Maybe it’s beca...

10-year-old chef brings his own recipe to kitchen

How to cook with a 10-year-old: First, crack a beer. Next, put on Pandora. Accept that he refuses to wear an apron. Take five deep breaths. Explain to Rose, age 8, that no, when ...

Slower summer lifestyle rich, rewarding

“I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity.” – Eleanor Roosevelt In sum...

Finding everything we need on trip to desert

Every crevice of the car is packed. The kids are human puzzle pieces wedged between carefully stacked ramparts of coolers, water jugs, sleeping bags. Four handmade bows bisect the vehicle le...

Being a mother – in this moment and the next

It’s 5 p.m. There are two extra kids at our house, a sinkful of dishes and piles of discarded clothes festering in sparkly pink clumps. The kitchen table is layered with paper flotsam. The f...

Life is equal parts precious, out of our control

I am drinking coffee, reading the paper and fielding interruptions from the kids in a parody of my own routine morning ordinariness when my phone rings. It is my friend Stephanie, whom I’ve ...