Laura Nicole Diamond
-
This Time We Can Help
My eight-year-old son comes to me in the dawning day in mismatched pajamas. He hesitates for…
-
“Biggest Massive Most Joyous Fiercest Action the World Has Ever Known”
Vaginas of the World Unite. I thought that might grab your attention. The quotation in the…
-
Read between the lines
My sister and I had a favorite sight gag as kids. Hold up your middle three…
-
Babies, Human and Print
I’m thinking about birthdays because my first child was born 12 years (and 15 minutes) ago.…
-
Thieving Thursday: Painter Erin Hanson…Wow
We’re going to play word association today. I say “paintings” you say “gallery” or “canvases” or,…
-
Miracle Makers in our Midst
Everywhere I look are stories of regular folks accomplish amazing things. Today’s L.A. Times front page…
-
Change the World, Part 2: Get to Work
I last wrote about how I’d take the inspiration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on…
-
Change the World, Yes You.
With Martin Luther King Day (a National Day of Service) on the near horizon, it’s fitting…
-
Thieving Thursday: Coffee Balsamic Flank Steak to the rescue!
It’s only the third Thieving Thursday of the year, and I nearly missed it. I’d like…
-
Thieving Thursday: Tara Mohr’s 13 Questions for the New Year
Welcome to the second official installment of Thieving Thursdays, in which I steal, er, I mean…
-
Easy Peasy Resolutions (To Make Me The #1 Most Hated Mom)
Resolution #1: More patience. Even if it’s the 15th time I’ve asked them to do something…
-
A Reluctant Goodbye to the Incomparable Catherine O’Neill
There are sounds you treasure from your childhood, as insignificant as they are reassuring. The sound…
-
Steal This Idea: Share Good Stuff
My family got addicted to The Voice this season. (Well, everyone except Grandma Lilli, who says…
-
Hanukah Games — Yiddish Password Rules!
And on the 6th night of Hanukah, the Jews played Yiddish Password. When I was a…
-
Christmas Schmristmas — It’s Hanukah Envy, Baby
Hanukah begins tomorrow night, and I’ve been shopping. “I think the boys are going to be…
-
Guilt Takes a Holiday: Gratitude for Little Things
It has come to my attention that I have done something terrible. I have given the…
-
Wanted: Powerful Older Women
Last night we saw Lincoln. The only thing more shocking to the House of Representatives than…
-
L.A. Story: Levitated Mass, Metropolis, and Giant Spaghetti Make Our Day at LACMA
Thanksgiving vacation is a week away. If your child is lucky enough to be in the…
-
Obama’s Reelection, Prop 30 and Legos
It wasn’t only the candidates who put on turbo-powered overdrive in the last hectic week. My…
-
Vine, Wine, Dine…Divine: Paso Robles Restaurants and Wineries
With our children in the able hands of their grandparents, Christopher and I headed out of…
-
It’s all Greek to me
No Torah Study for me today. After last week’s Jewish Journal article in which I gushed…
-
The (Great Big Parenting) Book
As some of you know, I’ve become something of a Torah study geek of late. Weirder…
-
Bring on Halloween
There is nothing like decorating a house for Halloween to get my 8-year-old son going. Last…
-
Glide Away to Half Moon Bay
Thanks to TheVacationGals.com for sharing my piece about Half Moon Bay, a great place to visit…
-
Will Worrying About My Children Bring the Bad? Will Positive Thinking Bring the Good?
I wonder: When you spend a high percentage of time and emotional energy worrying about bad…
-
How to Show Nice Manners to Thieves
Besides having what I consider the best title of any blog (“I Miss You When I…
-
Married with (Great-Grand)children
August 14 is my grandparents’ wedding anniversary. It would have been 75 years today. My grandfather…
-
Summer Isn’t Over Until I Say So
Walking to the beach tonight for fading-daylight boogie boarding – our new ritual for our new…
-
Endings, Beginnings, and the Right Now
The sun set on the 7-year-old Tigers as the last game of the season came to…
-
Fridays with Amy
My friend recently told me about her “favorite hour of the week” – Torah study with…
-
Fridays with Amy
My friend recently told me about her “favorite hour of the week” – Torah study with…
-
Happiness is…
…Hearing my kids playing together — an elaborate, old favorite Matchbox car race – after I…
-
Who Washes Your Car?
My sons and I wash my car in a hose-and-bucket-water-fight affair on the driveway. Most of…
-
Happy Mother’s Day
Wishing you bursting purple riots of love, Laura
-
Words to live by at the L.A. Festival of Books
I attended the L.A. Festival of Books this past weekend. The last time I went I…
-
Spring Forward
It’s been a month of writers’ block. Maybe writer’s procrastination is more apt. I have no…
-
Occupy the Beach
My eleven-year-old and his gang of thugs are a bunch of scofflaws. Never mind that they…
-
Thinking of You, Twelve Years Gone
January 27, 2000. I was sitting at the kitchen table finishing a bowl of cereal, soaking…
-
Playing Hooky: What Killer Whales and Floor Hockey Have in Common
“We went whale watching and we didn’t see any whales, Papa!” Emmett reported to his grandfather…
-
The Fatherhood Economy: Spend Time, Pay Attention
When I was pregnant with our first child, a stack of pre-natal and parenting books towered…
-
Happy New Year.
Happy 2012 from Aaron, Emmett and Bucket Heisen. You may be wondering, did we get a…
-
Night Frights, part 2 (or Dinosaur Spray to our Rescue)
Musical beds was getting the better of me. For weeks, our seven-year-old son had refused to…
-
Night frights, and a warm (but crowded) bed
My seven-year-old son has been having trouble sleeping. Every night for the past few months, he…
-
Give Thanks, Give Turkeys
A dozen volunteers hustled back and forth with groceries in their arms. Empty boxes filled the…
-
In the distance, an empty nest…
My poor little out-of-the-box Emmett. Every morning, the moment he awakens to the realization that it…
-
Keeping Summer Memories Fresh…
With the school year now underway, summer seems a distant dream. So thanks to two of…
-
The Long Ride Home: Vermont to California (by way of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Virginia and D.C.)
Moving from Stowe to Burlington, Vermont, meant moving up in population size from 5,000-ish to 40,000-ish.…
-
Oh, Stowe!
Before arriving in Stowe, Vermont, I knew almost nothing about it. One might attribute this to…
-
Vermont: Freedom and Unity
As we packed the car and prepared to leave our lake cottage at the end of…
-
The Water is Coming, the Water is Coming!
Attention readers: Due to the intervening event of Hurricane Irene, we take a break from our…
-
Postcard from New Hampshire: Swingin’ in the Rain
Here at Lake Todd in Newbury, New Hampshire, the house we rented is on a road…
-
Why New Hampshire Rocks: Off-the-grid Games, Baseball, and Presidential Politics
Time marches fast, even on vacation. It’s hard to believe our plans are steadily becoming history,…
-
Live Free and Pie
As we left New York to head to New England, the road trip portion of our…
-
NYC: How Two Kids and Their Parents Devour the Big Apple
As our two-month family road trip moved from Philadelphia to New York City, we shifted gears…
-
Philadelphia, American History, and Mini-Golf
“California is the most beautiful state, but Pennsylvania is the most historic.” Thus spoke my 10-year-old…
-
A Bad Idea Gone Good
Q: When four adults confront a 5-day forecast that includes thunderstorms Monday afternoon and sunny skies…
-
Hot enough for ya?
Let me warn you: if you want to find a heat wave in summer, follow us.…
-
How To Celebrate A 7 Year Old’s Birthday
Easy. Start with dinosaurs, finish with giraffes. We have two summer birthdays in our family. My…
-
How to Get Your Teenager to Spend Time With You
My eldest niece Rebecca is 14 and a half. I adore her. Before I had my…
-
Moving Day
It happened. Just as we told ourselves it would (though I hadn’t quite believed it), a…
-
Independence Day
July 4, 2011. The folding chairs are empty now. A few hours ago they held parents…
-
My Cup Runneth Over
In California, our children are not considered ready to learn their state’s history until they are…
-
The Last Kindergartner
It has come to this. My baby is graduating from kindergarten. For him, the approaching milestone…
-
Dare to Fail Gloriously
I sat with closed eyes in a room full of women. A Women’s Seder. My mother…
-
Express yourself
Expressing Motherhood is opening on Wednesday April 27th, 7:30 p.m. We are sold out Opening night,…
-
Poem-a-day.
April is National Poetry Month. At least I think someone said so. Garrison Keilor’s The Writer’s…
-
What I Want.
Walk with me on my birthday. For the people of Darfur. To add some meaning to…
-
What Have You Done for Girls, Lately?
“I didn’t need this cup of coffee,” I thought to myself as the conversation with my…
-
Let the Sun Shine In
I remember as a toddler dancing on the brown shag carpet in my family’s living room…
-
‘Twas The Week Before Christmas…
Chanukah came early this year, again. While it means I’m always disorganized at the beginning, the…
-
Gray Sky, Rain
It is with sadness, regret (and some degree of anger at f-ing cancer) that I share…
-
Hurts So Good
I’m pedaling this bike and going nowhere. It’s my second spinning class ever, three weeks after…
-
“Why didn’t I think of that?”
Our good friend Stuart Gibbs read from his new kids’ novel, “Belly Up” this past Sunday…
-
That was fast.
Another Halloween disappears. We didn’t hang our new string of pumpkin lights, and our remote control…
-
What I Would Have Said, If I’d Thought of It
Today brings the second guest post in the history of my blog. My brother-in-law Peter (www.reluctantlawyer.com)…
-
Do the Unthinkable
“You must do the things you think you cannot do.” – Eleanor Roosevelt I think of…
-
For Everything, A Season
My boys are at the park playing baseball, the sky holding off twilight. I haven’t felt…
-
The First Day
We are walking across the blacktop playground, three astride, Christopher and I sandwiching Emmett, on the…
-
What I forgot, and why.
A confession. A sin committed against my youngest. A sin of omission, but nonetheless. I forgot to…
-
Living in Freefall
A guest today, for the first time. I wanted to share a beautiful essay written by my friend:…
-
Portraits of Hope, and Inspiration
Brothers Ed and Bernie Massey, along with thousands of volunteers (and the blessing of L.A.County), have…
-
All’s well that end’s well
When last we spoke, our heroes had decided to put their hopes above their fears and…
-
Midsummer Days
Mid summer. August 3. Six weeks since the sigh of release from the tyrant with the…
-
To summer, and to Christopher.
School’s been out 2 days and Father’s Day is here. I’d like to share my “From the Editor” piece…
-
Darlin If You Want Me To
When it’s almost closing day, I can’t help but remember how it felt at the beginning.
-
It’s coming . . .
It’s the Superbowl of enforced nice treatment: Mother’s Day. This Sunday I look forward to sleeping…
-
You’re a poet, and you know it.
Today is the last day of National Poetry Month. Can you believe you nearly missed the whole…
-
Got Inspiration?
On April 29th, Beyond Shelter will host its Inspiration Awards at Paramount Studios. To me, it…
-
Go Swish
We watched the last shot of the NCAA Championship game, for the win at the buzzer,…
-
Faint Praise
It was a Sunday, filled with the promise of flaky warm croissants and bursting red strawberries.…
-
The best worst decade.
2001. The first year of the decade we’re supposed to want to forget, years that beg…
-
The X-Rated Birds and Bees
When a dad decides to tell it like it is about sex, a mother is forced…
-
Stand by me.
Will cousins who fight like siblings stick together when the going gets tough?
-
Break(dancing) with Tradition.
New family traditions have to begin sometime. This Thanksgiving, we started something I hope will last…
-
Strength.
Strong mind, strong body, strong spirit, strong will. Every kid needs strength.
-
More than we wished for.
What could be better than to be eight years old, out at dark, running with friends,…
-
Halloween traditions: candy, wine and fleeting time.
The Halloween decorations may be uninspired, but they’re pouring wine in my neighborhood. Hope my kids…
-
Finding the heart for the fight.
On the wall above my desk, over my right shoulder, is a framed homemade Obama lawn…
Laura Nicole Diamond 