Status Updates From Love That Boy: What Two Pre...

With Holly in Detroit, Gabrielle in Lansing, and our extended families planted in lower Michigan, Lori and I made plans to leave Washington and move to our home state after Tyler graduates from high school in June 2016. Family first, for once. For her next act, Lori has talked about consulting for parents of special needs children. There's an incredible need, and she'd be terrific-some other families' hero. In the sp

"She didn't believe it was you," I said. Clinton laughed so hard his face turned red. "Oh," he said. "That explains a lot!" Tyler was bored. While Clinton and I stared out the window at downtown Little Rock, lost in our memories, Tyler pointed to a picture on a shelf. "It's hard to find a picture of two polar bears fighting," he said. "You like that?" Clinton enthused. "You interested in polar bears?" "Yes," Tyler re

He often brought me and my brothers, Tim and Mike, to the stadium, where the locker room attendant kept an eye on us while Dad worked. We were rink rats, and we got to know dad's childhood hero, Hall of Famer Gordie Howe, as he was winding down his career. Years later, on a family visit to Traverse City, Michigan, Dad drove past Howe's house and saw the legend cutting his own lawn. We had to stop him from bolting out

Meanwhile, the dropout rate among 16-through-24-year-olds had declined from 10.9 percent in 2000 to 6.6 percent a dozen years later. My niece Anna was in seventh grade when she took her first ACT test for college, scoring a point higher than I did 20 years ago as a high school senior. Through the Duke University Talent Identification Program (TIP), Anna won a gold medal and a small scholarship to the University of Ar

This quote: We should measure our children not by the mountains they conquer but by their efforts to climb. Oh--and let them pick which hills to scale.