I started blogging when Olivia was 4 and Mateo 2, writing stories about who they were and what we did and how it felt to be their mother.
Toward the end of the pandemic, I had an idea to compile the blog posts into a book for them—because who doesn’t love to read a book where they’re the subject? I only got as far as copying and pasting the hundreds of entries into a giant Word file before some duty called and I abandoned the project.
Then on December 22, as I thought about what to give my kids for Christmas—really deliberated over what I wanted them to receive from me—I realized what I wanted to give them was a record of our life together. My version of that life, to be sure, but, I figured, better than nothing.
While I was too late to have the manuscript bound into a fancy hardcover volume, there was still time to rush to Office Depot where a friendly associate in the business center printed my 325 pages and secured them with a black plastic spiral.
I titled the tome OUR TINY UNIVERSE and ordered 2 copies, one each for the now 21-year-old Olivia and 19-year-old Mateo.
The best part of Christmas was watching them read it. Oh my heart.
