5 Minutes With a Mom

Name: Janine Parry

Children’s names and ages? Kate and Paul, 2-year-old twins.

Name five guests you’d like to invite over to a fantasy dinner party: Narrowed to living people: Margaret Atwood, Felicity Huffman, William H. Macy, Madeleine Albright, David Sedaris

The last book you read? A Long, Long Way by Sebastian Barry … a gut-wrenchingly sad novel about an Irish soldier in World War I.

Your favorite childhood memory? The whole family working (and playing) in the backyard in the summer. My dad was a teacher; my mom was a homemaker with a small, seasonal business. We lived a charmed life.

A tradition you hope to start with your twins? Making time with each of them, independent of the other.

If you had a whole day alone, how would you spend it? Working in the yard, reading, and napping.

The worst parenting advice you’ve received to date? Breastfeeding is easy.

The best thing about parenting is …. the dozens of times every day I am dumbstruck by the interesting, busy, hilarious little people who have taken up residence in my home.

The most challenging? Remembering that a breakneck pace does not serve me or my family well.

If you could have a summer home somewhere else where would it be? Somewhere in the islands of Puget Sound in Washington State.

Name one of your guilty pleasures: cookie dough

One word to sum me up? Happy