This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel

The sources, dubious and dubiouser, also recommended missionary position, and she was happy to oblige. The same website also suggested putting a wooden spoon under the bed to conceive a girl, and she did, then felt like an idiot and threw it on the dresser then thought Penn would mock her-and rightly-if he saw it there so stashed it the only place close at hand: under the bed. She’d also quietly served salmon to her husband for lunch and, though of course they were adults, chocolate-chip cookies, German folklore prescribing red meat and salty snacks for men in need of heirs and afternoon delight for those desirous of daughters. The Talmud, her mother reported, was very clear that many sons were born to a man whose bed was facing north, and though Rosie doubted it sincerely, along with most of what the Talmud offered, she couldn’t take the chance. The leap from two to four felt astronomical, so their parents had turned to the heavens.Īll of which was why, despite being a woman of considerable science, a disciple of logic and reason, a person grounded firmly in the right half of her right mind, and besides all that a doctor who knew better, Rosie Walsh was spending the fifteen minutes immediately preceding the kickoff of Claude dragging her bed from its spot on the wall into the middle of the room so that it faced east-west rather than north-south. Then they debated and deliberated and decided just one more and therefore got twins-Rigel and Orion-who were no doubt going to voice hostility about their names when they became older than four, especially when Rigel found out he was named after the constellation’s toe, but who for the moment were too little and too loud to care. First Roo was born, all pink and sticky and loud and miraculous. They had decided to hyphenate because-and in spite-of all the usual reasons but mostly so their firstborn could have his grandfather’s name without sounding too presidential, which seemed to his parents like a lot of pressure for a six-pound, two-ounce, brand-new tiny human. And families with secrets don't get to keep them forever.But first, Roo was born. And it's about the ways this is how it always is: Change is always hard and miraculous and hard again parenting is always a leap into the unknown with crossed fingers and full hearts children grow but not always according to plan.

Laurie Frankel's This Is How It Always Is is a novel about revelations, transformations, fairy tales, and family. But soon the entire family is keeping Claude's secret. Kids go through phases, after all, and make-believe is fun.

When he grows up, Claude says, he wants to be a girl. He wants to bring a purse to kindergarten. One day he puts on a dress and refuses to take it off. At least their large, loving, chaotic family knows what to expect.īut Claude is not like his brothers. When Rosie and Penn and their four boys welcome the newest member of their family, no one is surprised it's another baby boy.

This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel