I return to one of my favorite places in Portland. And I get a troubling text about Tess.

A fresh pot of coffee. The sun is coming up. I'm about to sit down for an uninterrupted hour of solid work. And then, it gets interrupted.

Tess thrives on routine. Places she knows well. So when we take her on the road, there's one thing that she reliably responds to.

A sunny June day in Maine. A parade of 11 and 12 year olds. Tess mixing it up, in line with everyone else. And a special award, just for her.

Grit. It's a quality that kids need in order to make things happen in their lives. But of course, you can't teach it.

You're at work. Can't focus. Need a coffee. Just drank a full cup, still can't focus. What exactly is your deal, man?

Ever try to do a big math problem on an old-school calculator? You type in a bunch of huge numbers and multiply them, and you get that weird E off to the side? Yeah.

Tess has a bunch of doctors. This week I took her for a checkup with her pediatrician. Let's check in with our T-Bird, shall we?

In our house, we have two things we've started to say much more often during the pandemic.

In these times, we all gotta laugh more. Laughter's good for ya. Almost like some kind of, I don't know, best medicine. And this week we were thrilled to see Tess go into peals of laughter.

Buncha new stuff happening. An emerging sign of Tess's overall happiness, a plan we've hatched to meet up, and recent discoveries around the globe.