“When I moved out of my mom’s house at 18 I was almost as sad to leave her sewing machine behind as anything else.”

I was sitting in Arizona when I received Dogs on Cape Cod. Seeing the joy these dogs had playing on the beaches and in the marsh grasses on the Cape carried me back to my family visits in Harwich. The dogs are so full of life, it just made me smile.

Fathers and mothers, do not forget that children learn more by the eye than they do by the ear… Imitation is a far stronger principle with children than memory. What they see has a much stronger effect on their minds than what they are told.

I know my father and my mother, but beyond that I cannot go. My ancestry is blurred.

I would not be a good mother. I mean, I love being an aunt to my niece and nephew. And I used to want to, like, adopt 10 kids – because I had friends who were adopted, and I thought that was the coolest thing, to be chosen. But again, my job is too selfish.

I started piano when I was four. My mom taught me. And then I went to Manhattan School of Music during high school, like every Saturday. And then I went to Berklee for college, in Boston.

I am a better mother for having something in my life and not just my children.

My mother is a realist, and she’s had biological and adoptive children, and she said it’s no different: No matter what, they’re putting a stranger into your arms. You don’t know them yet.

I sound like such a tool, but becoming a mother has made me next-level confident. I’ve never felt more empowered.

What a joy to remember that she is our Mother! Since she loves us and knows our weakness, what have we to fear?