“‘WHYARETHEDISHESNOTINTHEDISHWASHER?’ Yes, I said it like it was all one word. ‘I dunno.’ My blood pressure shot to unsafe levels. Seventeen, yes, 17 cups in the damn sink. Not one. Not 5. Seven-fricking-teen.”
- Love What Matters
- Children
“‘WHYARETHEDISHESNOTINTHEDISHWASHER?’ Yes, I said it like it was all one word. ‘I dunno.’ My blood pressure shot to unsafe levels. Seventeen, yes, 17 cups in the damn sink. Not one. Not 5. Seven-fricking-teen.”
“I’m well aware that many parenting experts and the majority of the general public think it not wise to be your child’s friend. ‘You are their parent, not their friend,’ they say. What do I tell them? Nothing, because I don’t need them to approve of my parenting decisions.”
“I called his father. ‘What happened?’ He didn’t have much to say. I choked down tears and made my way to the hospital. After x-rays, I was told they suspected child abuse. My baby was bleeding in his brain due to non-accidental trauma. I immediately went to his father. ‘How could this happen?!’ He just kept repeating, ‘He was choking on milk.’ I was enraged.”
“My rolling circus attracts the attention of every rando in the tampon aisle. This party on wheels, I’ve found, invites a menagerie of questions about my sons’ multiplicity…”
“Someone once explained fertility to me and compared the journey to a tunnel. Some tunnels are short, and some tunnels are long. But at the end of every tunnel, there is a light.”
“My girlfriends still call, most of them don’t have kids yet. I try to be the old me, the one with a name. I’m getting tugged on, sucked on, and yelled at while trying to listen to their weekend plans. I remember those. I beg them to keep asking me to hang out even though I know I won’t be able to come. Hi, my name is Mom.”
“These days, I feel lucky if you want to be held for more than a few seconds. You are so busy exploring and playing. You already feel the need to be independent. To do it yourself. To have things your way. Your little baby features are fading away, and I can suddenly see a big boy peeking through.”
“I want you to know about the nights I lay awake, helpless and shaking. I want to tell my story of our family, who fiercely love someone being attacked and can do very little about it.”
“Dad was diagnosed with lung cancer. It’s unbearable to think about. It has always been the 3 of us that make sure the other is okay.”
“The news rocked my parents’ world. I was smart in school and dumb in love. I enrolled in community college, worked a full-time job and went to class at night. I married a man who had been my friend from the start. He too was at the hospital the night my daughter was born. When my daughter was 11, my husband adopted her. The paperwork was the thing that gave her his name, though she already had his heart.”