“His little body leaped off the ground and dove for the iPad in my lap. In between hiccups, coughs, deep gasps, he said, ‘MOMMY… I… NEED… IT.’ I replied a stern, ‘No, baby. You do NOT need it.’ Then, mommy did the unthinkable. ‘We’re going on an adventure.'”
‘I LOVE MY IPAD, MOMMY. I HATE YOU!’ My beautiful child was ugly crying, swinging arms, red faced. He threw his belly to the ground. ‘WHY MOMMY?!’ All hell broke loose.’
‘I grew up obsessed with Little House on the Prairie. I wanted to give my children a simplified childhood. One with very few electronics. I really took a step back on how I’m raising my kids.’
“I want them to be KIDS and not someone I am trying to keep entertained. I want them to spend their summers the way their dad and I did. I want them to learn how to play Red Rover, Capture the flag, and Marco Polo. I want them to have tire swings, chalk, climbing trees, and mud pies. I want their finger nails to be dark brown from playing in the dirt.”
‘There was a catch. This boy was technically a man. At 20-years-old, our sexual relationship was illegal. After hiding our meetups, I came home to find a police officer on my couch.’
“My first true love went to jail, and I became a small-town girl with an over-sexualized reputation. Teachers hit on me. Dads from the daycare I worked at stalked me. I was ridiculed, taunted, labeled easy. Enter more boys.”
‘I ran upstairs, and the smell of putrid decay invaded my nostrils. I coughed and covered my nose, searching for the source of that smell. There, in the corner of the closet, sat a dark blue trash can.’
“I briefly and calmly asked my kids some leading questions, tactically trying to prevent the lies.”
‘There was no turning back’: Mom builds magical hidden room through teen’s closet
“As an only child, I had magical thoughts and feelings about hidden worlds that were there if you just looked hard enough.”
