“‘BAM,’ ‘CRASH,’ he hit the ground. He hit the ground hard. I ‘got on him’ verbally for crying and being too dramatic.”
‘My son broke his arm yesterday, near his wrist. I am to blame. I told him he was fine. I lied.’
‘Massive day at work today. We have our senior leadership meeting. I have to travel 5 hours by car and train. And what’s my wife doing? Not much really.’
“All she has to do is get two boys up, dressed and fed while breastfeeding the third.”
‘When she moved or kicked, the pain brought me to my knees. Maybe I had a stomach bug. Little did I know this was going to be the most terrifying day of my life.’
“I was strapped down so I couldn’t move. ‘What if I feel him cut into me?’ My husband sat at my head and wiped away the tears that ran down my face.”
‘I caught a glimpse of my 12-year-old daughter and wondered who that woman was.’
“Every mama’s heart is burdened with the weight of her children’s fleeting childhoods. But the beauty is that we are still Mama. They may be too big to carry, or are living with their spouses, but we are still Mama.”
‘I was getting my meat at the butcher. She proceeded to ask me, ‘You gonna get your tubes tied then?’ HALT.’
“I always have the perfect response in my brain, but I was stunned and speechless. She cut me off and said, ‘I’m pretty bold when I’m asking questions.’”
‘I open up a box of tampons and they all come falling out. My son asks, ‘what’s that?’ I say, ‘they’re baby mice!’ ‘Aww cute!,’ he said, while I’m internally laughing.’
“My son starts saying cute things at the doctor. He looks her in the eyes and says, ‘My mommy puts baby mice in her bum bum.’ The doctor looks horrified and says, ‘pardon?'”
‘I did something horrible. I broke all my rules. I told my son not to eat too much crap or he will get fat.’
“I can’t believe I said it. The words rolled out of my mouth and I immediately regretted it.”
‘But Daddy never messes up,’ my son added. ‘Yes, I know, little one, he was one of those who was born perfect.’
‘I want you to mess up. I want you to get distracted by your phone at story time. I want for you to fight in front of your kids. I want you to leave your power-sliding van door open. I want you to yell.”
‘When I lost my father at 18, you were there. You didn’t force me to talk about my emotions. You shared your father with me when I no longer had one.’
“As young parents I would call you crying because the task of being an adult was too overwhelming. I didn’t feel like enough of a wife or mother. You were kind to irrational postpartum me.”
‘My daughter said, ‘There’s a light coming into the picture.’ It wasn’t just any light. This was a beam straight from HEAVEN itself.’
“This pregnancy has been exceptionally harder for me emotionally, knowing I won’t have any pictures of my dad holding this baby. I keep praying for him to show up in some way or another. And boy, did he.”
