Category: Motherhood
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A Small Rebellion
I lifted you out of the baby car seat and held you on my lap in the padded wooden church pew. You were two months old—small enough to lay on your back with your head at my knees and your little feet resting on my stomach. You loved to stare up at the lights on…
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The Kitchen Window
I’m in the kitchen on a Monday evening, making homemade macaroni and cheese for dinner. Mac and cheese is a staple around here—it’s easy, it makes leftovers, and everyone loves it. Sunbeams spread across the cabinet doors, warming and brightening the whole room, reminding me that spring is almost here to stay. Here in northern…
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Winter Flowers
“Is it summer now?” my son asks. “It’s 2 degrees outside,” I say. “It’s still winter. It won’t be summer for a long time.” “But the snow’s melted,” he insists. He’s looking out the window of our minivan at the patchwork of snow and grass on our neighbors’ yards. His four-year-old brain is always working,…
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Cluster Feeding
It’s sometime after midnight on your first night home, and I just realized why you keep acting hungry instead of settling back to sleep after nursing. You’re cluster feeding. We settle in on the couch in the stillness of the living room lamplight, where you can nurse and doze in my arms. After two nights…
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Tomato Plants and Other Miracles
A few months ago, Walter and I planted tomato seeds. We started them in a seed starter tray, sprinkling and pressing the tiny black specks into the fresh cups of garden soil. Little green sprouts peeked out of the dirt, then grew leaves. They grew taller and stronger until finally I selected the best two…
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Springtime and the Little-Kid Years
It’s spring, technically. The 50-degree weather we’re having is seasonally appropriate, even though it’s unpleasantly chilly and windy compared with last week’s 70-degree afternoons. Things are so much easier on those 70-degree days. Those days when it’s warm, partly cloudy, and just a little breezy are pleasantly low maintenance. No coat. No gloves. No wet…
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Shooting Stars
The breeze off the ocean is chilly after sunset, so we wear sweatshirts and snuggle close to each other. The beach is nearly empty except for us—me, and my husband. The annual Perseid meteor shower coincided perfectly with our wedding and our honeymoon to Maine, and tonight the sky is clear. We sit on the…
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Pipes and Poppables
My dad bought four bags of Poppables in the wrong flavor. He was running some errands for my mom, and, in his defense, the bags of “Sea Salt & Vinegar” Poppables are a very similar color to the bags of the preferred “Sea Salt” variety. Apparently there was a sale going on if you bought…
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Earth Science
My son’s eyes changed from their newborn blue well before his first birthday. They deepened to brown, like bittersweet chocolate. Brown, like black coffee and molasses. He asks me questions I would never think to ask, let alone know how to answer: Where do tornadoes go when they stop being tornadoes? If you can’t drive…
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Denouement
If 2023 were a story, December would be its denouement—the falling action of a plot when all the conflicts are finally resolved. Of course, that’s not really how life works. Our stories don’t wrap themselves up in a shiny red bow just in time for the year’s end. Some stories begin and end in less…
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