I am the luckiest lady in the world. I am healthy and happy and my biggest concerns are 100% of the first world variety. My problems are of the luxurious sort; my grief is the easy kind of grief. But no matter how much I believe that my grief is silly or my grief is selfish or my grief is self-indulgent, my grief doesn’t care. I can squash it down for … Continue reading Not a Whole Heart
I liked how they looked on her, those creases. Wrinkles curved around her mouth when she smiled…and when she didn’t. You could see her former struggles etched across her face and you could see her former joys crisscrossed on top of those. Aging, for her, was like the kind of weathering a sailor experiences – skin externally leathered from the Sun, but innards robust and healthy from the … Continue reading One of Those Beautiful People
Building strength can be hard. The first part is deciding to get stronger. That’s really the hardest part, even though it doesn’t even involve a workout regime. It’s just a mindset, at first, a determination to make improvements to who we are. Until it becomes habit, reminders are needed. Sticky notes that say, “go work out!” and a calendar on the fridge with the workout plan on … Continue reading The Gratitude Muscle
My daughters come from a long line of strong-willed individuals. Before they were born Mr. Grouch and I wondered what our kids would look like, or what they would be interested in, but one thing we knew for sure. They’d be headstrong. Our girls have aunts and uncles, cousins and grandparents, and, lucky for them, great-grandparents too, who are full of strength, who say to themselves, “I will … Continue reading We’re Full of Bull
As a working mom, I have a love/hate mentality about leaving my kids in someone else’s care for what amounts to about 40% of the time my child is awake, each week. Sometimes there are things I think should be done differently, sometimes I question how well I really know what is going on there when I’m not around, and sometimes I have concerns about the sheer … Continue reading These Are The Reasons I Am Thankful For My Childcare Providers
Toddlers can get a bad rap. It is true that they have no real means of regulating their emotions, which can sometimes result in tantrums that are shockingly intense, often over matters involving having to put on pants or to wash peanut butter out of their hair, or perhaps over being asked to take a bite of macaroni. As erratic and annoying as these behaviors can … Continue reading “The Moon Got Turned Off”, and Other Reasons Being the Parent of a Toddler is Awesome
A few years back, when I was pregnant with my first child, some of my friends and I were gathered around my living room, chit-chatting it up. I don’t remember the details of most of our conversation, but I will never forget one particular sentence. A good friend of mine, who at the time was the new mom of an seven-month-old, said, “I think I love my daughter … Continue reading I Love My Kids More Than You Love Yours
She was jarred awake. She opened her eyes and her vision was clouded. Foggy. Dim. It was the same, day after day. Sometimes she noticed that what she saw was darker than normal and sometimes she thought that this was just what her life looked like. Maybe you should get checked out, she said to herself. She was a little worried about her view. Maybe a little more … Continue reading She Was Jarred Awake
Baby Grouch woke me this morning with her chatter and her happy squeals and periodic shouts of “Mama!” coming from her crib. I padded to her room, in my pajamas, and smiled at her when she exclaimed, “Morning!” as I walked in. “Book. Book. Cookie”. We had the time, so I acquiesced to her demand that I read her “The Best Mouse Cookie” before bringing … Continue reading Beautiful Moments Aren’t Always Pretty
We struggled to become pregnant with baby number 1. We tried on our own for two years before seeking help from a reproductive endocrinologist (RE), who informed us that I very likely was not ovulating on my own at all (makes it a little harder to conceive) due to my PCOS. After a year of ingestible, injectable, and suppository meds, a combination worked and … Continue reading Emotional Stages: Discovering You Will Become The Parent of Multiples (And Then Not)
A Morning Grouch 