Dear Dad, I once heard a set of parents say that they wanted their ceiling to be their children’s floor. If you’d heard that, too, you would have said it. You lived it. Though your body was broken for about as many years of my life as not, I think...
Dear husband — it’s not just them whom you’ve trapped in wonder. They’ll make you cards and sing songs to which they’ve forgotten half the words and climb all over you first thing Sunday morning to wish you Happy Father’s Day, but...
How many times do you need to respond to something in one particular (toxic) way before you notice a pattern? With five kids, one of them still in diapers, my answer is usually “many.” But I’m pretty sure that before the five kids and before I had...
It’s a radiant four pm. The counters are wiped, slick. The sink is empty and dinner is simmering next to my teapot, also humming. The children are willingly lost in the woods out back and the babe still asleep. I can’t smell anyone’s afternoon sweat...
Hey you, Yes, you, still in your sweatpants and un-showered, hours into your day. This love note is for you. Between seven a.m. when they wake, alert and ready to tackle the world and you and any sibling that accidentally touches the edge of that notebook that...
We stand in line at the grocery store, no different than the week before. It’s Friday. The cashiers know my family and my children know them by name. Miss Misty is having a baby. Eden knew it months before it was obvious and I hushed her in fear that she’d...
