The words have hung inside me since you casually said them the other day. You, smiling over your shoulder at me, pleased. Me, struck in the gut by the realization of the weight of what you had just said. Things land differently on a mother’s than...
We missed an important email, and showed up late to indoor soccer this week. My 11 year old, Paige, looked at me with heavy disappointment. Her love of soccer is almost all she knows. I apologized to her, and checked my spam folder. Still not sure...
I’m sure it was because he was over hearing us go back and forth about it. My girls have grown tired of me always wanting to take photos of them. The fifteen year old will almost certainly be rolling or closing her eyes with her arms crossed in the...
In case my family looks at me with those confused expressions again when I say I am tired, might I present this as a short memoir; As a “cave drawing” of sorts. Somehow, my level of exhaustion never feels like a factor to them, even though they...
The year after the massive wildfire took out half our city, rent prices soared. There were not enough homes still standing to ever meet the demand. My mother had been on a tightly fixed income for years, and was finding that (even though this area...
From the very first moment, I pictured myself being there to witness the baby being born. Immediately after my daughter had handed me a plastic Target bag saying she “got something for me,” revealing two positive pregnancy tests inside (as soon as I...
Today my husband and youngest daughter are set to return home from an overnight stay in the redwoods for Outdoor Education. That means that today is also the end of, what I like to think of as, my Annual Personal Staycation. From the time my husband...
I used to sit there for hours, criss-cross-applesauce, playing, lost in a world that only existed in my dreams. We didn’t have much money back then for fancy toys. While other girls were getting Barbie Dream Houses and the brand new Nintendo system...
I don’t know when the change happened; I think it came gradually. At first it was just another place I had to go, another thing on the schedule, another time as a mom of choosing my kids over me. It must have happened there on the sidelines, feet...
Tonight my mom and I went to the mall, supposedly on an errand, but an errand that landed us in Bath and Body Works with a coupon, conveniently. Fall is already a dangerous time for being in that store, what with their addictive three wick candles...