She’s weepy when she’s feverish or anxious. This bold daughter of mine, she lets down her walls as her eyes brim and her small body leans in for reassurance in our arms. This holiday break was a game of viral dominos, of falling pieces, the… Read More
My youngest daughter and her best friend are playing intermittently with a recorder and chattering back and forth on toy phones. They’re across the house from me, but here, we’re never far enough apart to be unheard. My sons are playing a video game with… Read More
I used to the think space between years was just a long exhale, a breath. I solitary beat in a life that will have many, many beats. Nothing distinguishable from one inhale to the next. But then, there was you. Thirteen years ago, I spent… Read More
It’s 9:30 on a summer morning and I have wandered in and out of my kitchen no less than four times. I’m puttering, really. Lifting cereal bowls and dumping the residual milk down the drain. Brushing Cheerios dust from the counter top. Looking out the… Read More
I sat in a chair earlier this week, chin down, arms folded across my lap, eyes blinking between my kneecaps and the points of my orange shoes, getting my first tattoo. At thirty-five. As a mother of four. I sat and thought of…nothing, really. The… Read More
Dear Beginning of the School Year Melanie, You think you’re ready. You’ve prepped yourself by reading homeschool blogs, talking to homeschool moms, buying subscriptions to online education sites, printables sites, buying enough books and curriculum to serve an entire classroom of children, more than enough for… Read More
I joke that they’ll write tell-all books about me. That one day these children of mine will be full grown and will share their stories with therapists over how awkwardly I fumbled through motherhood: too loud, too quiet, too harsh, too lenient, too many trips to… Read More
In the kitchen, Evaline is laying on a flattened cardboard box on the floor with a marker-doodled, naked, baby doll. She murmurs excitedly and I catch a word here or there as I stand by the sink, stirring my coffee. Look, my castle! I love my sister. Oh,… Read More
It’s March and it’s inevitable. Here, in this space of the year where we are holding our breath, waiting for the sun to return, for the snow to melt, for the world to move toward warmth and light, here, the echo of the hand of… Read More
During one of the cabin-fever snow days of this month (which has had so many, I am losing count,) Lila came to me to ask if she and I could do each other’s make up. I had not showered, had no desire to have little… Read More
The Frozen Moon 