“Mama está muy lejos,” my daughter says her mother is too far away. I haven’t heard this one as part of her bedtime avoidance routine. She repeats it over and over like maybe it will create an alternate reality in which I am not sitting in the rocking chair six feet away. We have been …
I thought my husband, Jerod, had left an overnight diaper under the play mat, or in the crevasses of the rocking chair, or under the mattress. I washed the sheets and checked the dresser drawers. I told the babysitter I would pay her $20 extra if she found the source of the smell. The smell …
WubbaNub: An $18 pacifier with a tiny stuffed animal attached. We have nine WubbaNubs—NiNe, $18 pacifiers, 4 of which are awaiting surgery. Thankfully, the 431 other pacifiers we own came free with our $10 million NICU stay. The first Wubbanubs were a therapeutic purchase. The girls’ mouths weren’t even big enough for a standard pacifier, …
Eighteen-month sleep regression is a thing, and I am one sleepless night away from certain death—or maybe just some perplexing online purchases. I tried to call PayPal customer service while having a staring contest with Vivienne at 2:30 am last night—er, this morning. No one was available to answer my call, so I decided to …
Bedtime has become a four-hour ordeal in our house. Excuse my absence, I’ve been trying to find my voice, my head, and 15 minutes to write something down that’s not bananas, milk, coffee. Motherhood has rendered me void of inspiration like Harper Lee after To Kill a Mockingbird. I’ve spent a long time debating whether the monotony …
What’s in a name, Shakespeare wrote. While my Margot is still as sweet even when people call her Mar-got or Mar-git, or Margaret, it makes me rage. I thought I chose classic names–not uncommon, but not too popular. I thought my husband was a little ignorant when he said, “you are not naming our kid …
I should have known when the delivery date was five weeks away that the $14, matte, lightweight, compression leggings were not exactly like Lululemon. I should have known they were coming from somewhere far far away with a very different ideal of what compression and lightweight mean. I should have canceled the order, but I …
Is this just what motherhood is like? I wonder. I’m parked in my driveway in my dad’s car. We traded cars since mine had the car seats—two car seats for two babies my parents have so kindly agreed to watch for the day so that I can write. It was a hundred degrees at 8:45 am …
In the spring of 2020, while my twins were in the NICU we remodeled our bathrooms. The plan was to do it before they came, but they were plotting against us before they were even earthside. We remodeled three bathrooms, but I only get to enjoy two of them. The third bathroom we now use …