First, gather your thoughts, your courage, your composure. Collect them like a late-autumn bouquet of chrysanthemums, pluck them up like the last roses before the frost. Dress yourself in finery; put on kindness, wear a crown of peace on your head and never take it off. Knock on the door, ring the bell, or just walk right in. These are your people. Or they once … Continue reading How to Gather
Once, after nap time, I found half of a cherry Blow Pop stuckto my son’s bed sheets.His fingers and chin glistened, stickywith sugar, bright with the color of joy. His toddler lips were garish, as though an unsteady handapplied lipstick to them in the dark.He’d always had a weakness forthe saccharine, pilfering treats and leaving the evidence behind:a cache of candy wrappers in his closet,cookie crumb trails on the … Continue reading Sweet Tooth
The sunflower seeds were a Mother’s Day gift, handed to me just weeks before our cross-country move. My son’s kindergarten teacher, anticipating our road trip, sent the unopened packet of seeds home rather than having them planted in soil. “You can take them with you and plant them when you get there,” she said. But in the craziness of moving across three time zones with three young kids, a dog, etc., we forgot to plant them. One year later, I spotted the seeds in the refrigerator door, where I had stashed them in the hopes that they’d last longer. I found an empty pot in the garage and a small bag of potting soil, and poked a single seed into the crumbs of dirt. Continue reading Growth
It’s that time of year: recruitment! No, not the kind you’ve seen on RushTok, but recruitment for Room Parents! Take our quiz to see if you have what it takes to be the ultimate Room Parent. If you answered… …mostly a: You are prime Room Parent material. The only question left: Why haven’t you signed up yet?! …mostly b: Err…maybe you can help out on … Continue reading Are you Room Parent Material?
1. Accept that the hot senior/star varsity basketball player does not know you exist. (Even his dad, your actual math teacher, couldn’t remember your name at parent-teacher conferences.) Read Jane Austen novels to deal with your disappointment; undergo a comprehensive study of the term unrequited. 2. Go to cheerleading practice after school as usual. Clap, chant, and jump in the yellow lighting of the gymnasium … Continue reading How to Talk to Your High School Crush
to sleep in past 6:03 a.m. cake for breakfast to finish my iced coffee before the ice melts a day free of ads for wrinkle serums and smoothers common sense gun legislation new jeans that fit without having to try them on first for someone else to potty train my toddler to lip sync battle with Paul Rudd dinner I didn’t cook a summer without … Continue reading What I really want for my birthday this year
10. You don’t mind dirty looks from strangers when your lap child poops during the plane’s ascent and you can’t change him until you’ve reached cruising altitude. 9. Carrying your toddler around for a week will be the perfect exercise routine after the airline destroys or loses your stroller in transit. 8. The picky eater in your family is ready to branch out (i.e., be … Continue reading Top Ten Reasons to Travel with Kids
I remembered the planetary parade while the kids brushed their teeth, so we grabbed coats piled into the car wearing pajamas. At the beach, red, orange, and yellow bands decorated the horizon in the wake of the sun. Along with the waxing moon hanging above us, we were able to spot four of the five planets on display that night–Mars, Venus, Mercury, and Jupiter. We … Continue reading Searching the Sky
Now, If you have an award here for someone who can carry a trunkful of grocery bags into the house without breaking a single egg, I’m your girl. A prize for knowing how many bowel movements each child has had on a given day and what their favorite flavor toothpaste is? Bam. Award for forgetting to brush a child’s teeth or going way too long between haircuts and nail trims? Yep. But Mother of the Year? Even the statuette I’m holding looks exhausted and fragile. Wait, is this supposed to look like me? Did you guys model this after the picture of me picking sand out of my eyes at the beach last summer? Is this just another plastic action figure for me to trip on? Continue reading MEGOT Status
Motherhood is messy. It’s mounds of mac ‘n’ cheese and macrame art. Motherhood magnifies mere mortals, makes Marian martyrs out of mall rats. Motherhood is a masquerade, a mission, a mirror. It’s the ministry of missing mittens. It mutates and metabolizes, muddles minds and mesmerizes. It’s the merging of meek and mighty. It’s malodorous and melodious. It’s midwinter mud pies and midweek mayhem. Motherhood is … Continue reading [The Beauty of] M[otherhood]
Melissa Kutsche 