Crash, crash, crash! Two weeks before Christmas, my son shatters an ornament with three jabs of a mini hockey stick. I spend the afternoon combing through the carpet for shards of glass and vacuuming until a satisfying array of lines replaces the mess. The hand-painted ornament was a favorite—a souvenir from the San Diego Zoo—and each year when we placed it on the tree, I … Continue reading A Tree Full of Stories
By late March, the buds start to open, revealing delicate pink and white petals. We hop in the van and drive toward Show Kinen Park, stopping on the way to pick up a conbini lunch of fried chicken, nigiri, and egg salad sandwiches. We walk familiar paths to a grassy field surrounded by trees heavy with blossoms–an ideal spot for hanami. Hanami means “flower viewing” … Continue reading Hanami
If you give a mom leftover birthday cake, she’ll want a glass of milk to go with it. When she opens the cupboard to get a glass, she’ll realize she forgot to run the dishwasher. After she starts the dishwasher, she’ll add dishwasher detergent to the grocery list. Which reminds her–She’s supposed to pick up her grocery order this morning.⠀⠀⠀ Continue reading If You Give a Mom Leftover Birthday Cake
1. BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE for convincingly delivering the line, “I’m sorry, but we don’t have the right batteries for that toy.” 2. BEST ART DIRECTION for supervision of toddler Play-Doh sessions without intervening as all the colors are mashed into a single blob. 3. BEST MUSIC (ORIGINAL SONG) for the riveting potty training hit You Gotta Push, Push, Push Your Pee Pee … Continue reading Still waiting on my Academy Award nominations for…
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
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?
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]
My hair has fallen out two more times since I had my daughter. I have peed my pants on multiple occasions, sometimes in public, often while running but also from sneezing (always because I didn’t do enough kegels). Almost nine years into motherhood, my body is still capricious. Fickle. Unforgiving. But this body has also nursed three babies. She has cared for feverish kiddos while wiping her own drippy nose and made broccoli cheese soup from scratch with a toddler strapped to her back. This is the body that kisses foreheads goodnight and dances in the living room after dinner. My body has been on a journey, but she’s returning as someone I recognize, someone I can rely on. Continue reading A Body I Can’t Trust
Melissa Kutsche 