“Mommy, TV is just like a kind of school.”

The Poo adores her baby brother, despite some rather pointed comments about his ability to interfere with her activities—like, say, her absolutely urgent need to watch “Imagination Movers” at precisely the moment when I am placing the almost-sleeping boy in his crib.
She never misses an opportunity to lavish him with physical affection, most of it [...]

Shaggy Boy has reached that perfect state of babyhood. His little body isn’t floppy anymore, he smiles and giggles, and just last night he grabbed a toy from me with a ferocious growl and stuffed it in his mouth.
He is delicious, and I can’t get enough of him. Laying him on his changing table for [...]

I fed Shaggy Boy last night, all freshly bathed and smelling exactly as a baby should.
His body is growing so fast I can practically hear it as his legs get longer and his neck gets stronger. His wee jammies—blue with red stripes, and a zipper—fit him perfectly. I held him high on my chest, kissing [...]

I want to be a mommy when I grow up.
You do? That’s great, Poo.
Yes, I will have many, many babies. They will be ALL OVER Meema’s house!
***
I need to go out in the world, Mommy.
You do?
Yes, I need to maybe go out in the world and find some humans to marry.

The Poo is making me crazy right now.
It is as if she finally realized that her baby brother is a permanent fixture, and her jealousy has been out of control. She gets my attention in any way she can, chattering incessantly, asking ridiculous questions that have no answers, looming over Shaggy and attacking him with [...]

I am always melancholy this time of year.
I took The Poo on a girl’s-only date this afternoon, to Old Navy and for dinner at a local grease pit. She was a handful today, all wiggly limbs and sassy mouth. She’s worn out from playing with her cousins, and she’s far from her home.
She needed me.
Off [...]

He is at the helm, I stand next to him in the well between the cabin and the captain’s chair. He is laughing, sunglasses glinting in the copper-penny sunlight of a late afternoon.
I am bending my knees to catch the bounce as we fly over the water.
“The lake is like glass tonight!” he yells, into [...]

There is a dead fly on my window sill.
I noticed it Saturday, before I answered the phone to hear the pediatrician’s nurse telling me to bundle Shaggy up and get him to the office right now.
I knew the fly was there, even as I packed the diaper bag frantically for the hospital stay. That fly [...]

Yesterday was awful.
Even with the perspective that some rest and a new morning bring, yesterday will go down in the annals as perhaps one of my worst mothering days.
This whole week, in fact, can suck it. I lost my temper more times than I care to admit, culminating with a terrible performance where I screamed [...]