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mastitis haiku contest
In deference to the breastfeeding gods, I am hosting the FIRST EVER mastitis haiku contest right here at Mother Words. How to enter: Think hard about mastitis. Write a haiku about it. Type your haiku in the comments field of this post. Note: You need not have experienced mastitis to write a haiku or to…
my-ass-titis
On Saturday morning my dad came over to give me a hand with the little ones, and my choice was either to take a nap (which I desperately needed) or go for a run (which I also desperately needed). D was out of town again, and I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to…
happy mother's day
It was beautiful here. D and Stella woke me up with a vanilla latte and a bowl of strawberries. Stella was very silly, dancing around the bed, singing, “My boootis, my boootis” as she shook her little tush. Then she collapsed, laughing. (Zoe was sleeping in her car seat and missed all the fun.) After…
there is always something
Zoe’s hair and eyelashes are coming in. Her hair, a lovely auburn red, stands on end after a bath, and there are five or six long strands (each about an inch and half long) sprouting from the crown of her head. I admire their tenacity, hanging on they way do. It’s odd to think back…
8 weeks old
It’s hard to believe that Zoe is already 8 weeks old. I’m not sure exactly how big she is, but it’s somewhere around 11 pounds. She seems huge, wearing clothes that Stella wore when she was five months old! As hard as these infants months are for me, I feel myself grasping, trying to hold…
on narrative urgency and single parenting
I’ve been thinking a lot about narrative urgency the last couple of weeks because I recently went to see Charles Baxter talk about and read from his new novel, The Soul Thief. (I dragged both Stella and Zoe out in the cold so I could get my literary fix.) He used the term narrative urgency,…
when the escape might not be worth it
My darling Zoe is getting progressively fussier. It’s the must-be-bounced-and-carried-or-nursed-to-fall-and-stay-asleep kind of fussy. Yesterday I desperately needed a nap, but she wouldn’t stay asleep, so finally I gave up and strapped her in the bouncy chair so at least I could shower. Then, I wanted so badly to check e-mail and maybe even write a…
Knopf poetry and Sharon Olds
As you all know, it’s National Poetry Month. And I hope you all know that Knopf will e-mail you one poem every day for the whole month! Yesterday, what was sitting in my inbox? The wonderful “Looking At Them Asleep” by Sharon Olds. So perfect for me right now. It ends: oh my Lord how…
reading again
D will be home tonight. He’s been gone for ten days with his new job. I doubt the timing, with Zoe just four weeks old when he left, could have been any worse, but there was nothing we could do about it, so he went. Stella missed him a ton. Yesterday morning, she was watching…
what happens
when your lovely change of scene gets buried under 19 inches of snow? You stare out the window for hours cursing at the snow that will not stop falling. You become very crabby. Finally, you decide the only way to not go crazy is to actually go out into the blizzard. You try to pull…
fresh air
I’m up north with my mom and the girls, and the change of scene helps, though getting ready to leave the house yesterday felt like flying to hell in a very tiny hand basket. I cursed up a storm as I struggled–for forty five minutes–to fold Zoe’s co-sleeper into its carrier bag. Meanwhile, Zoe, who…