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The Purple Revolution
There are days in motherhood when you look at the beautiful little people you created and feel truly overwhelmed by the privilege of raising them. Today was not one of those days. Today I stood in my bathroom wondering what level of criminal incompetence gets you snacks, clean sheets, and someone occasionally checking whether you’ve…
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Sugar-Free Gummy Bears: Because Apparently I Needed to Learn This Lesson After Ten Kids
Okay, so. Sit down. I have to tell you what happened at my house this week, because I need someone to laugh at me and you’re the person for the job. There are certain things you assume you know after having ten children. You know that silence is suspicious. You know that “I didn’t do…
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The First Rule of Sister Fight Club Is Nobody Broke the Chair
There are rules to having a sister. Nobody writes them down, nobody explains them to you, and yet somehow, from the moment there are two little girls sharing toys, parents, and oxygen, they just know them. Rule One: If your sister touches something you weren’t remotely interested in thirty seconds ago, you now need it…
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Apparently Mommy Works Outside Now, and Management Is Furious
For most of Harper’s life, “Mommy has to work” has meant absolutely nothing threatening. Mommy works all the time. She works at her desk, on her laptop, on the phone while making lunch, and she sends estimates while somebody is asking for a snack despite having just eaten seventeen minutes ago. She works late at…
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Harper and the Purple Lipstick
Back in 2004, before I had enough children to accidentally form my own small school district, there was just Jacob. My Boo Bah. For a few precious years he had me almost entirely to himself. No siblings interrupting us, no one screaming from another room, no tiny person demanding a snack twelve seconds after refusing…
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Searching for My Adultier Adult
I’m forty-one years old. According to the government, that makes me an adult. According to my children, I know everything. According to my husband, I own enough power tools to open a small hardware store and terrify a landlord. According to my brain, none of that matters, because I am still waiting for the actual…
Crumbs and Chaos 