How do I do it all as a writer and a mother? I don’t.
I feel the annoyance creeping in, because it’s the third time this morning I’ve tried to finish this sentence—just this one sentence—and the boys are fighting again, so the baby starts crying and then someone says those dreaded words: “I’m telling Mama.” It’s unusual...
How conflict can save a marriage and cultivate love
Sometimes we go through seasons where it feels like conflict tells the whole story of a marriage. But if we look closely enough, we’ll see what really tells the story of our marriage.
A mother’s real superpower is her invisibility
Mothers give and give and give, and no one even seems to notice. What if we love most in our invisibility?
To my second-born: It’s okay to rebel
Photo by Helen Montoya Henrichs. Today he turns 6, this second boy who stole my heart. It’s hard to believe he is that old. Every time I look at him now I see a boy, not even little anymore. Just a boy with skinny little legs and big feet and a smile that can light...
Did I want a girl? Of course I did.
It happens unexpectedly, like everything else this boy does. The oldest, the one who first stole my heart, sits on the side of my bed during our snuggle time. He is drawing some cartoons for the book we’re brainstorming, one we plan to write together. He says it...
We are not who we once were. We are better.
Photo by Helen Montoya Henrichs. We’re sitting in my living room, all our bellies full, and the twins are down for their naps while the oldest boys and the newest one are still up, hanging out with their Nonny and Poppy. My mom holds the littlest one. My stepdad plays...
What success really looks like in life
We’re sitting around the table, talking about our days like we always do, when my husband says, “We got a negative podcast feedback today.” “Oh, yeah?” I say. He tells me about this product manager with Facebook, who wrote in to say that as much as he wants to...
This is what beautiful feels like
Some days I know the truth, and some days it gets buried so far beneath those old lies I can hardly remember its echo. This morning I woke up feeling out of sorts. Not unexpected, since there is a baby who had trouble sleeping. Since there was a brain that just wouldn’t turn off. Since […]
How do we count it all joy in the sorrow places?
Just a few days ago, I got a precious letter from a reader, thanking me for one of my Huff Post Parents articles. She found it because she was looking, because she’d just lost two babies, twins, and she needed some comfort. I have written many versions of this story, about the daughter who died […]
When you wish you could change, improve, beautify your home
It was so unexpected, the way it showed up. There is someone staying with us, someone helping out in these crazy days of adjustment, someone who burned the side of a chair because of a not-thinking mistake, and when I came downstairs the early morning after I smelled...