David Minerva Clover

I expected it was only a matter of time until someone sent it my way. I mean... friends have even called my relationship with my wife “inspirational.” [...] [O]nce I noticed that I still hadn’t been invited, I started to notice something else: Everyone that I saw posting “love your spouse” pictures was straight....

But what I did write, and write constantly, were diaries and journals. I kept notebooks and three-ring binders filled with observations about my life that I thought were interesting. Sometimes I worried that these personal stories were too naval-gazing, but I still held on to them, hoping that someday someone would want them.

I mess up and do things very differently than I want to sometimes. When that happens, I have one rule for myself: I stop and apologize to my kid.

Here are six tips that can serve as a basic outline of how most parents can strategize to help feed a toddler and to calm the heck down.

Breastfeeding brought me back. It kept me in my body, forced me to hold my son’s body, and helped me stay connected to the physical reality of everything. What I remember are flashes of joy in the darkness, his tiny hands clenched in determined fists. His feet curled against my soft stomach. The release of the milk starting to flow. My arms wrapped up around him.

My kid, who turned three the day after Mary the duckling died, wasn’t old enough to get any of it. Yet talking to toddlers about death is part of life.