motherhood

Just as you're learning to navigate the world by yourself, I guess it's time for me to relearn the ropes of motherhood. To patiently watch you find your wings, to sit in the shadows and watch you fly, to applaud you quietly from a distance, to embrace you when you decide to come back. Only to go off by yourself again.

Some mornings feel like the day wakes up two hours before I do — there's just no other way to explain the mess that greets me after washing the sleep out of my eyes. (In true SAHM fashion, though, that can be hours after getting up. Please tell me that's not just me.)

I have two kids and I curse like a sailor. I do not curse at them, but I curse around them. And they know the difference. I tell them that "fuck" and "shit" are curse words, that they are for grownups to say. I don’t sugarcoat them. But I also do not intend to give up the words that offer me a level of catharsis I can’t seem to locate elsewhere in the English language.

“It will be long,” they told me. “It will likely be days after your due date,” they advised. “Everything will begin slowly with breaks between contractions,” they said. They lied.

When I was in third grade, my parents got divorced. My mom went back to school full-time in the hopes of beginning a new career that would support us. Oddly, this was one of the richest years of my life; my world split and shifted on its axis, and yet somehow didn’t knock me over — thanks to a SHEro (or two).

When I was in third grade, my parents got divorced. My mom went back to school full-time in the hopes of beginning a new career that would support us. Oddly, this was one of the richest years of my life; my world split and shifted on its axis, and yet somehow didn’t knock me over — thanks to a SHEro (or two).

“Congratulations, Joni. You have a UTI so bad my machine can't even read it.”

I like to give everything 110%, even my bacterial infections. I like to give everything 110%... except myself.

I'll freely admit it: I'm a bit of an iPhone addict. My phone is always on me or within arm's reach, like a security blanket. I keep my sounds and alerts off but I check it all the time and notifications for email, Facebook, Ebay, even my freaking meditation program come popping up all day.