In Real Simple houses, blankets are neatly folded or artistically piled on unstained sofas. Your sofa has pencil illustrations, marker streaks, and blood stains.

It’s not that I didn’t want our fourth. I just wanted to know that my husband and I weren’t the only ones who thought 4 > 3

I could sand down every rough edge on my body but I’d still be taking up space.

Alternate title: WHY ARE THEY LIKE THIS?

After all, it was true. Whatever our hearts said, whatever we’d been through, we were not legally their parents. And when it comes to paperwork, legality is the whole point.

I can’t help but fast-forward to high school competitions where she’ll be, I guess, slathering herself with fake tanner, donning a 5-pound curly wig, and dousing herself so thoroughly in gender norms that the stain will never come out.

“They know now. They know that we don’t know what we’re doing.”

I’ve been an unwilling participant for seven years in a study about the physical and psychological impacts of sleep deprivation and mess.

Do I have another metamorphosis in me?

Searching for work may be a full-time job, but it doesn’t hold a candle to parenting small kids without childcare.

Dread comes barreling into the world right alongside our babies, hand in hand with joy, trepidation, and shock. 

I’m collecting anxieties. As the years pass, and especially now that I have children, I can name any number of ways that everyday activities can go sideways.

Joy is sometimes a lot of work. And it won’t cure fevers. It won’t pay for car repairs. 

When the Grinch’s heart grew three sizes did it compress a nerve somewhere between his ears and brain? Did blowing his trumpet down Mount Crumpet deafen him ever so slightly so that the flooflovers and gardookas didn’t hold such power over him? 

Society watches uncomfortably and assigns blame to the silly women toppling over the edge. “It’s too bad,” they say, “They should do something!”