I guess I’m shocked not by what she said, but by how badly I needed to hear it.

Hearts are a big deal at our house. We draw and paint them, collect rocks shaped like them, and now we eat them.

It’s not that I don’t like people. It’s just that when they talk to me, my body goes haywire.

No amount of Pinterest pins or garden remodels will make me a better gardener, but I’ll garden anyway, because the very act of gardening feeds me.

Each day, I write my kindergartener a simple, short note and put it in his lunch box.

My ten year old made dinner. I can do this. I can be the mother my children need in this moment, and the next.

Underneath these selfish and unrealistic wishes that skate across my mind is the knowledge that wishing alone won’t make it so.

I decided to grade myself – on being a mother.

My delectable seven year old is as easy to cuddle as a hedgehog these days.

Never again will I hold the secret of pregnancy inside my body or feel the letdown of milk fill my breasts. There is grief in this realization.