My son had had his first bath, his first cries, his first diaper change and his first feeding. All without me. I was wheeled in a chair that screamed helpless and mounted onto the powerlessness I had felt since his birth.

Bravery, it seems, is as elusive as good taste: notable when it’s there, forgivable when it’s not. 

Had I been granted that wish to turn back time and find you sooner you would have gotten a very different person. I wouldn't have appreciated the quiet calm you bring to my life or the security that our daily routine brings.

So we don’t want our cars to show that we have kids. Or our houses. And we definitely have decided we want to erase all signs of having kids from our bodies. The quest to camouflage that we are parents is getting almost as time-intensive as having kids, which really is saying something.

I see a portal to another world: a place filled with love, life, security—a nourishing utopia, where you formed your perfect little nose, your perfect little cheeks, the perfect little wrinkle between your eyebrows, all ten perfect little fingers, and all ten perfect little toes.

Will my instinct as a mother always be to prepare for death of my children?

And at every meal — not just dinner — we all sat down at the table and ate. When we got home, my husband said, “Maybe we should be doing that.”

At that moment, a special friendship based on Neurotic Mommy Brain (NMB) was formed. Since that time, my friend and I have talked each other down off countless ledges.

I heard her utter, in hushed, respectful tones a word dreaded by all crisis-averse Minnesotans: tornado.

If you don’t attach that whole damsel-in-distress meaning to the wands and tiaras or make the footballs and trucks symbols of rough-and-tumble behavior, then you are giving your children permission to be whatever quality the moment calls forth.