Author: Jerra

A nosebleed. A lesson. And a heart that broke in two directions at once. Kiddo does not like to be alone. He never has. He wants to be within eyesight at all times, and if I am not visible, he needs to know where I am. Not because anything bad is happening. Just because I… Read more

A lesson in asking before correcting. Kiddo calls me honey. He has called me honey for a while now. In addition to his repertoire of other names. But this one was different from the garden variety of mom names.  Honey. Just honey. Like I am his person and that is the word he chose for… Read more

A Thursday morning in four acts. Thursdays and Fridays are dad goes to work days. Which means it is me, baby girl, and kiddo navigating the morning to get everyone wherever they need to go on their very demanding schedules. We are never on time. We are as close to time as the universe will… Read more

A medical adventure featuring the world’s most charming three year old and also a threat. Baby girl had trouble breathing. Not the kind where you wait and see. The kindwhere my nurse sister texts me a paragraph of medical jargon and I text back tellme like I’m a child and she texts back get her… Read more

A story about bucket lists, language barriers, and a child who will do anything to avoid lunch I have wanted to go to Japan since I was little. I don’t know if it was the Sailor Moon phase or the sushi addiction I developed later or just some general pull toward a place that felt… Read more

Popcorn butter. That’s the ending. Just know that going in. The year was 1994. I was nine years old, approximately three weeks from turning ten, which felt enormously significant at the time. My brother Jed was eight. Don Bluth had just released Thumbelina and I was beyond excited in the way that only a nine-year-old… Read more

A two-minute interaction that has no business living rent free in my head. And yet. Today was kiddo’s first day at a new school. A school we have been on a waitlist for for a year and a half. A school I have approximately one thousand feelings about that I am actively trying not to… Read more

(Or How My Pregnancy Nightmares Came True at a Very Manageable Level Two Out of Five) A follow up nobody asked for but here we are. When you are nine months pregnant your brain does things. Unwelcome things. Things that arrive at 2am as fully produced nightmare scenarios with no off switch. My nightmare was… Read more

She didn’t choose me. She chose dad. I’m just the one who feeds her. I had been talking about getting a French Bulldog for what dad would describe as an unreasonable amount of time. Long enough that one day he just said find the money in savings, I found a breeder, we’re going this weekend… Read more

There’s a mom I know at Baby Girl’s preschool. Her name is Luna’s mom — becausenobody has their own names when you have a child. It’s all the child’s name andthen your relation to them. I see her every day. We do the thing — the lobbysmall talk, the smile, the nod. Half the time… Read more