the Mother Runner

I sometimes make bad decisions. Don’t we all? Of course, I don’t realize they are bad decisions at the time. If I did, I wouldn’t make them. How could I have known, for example, that it would take me 3 hours to fall asleep last night? If I had known that was going to happen, [...]

Manchild has been a champ this past week. Perhaps this is because he’s the only one of us who has been feeling normal. Perhaps this is because he dislikes running errands and we haven’t been getting out much. Perhaps he’s just . . . a champ. He’s been especially eager to help out lately. He’s [...]

In the past couple of days I have gotten a lot of sleep. I’ve read almost two books. In less than a week! I’ve watched three movies with the boys. With them. (Sort of.) I didn’t have to deal with pulling my tired children out of bed an hour earlier because of the time change. [...]

What do you do on a Friday afternoon when you’ve been housebound for days, when one of your kids keeps smearing her own snot all over her face and waking up from naps after 20 minutes? When another of your kids is taking his second nap of the day? When the third kid is fixated [...]

I don’t like rats. I don’t like to see or talk or think about them. I don’t like to acknowledge they exist, even though I am doing just that when I see one on the subway platform and immediately turn around and walk the other way. I can find very few redeeming qualities about them. [...]

February is generally the month that finds one or some or all of us surrounded by thermometers, barf buckets, and blankets, spending days curled up on the couch or in beds unable to eat or drink. February is like that. But this February was uncharacteristically kind to us. Manchild had a phantom fever for a [...]

Yesterday was an unexpected day. Vacations and illness left me without the class of 3-year-olds I’d planned to play with for 3 hours. And since Manchild has also been feeling a little lethargic, a little under the weather, we decided to lay low and chillax. With nothing else to do, the boys hung together. They [...]

It’s 5:30. Dinner is going to be late. Little Miss is crawling around the apartment, crying, looking for her dinner, which, I’m sorry, isn’t going to be ready until I can get everything on the table and take a minute to sit down. “Hey Honey! You’re so cute! You’re going to be just fine! You’re [...]

I feel loved when someone sends me an article or a recipe they think I will enjoy, or tells me something they think my kids would like. I feel loved when someone asks me to do something small for them – to watch one of their kids for a minute while they change a diaper. [...]

There are a lot of things I don’t like about myself – from the shape of my face to the width of my feet. When I married Micah I hoped that our kids would be miniatures of him because, well, he’s got nice legs and is much wittier and personable than I am. Manchild is, [...]