life serial

I’m not miserable. Are you miserable? No. I’m not miserable. It’s just hard when he’s crying. Yeah, and your head feels like it’s going to explode. People say it gets better at 6 weeks. Not that we should count on…

guest post: nesting

By Mixed Nuts To understand where I’m coming from, you first need to know who I am. My name is Katie. I am the 30-year-old mother of a 4 1/2-year-old son, N~, a 3-year-old son, W~, and a 21-month-old son,…

still lifes

1. My friend comes over to visit with her two-month old. My friend is about 5 feet tall and 90 pounds (I exaggerate). Her baby is big. So big. Like a koala bear. Her baby looks bigger than her. My…

arsenic hour

Apparently this is a known phenomenon. The early evening hour — that time when parents are just getting home, kids are melting down, and you’d like to either take arsenic or dispense it. Ha. Ha. I melt down like clockwork…

floods and mud in washington state

When I was young, we lived in “the canyon” in Los Angeles. Two winters of my childhood brought rains so heavy that our street turned into a thick caramel mud river and carried cars away. The ivy-covered hill that was…