Is "Pretty" a Bad Word? (at The Huffington Post)

Since time began.

"You're so pretty."

I'm typing into my broken-down Android, letting my husband know that I'm still at the clinic with my mother. We're waiting for blood work. It's dreary and boring here and the wait has made me grumpy.

I look up, feeling as cracked and ancient as my phone, and laugh. My mother's opinion strikes me as hilarious. I think about the toddler and the dishes and the dust waiting for me at home. I think about the subway commute and some nagging pain in my hip and the frigid wind outside. I think I've aged 20 years in the space of two.

"Mom, it doesn't matter how people look."

"It does matter."

Please head to Huffington Post Parents to see if I changed my mind! 

And please let me know your mind on the matter!

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Old Times (At Coffee+Crumbs)

My daughter arrived twelve days early.  In doing so, she offered her hand in friendship. It was a harbinger of the harmony we were to enjoy for the whole of her babyhood.

I had an achy, vomity, transverse-positioned, bed-rest filled, isolated pregnancy and I thought it would never end.

All around me pregnant women seemed to bounce through their days, chic in maternity dresses and heels. Heels!  I spent my third trimester watching cable. One night I heard a snapping sound.

A briny uterine tidal wave poured from my cervix to the floor and suddenly, the baby’s movements became sharper. My shoes filled like tide pools.

Twelve days off my sentence. It’s over, I thought.  She isn’t even born and I already owe her one.

Instantly loving motherhood is a gift as unequally bestowed on women as is an easy pregnancy. I was lucky: the memory of nine crushing months of gestational servitude vanished the moment she was placed in my arms. I tend toward melancholy and it seemed a certainty I would slip down the landslide of post-partum blues.

It didn't happen.

Please head over to Coffee and Crumbs to find out what did happen!

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