File this under "meaning to". Also filed under "but didn't".

"I don't want people to say I'm beautiful."

"Mommy, stay. Because you're the best mommy." She needed a partner in crime for the pouring. Today, she found one.

Today, I let her win.

I need to do mess better.

There is freedom in being a complete beginner and in saying I have no idea what I'm doing.

"I don't want to play with you." And there it is. Her unexpressed anger and sadness. In my head, I understand it; in my heart, it's a knife, twisted.

"Is it three weeks yet?" I'd told her that Baby Brother was coming in three weeks, three weeks ago. He was due. He was overdue.

There are sentences I know I would never, could never, write. Reading high-end shelter mags, feeling twangs of pen envy.

Coffee, sunshine, and solitude. All I need now is a song.

She insists she's a big girl, except at nap time, on the road.

What happens when an introvert goes for weeks without alone time? I'm scared to find out. This is week 3.

Had forgotten how healing corpse pose can be. And deep breaths. And letting go. And Simon & Garfunkel.

"Mommy, Ella beautiful," she said. I wonder what that word means to her, at not even two.

My 2008 MacBook Pro is circling the drain. Too soon, old friend.

There are many things I don't know about tigers, but to my 21-month-old daughter, I'm the encyclopedia.

By the time I'd gotten around to posting this photo, this flower had rejoined the ground. Look—you won't find it.

High street in the rain without an umbrella, I realize the shops don't open till 11.

It's a beautiful thing to watch, a child being fearless and another child being suddenly brave.

She didn't know the word "messy" until I used it. In that tone that meant it was a bad thing.

I feel really bad about her blue hands. As often happens in amateur experiments, first there is delight, then disaster.

"Fries! Fries!" I hear from the backseat. We're stuck in traffic and our toddler has been very patient, until now.

There's music playing and I'm writing at my desk, knowing that this moment is just too good to last long.

I look away and when I look back, Ella has climbed up to the fourth step of the staircase.

Former-type A student anxiety: I'm sitting in class, unprepared.

"Edelweiss, edelweiss, every morning, you greet me." I haven't sung this in a while. E signs "baby" and says, "Ba?" Yes, darling, do you remember?