In the course of a weekend, Chicken Noodle turned four and Chicken Little turned two.
After wiping up the frosting and recycling the wrapping, I realized I have somehow become the elated mother of two gorgeous girls who drink milk from cups, walk on their own and sleep through the night.
I simultaneously feel my life expanding once more to truly include writing.
My only regret is that I never really learned to trust the temporariness of the trapped-under-a-baby stage; that I lacked faith that writing wouldn’t feel like forcing gelatinous sludge through a paper pinpoint for the rest of my life. If I had worked frantically, fuzzy-headedly through fewer naptimes, would it have mattered?
Perhaps: perhaps not. There is something to keeping the wheels greased, and something to recognizing all you’re good for is Vanity Fair (reading it, not writing it).
It’s not too late for a lesson to be learned. In nineteen months, Chicken Noodle will start kindergarten. Until then, I will fight to tend to my writing and mothering lives with equal parts passion and patience.
