When you tell people that you are expecting your first child, they usually respond with congratulations, but my mother did not. When I told her I was pregnant she said, “Oh, no.” I was disappointed in her reaction until she explained that with four children of her own, she knew how taxing being a parent could be. I thought she was wrong until the baby came and my life changed forever. Nothing prepares you for what parenting is, the emotions, the need to have a psychology degr

There’s Mom Eyes blue as sky Peace lives in them and in my heart Forever She is a quiet light At ninety I see her bounce back I trust...

Poetry was made for mothers, scribbling stanzas in stolen moments during bath time, defenseless against sudsy splashes, or silently and by nightlight after her child succumbs to sleep. Long works of prose demand rooms of one’s own, but rooms shared with baby dolls can be the birthplace of verse. Her efforts to tidy will be undone like a sandcastle by the rising tide, but poems, once penned, will last forever. Her most celebrated culinary feat may be smearing peanut butter on