This Mama’s Dharma

Sami has discovered my face. When I hold him in front of me, he reaches out and touches my cheeks, my lips, my nose. It’s magical.
Yesterday we were playing, and he took a hand, sopping wet with saliva, smeared it all over my cheek, and then proceeded to stick his spitty [...]

I’m feeling kinda depressed about being a low-supply mama today. So many days, I don’t spend much time thinking about it, but it sapped my spirits today. I felt like just hiding under the covers and feeling sorry for myself. This too, will pass…but it’s where I’m at today.
It was a very [...]

I’ve been thinking about body image a lot recently. I had lost 40 pounds prior to becoming prgenant, going from a size 18 to a svelte (for me) size 10. Then I put on 40 pounds in pregnancy. That may not seem like a lot, but I was still about 20 pounds overweight when I [...]

I am starting a list of things I want you to know, Sami… I’ll keep adding to this list as I think of new things.
1. I love you.2. I will always love you.3. You are my favorite person in the whole world.4. Giving birth to you was the most incredible experience of my life.5. Even [...]

…I found out I was pregnant. It took three pregnancy tests and a call to a Kaiser Permanente advice nurse to verify that at-home pregnancy tests are indeed accurate, for me to fully believe it, that you were growing inside of me.
I’m sorry Sami, but when I found out that night, I had a [...]

I officially gave notice at work today. I just sent an email to my boss, and that was it. Done. My maternity leave ends on May 12, and I from that point on I will be officially a stay-at-home mom.
At the same time, I sent an email out to my MFA program [...]

I have felt guilty all week that I have not been able to write about the 10th anniversary of my mother’s death. But I will now try to put into words what I have been feeling and thinking these past several days.
On the morning of April 11th, I woke up to the baby’s pre-crying whimpers [...]

I love how Sami goes to sleep when Sami wants to go to sleep. At about 10:50 we both got a bit frustrated trying to put him to sleep, and so spent half and hour driving around Takoma Park and Silver Spring trying to get him to sleep. I sat with him in [...]

I never would have thought that a woman named Grace would be responsible for me becoming a mother. When I was in turmoil just a few weeks from this time last year, trying to decide whether to have an abortion or not, I did not know that my grandmother was talking about my predicament [...]

Yesterday I was invited with some other poets from DC Poets Against the War to read at the School Without Walls, a high school in downtown DC. It was a real honor to be asked, and I was excited to do a non-mommy thing (though Sami came with me).
It was a mixed experience. On one [...]