midnight mommies

It was an interesting weekend to say the least: two holiday cocktail parties and two of the shortest dresses I’ve worn since my high school’s “Rock ‘n Roll Revival.” Was it the fact that I’ve recently lost some weight or the fact that my husband was going to be introducing me to some of his new coworkers that he insisted I get the perfect dress? Two grueling days at the mall with him as my drill-sergeant personal shopper (and our saintly kids in tow) and voila…I had two ridiculously body-hugging, leg-revealing dresses, sparkly holiday jewelry, and platform heels to sport my new, post-post baby body.

Three weeks ago I was eating junk food from the food vendors at Citizens Bank baseball park in Philadelphia. Today, I’m eating healthy food out of a trash can in a train station in Washington DC. And they say you can’t teach and old dog new tricks. It all began last night as I prepped for my [...]

It was a small item, really. It cost us less than five dollars at the party store. And, yet, the pain of it went far far beyond the expense. What exactly was I thinking when I okayed the purchase of that purple and red noisemaker? “Sure, throw it on the pile,” I thought, as Robert [...]

Yes, I trembled. Of course, I worried. Would he be able to make it through two stories without spilling? Well, we all know how this story turned out. For the rest of the week, I’ve been waking to those hardened globules of Middle Eastern goodness embedded in my arms, skitting about my sheets. Is this totally my own fault for being a softy? Am I hopelessly irresponsible?

Like clockwork, every Tuesday afternoon, there is a pleasant, gray-haired man, probably in his 50s, who comes into the coffee shop that I work from. (Let’s call him Edward.) Over the past several months of seeing each other pecking away on our laptops at our respective tables, Edward and I have become  coffee shop acquaintances. [...]