I can miss my babies so much – truly, genuinely – and simultaneously rage at the fact of having one. I can feel sorrow for the end of our baby era – truly, genuinely – and never want to do it again.

A quick run-through of some things that have been on my mind lately, to the women who always get it.

Others try to help: my husband, my mother. I don’t stop them. I’m not an insane person. But they will never know you like I do.

 In birth order lore, middles are peacemakers. But what happens when middlehood splits? Do the middle children go through some sort of quantum shift in which their strengths become their darkness? Do they go from Peacemaker to The Equalizer?

So what you’re telling me, my deeply beloved little boy, is that you are already displacing the cognitive load of knowing how to twine three pieces of hair together to your future wife.

The hacks are haunting me.

This is what 16 years of Catholic schooling hath wrought.

With the butts gone, I can see that the majority of Paige’s pictures are actually of June’s face.

In Real Simple houses, blankets are neatly folded or artistically piled on unstained sofas. Your sofa has pencil illustrations, marker streaks, and blood stains.

It’s not that I didn’t want our fourth. I just wanted to know that my husband and I weren’t the only ones who thought 4 > 3

I could sand down every rough edge on my body but I’d still be taking up space.

Alternate title: WHY ARE THEY LIKE THIS?

I can’t help but fast-forward to high school competitions where she’ll be, I guess, slathering herself with fake tanner, donning a 5-pound curly wig, and dousing herself so thoroughly in gender norms that the stain will never come out.

I’ve been an unwilling participant for seven years in a study about the physical and psychological impacts of sleep deprivation and mess.

Do I have another metamorphosis in me?