Joni Edelman

Our relationship has been a little complicated. I've loved you a lot, and I've loathed you at least that much, but mostly you've just gone unnoticed. Except for those 5 to 7 days every four weeks when you made your presence quite evident, what with the river of life blood and the random excruciating, and from what I can tell, unnecessary, contractions.

Oh hey remember that time in 1804 when Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton had an actual duel, with actual guns and Burr shot Hamilton and Hamilton did not shoot Burr. And then the next day Hamilton died.

It seems that "at 18 months, almost 60% of toddlers were sleeping for 13 to 14 hours per night." HAHA you're so funny Reuters!

photo credit: Lindy West (instagram), by

Body politics activist. Photographer. Chronic quoter of Monty Python. Unapologetic fat chick.

The Cabbage Soup Diet, aka The "Torture” Diet. You just put cabbage in water and cook it. And you eat it. All day. It is not good. You will still be hungry, and farting — very smelly, paint-peeling farting.

When I had my first child, I couldn't have prepared for the way it would make me feel.

I don’t think anyone who has been to the spirited child parenting rodeo would call a mother who screams, “bad,” or who loses her temper, a “failure.” I think we all understand parenting is really really hard from the get go, and parenting a kid who won’t sleep, who screams and kicks and says they hate you, is its own challenge

I was told that feminism is man hate. That abortion is murder. And then I thought, "What am I doing here?"

As the mother of three teens, I'm here to tell you: You have nothing to freak out about.