Eliana Osborn

I look tired when I stay up too late. I also look tired if I get eight hours of sleep.

I’m full of emotions: pride, awe, fear, nerves. The spelling bee first, then the piano recital. Two different kids, same mom. Same me, wanting to prevent my boys from pain and discomfort. Same me, biting my tongue and smiling broadly in support.

1. Borrow a child.

There are some days of parenting that are magical, full of unicorns and four leaf clovers and lottery winnings. Those are the moments when I catch myself, just for a second, feeling content and happy and looking around trying to freeze things. Out of 7000 days, those maybe make up five a year.

The other magical thing about living in 2015 is the Internet. You can get great training in all kinds of fields while sitting in your underwear at home.

My main reason for doing reading testing, enduring a bus ride to a field trip about weapons engineering, and other thrills? Stalking.

If he were an a--hole to my kids, things would be easier. But he’s not. He’s good with them. He’s his best self. It makes me alternately happy and heartbroken.

A haircut is a whole lot cheaper than therapy or tattoos or a round-the-world plane ticket.

You know how someone can give you a compliment that you know isn’t true? Like, they tell you a dress looks good when you are absolutely certain that is not the case? But if they keep saying it looks good, you start to think “Yeah... this looks good.”

The most important things my mother taught me included work from Neil Diamond, Billy Joel, Wham! and Whitney Houston.