Jennifer Fliss

Don’t flush the toilet. Don’t turn on the lights. This is a good time to either meditate or partake in that incredibly wise bit of advice to sleep when the baby sleeps.

A photo of your long-dead cat, Milo, in a brass Easter egg-shaped frame. Oh, sweet animal, I miss your furballs, you think when you hang it on a low branch. Milo had an uncanny ability to hork on laps when unwanted visitors overstayed their welcome.

Tights with control top: We may have gone a little overboard. A few too many beers. Several too many pizza deliveries.

I know of people who find one child incredibly challenging and seem to hate the whole experience. And yet they proceed to have another child willingly.

I wonder about these decisions. For me, I would be a terrible mother if I had another child.

Invite friends over. They should be attractive, but don’t have to be.

Chick Flick Cherry: If it’s about romance, it’s a chick flick. About love: chick flick. Maybe it’s about chickens. Poultry love. Either way: for you, I’ll watch it. So you can pop my cherry afterwards. My nail polish is just asking for it.

You held a cap gun to my head on the bus ride home from school, threatening to shoot me, day after day. I know you couldn't have known that I had something similar happening at home.

I don’t think you meant well. You wanted to vomit your discontent to the world. Isn’t that embarrassing? Or is it like a seven-cocktails-and-two-shots kind of vomit?

It is the denigrating soundtrack of a breast pumping session. You, sitting at its mercy. It, just taking and taking.