Kelly Burch

“How many time have I asked you….” I say in frustration, and then it hits me. The real question I should be asking is how many times I’ve uttered that phrase.

Last week, as the U.S.

Just like kids who kick the seat in front of them and middle-aged women who get drunk and chatty on long flights, crying babies are a fact of life.

Parenting a toddler is invigorating, exhausting, dirty, and intense. But since I want my daughter to have cousins (or at least pseudo-cousins) one day, I can’t always share the truth about my tiny tyrant on social media, for fear that my friends and siblings would never reproduce. And because, sometimes, you just want to project the image that you're calm, cool, and collected.

Someone yelled out a racist comment, and Trump said, “Hey, I can’t say it, but he can.”

Last week, I did something reckless. I went out for Mexican food, and drank a margarita. The server didn’t ask for my ID, and she didn’t even ask for proof that my ovaries were on lock down.

“Then why are you so worried about the scale?” Why was I? I had finally let go of the scale as an indicator of my own health, but my inability to do the same when it came to my daughter was bringing up the same old feelings of inadequacy and frustration.