Once I smelled the roses hanging from a fence of an apartment building on 8th street. I love the smell of roses. Now I am dreaming of one day having a place where I could grow my own roses. Enjoy my homemade rose oil, my natural vanilla & rose scented deodorant. When my kids are older and come asking me for a bunch. To give to their lover, I hope they’ll come and have breakfast with me. With us. We’ll have fresh coffee and toast, with a side of raspberries. The door to the garden will be open and we’ll smell the scent of roses.

I love your darling legs when you sit on my lap, when we are reading a book, before bedtime.
I see the scratches and scrapes on your skin, on your olive toned skin, amidst your colorful band-aids.

I smell your hair, your golden locks, that’s always tangled and you hate it when we brush it. But you want long hair like mumma, and that is special, because everything else is always papa this papa that.

I stroke your back, feel your spine and your ribcage, and wonder, do you eat enough? Are you growing at a normal speed?
I tell you i love you the mostest. You are one of the things i couldn’t love more, even if i tried to. And i wonder, who gave me the right, the privilege, to take care of you. To nourish you, first from my body, then from my hands. To cherish you and protect you, in this woeful world. How can i? It’s only a matter of trying. That i do. I am trying.

I’m having a hard time accepting my postpartum body. My new body. The body that gave me my two healthy babies. The body that connected me to my babies and guided me through birth. I know I should love it, and I do, but I’m not feeling too comfortable in it right now. I’ve heard a lot of well meaning: ‘you look great’, but at 3.5 months after giving birth, I’m not feeling that great in this body. And it feels like I’m not allowed to feel what I feel, because I should honor my body for what it’s done. And I do. Yet, I also don’t feel all that beautiful in my new, softer and rounded figure. I love every curve on every other woman, pregnant, postpartum or never having had a baby or been pregnant, but seeing myself more curvy is another story. I find it so much easier to be kind on anyone else’ physical appearances, then my own. Is it hormones? Probably. Is it breastfeeding? Most likely yes. Is it the pastry a day I’m eating? Definitely also yes. Do I deserve that pastry? Of course, everyone does. Is it me? Yes. It’s me. The struggle is real.

Freeing the nipple again since early June 2022 when little Jagger Bobbi graced us with her presence earth-side. She joined us two weeks before her due date at a beautiful home birth that turned around so quickly that half the birth team couldn’t make it in time. I know all women are – but I truly was made to give birth. Such an empowering feeling to be so proud of what I’ve done and what our bodies can do and handle. So grateful I had the choice (SCOTUS you suck). She’s very easy to love and her brother adores her (although he also loves to squeeze her little hands and feet, resulting in us peeling off his — all-of-a-sudden-huge — fingers off her). Adjusting to life as a foursome has been no joke but I wouldn’t have it any other way.