My daughter doesn’t always have tantrums, but when she does it’s because I told her we’re walking to the L train, but she thinks we should take the M train two stops and transfer to the L instead. Which is actually a very good point. And the other night she randomly asked, “Mommy, does the E train run down the east side or the west side?” like she was trying to get to Marquee before they started charging a cover. Can she go ahead and start working for the MTA?

To be completely honest, I’m a little worried about ALL of the presidential candidates. Bernie has good ideas, but have you ever seen the before and after pictures of a president on their first day in office compared to their last day? Every one of them look like they aged 30 years in just 4 years. He just doesn’t have any spare youth to go throwing around like that. Hillary is kind of a robot and talks exactly like Rhapsody in White’s handler in the movie Best in Show. Trump is clearly an angry, unnecessarily loud, racist potato. Ted Cruz’s slogan is “Choose Cruz.” When I was in the 5th grade, literally everyone who was running in our pretend class election had a better slogan than that. It’s not looking good.

My daughter always pretends she’s a policeman, and has a shiny badge made out of a scrap of reflective bubble wrap that she tapes on her clothes. I asked her what kind of police work she was doing. “Giving people tickets! Here you go mommy,” she said happily. She tore a scrap of paper from a little notebook she was carrying around. I said, “Oh no, what did I do to get a ticket?” She replied, “Nothing, this ticket is to go to a show!” Then later she was giving a ticket to her little brother. “Here you go, this is your train ticket.” I’m never telling her that policemen don’t give out the fun kind of tickets. Never.

Life with small children is exactly the same as life without small children, with all the same responsibilities and problems to solve. The only difference is…ok imagine you have to do all these things while simultaneously commanding an army of monkeys. How big is an army? Like 100 people or so? That sounds about right. So literally 100 monkeys in tiny army uniforms. So cute. And I think it’s fair to say that 1 child = approx. 1.75 armies of monkeys. I believe that’s the most scientifically accurate estimate. And when you have to get one of them to school in 3 ft. of snow the average goes up by 30%. So multiply 1.75 x 30% and that will give you the average number of armies of monkeys each child represents during the winter months. And to think when I was in high school I thought I would never need algebra in real life!

Here is my obligatory snow picture. That’s our clothesline there on the left. I’ve never used it, but all our neighbors are obsessed with theirs. Someone had clothes out this morning and they were all dirty and frozen looking. I don’t understand. They could just hang up their clothes inside.

My daughter asked me on the train ride home, “Mommy, are you a bad guy?” The paranoia had never crept in faster. “Why would you say that, sweetie?”
“Because when you wear your big black sunglasses you look like a bad guy. And your black Darth Vader looking coat.”
“Oh. Well I just think that stuff looks cool. Are you a bad guy when you have on your sunglasses?”
She took her little sunglasses out of her backpack and slowly put them on. “Yeahhhhh, I feel like a bad guy. When we get off the train let’s walk down the street like bad guys!”
No one will ever mess with us.

My husband is the type of person who unfolds all the newly folded t-shirts in his drawer just to find the one he wants, and doesn’t think to fold them back. When I say, “Oh look, you unfolded all the shirts again YAY FOLDING IS MY FAVORITE THING TO DO” he says, “Ash, all we are is dust in the wind.” Seriously. That is his standard reply. He frequently forgets to eat. He once asked where we keep the towels after we had been living together in the same apartment for 10 years. But first thing every morning, he goes into the kitchen and makes each of our kids an adorable little breakfast. I’ve never asked him to do this. He gets out their colorful plastic kid plates, then precisely arranges tiny piles of organic cinnamon cereal, raisins and almonds. Then he fills up two tiny cups with water, and two more cups with chocolate milk or juice. Finally he adds fresh fruit of some kind. This morning he laid out a perfect row of orange slices on a Curious George napkin for Sage before she even woke up. I said, “That’s so cute, it looks like sushi.” He simply said, “Well, she’s my little girl.”

Sometimes everything is terrible and you’re walking really fast pushing a screaming toddler who won’t fall asleep while you’re on the phone with your health insurance company going, “What is wrooooong with you peopleeeee???” and old ladies keep giving you the stink eye because your kid doesn’t have gloves on because he took them off 25 times in the past hour but they don’t know that they just think you’re a negligent mom and your hair color is making you sad and your neck is sore from when you zipped up your neck skin in your jacket while in a rush this morning and then you whip around the corner and there are two adorable Japanese anime looking girls HANDING OUT FREE FULL SIZE BOXES OF POCKY LIKE ANGELS SENT FROM HEAVEN #blessed

David Bowie was magic living on earth in human form. His music would change with each listening. You could hear a song you’d heard a million times and suddenly be like, “Did he just say ‘There’s lemons on sale again’ What the hell is he talking about?” Then you would remember that he was an actual alien, because no human could possibly contain that much talent, and it made sense. And it was perfect. When I was pregnant for the first time I put little speakers on my belly and played lots of songs. Nothing happened, and I was beginning to feel silly until I put on “Jean Genie.” She went completely nuts in there. So from then on it was the only song I played for her, and she did a little fetus dance every time. So when my son came along, I knew what to do. And again, he did a little baby slam dance in my belly. Every time. To this day I think hospitals should use that song to turn breech babies.

Jeez lady, do you have a staring problem? Oh wait, maybe you just saw me lean over and scoop up a handful of regurgitated apple skins from the front of my son’s wool sweater and stuff it into my mouth, hairy bits and all. What can I tell you? Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Or maybe you overheard me calling my daughter’s Cheerios her “chocolate goat vitamins.” What can I tell you? Sometimes she gets mad if I don’t call them that, so I’m just being safe. I assure you I’m not on an acid trip, I’m just being a mom.