An Ever Growing List

What I didn’t know about motherhood…

I’d eat food scraps from my son’s tray, leftover peas, half eaten pear slices, cold nibbled spaghetti noodles

Wiry gray hairs would sprout like menacing weeds in my hairline

My hearing would increase tenfold with acute sensitivity to whimpers and nascent cries

A dozen questions would flood my brain simultaneously: Is he hungry? in pain? lonely?

I’d google search like a fiend, including what color and texture does this poop indicate?

I’d leave several voicemails for my mother; historically it had been the other way around

My heart would learn to bear the ache and weight of worry; it wouldn’t burst or stop beating entirely