savagemama

This morning was one of those mornings that could launch a thousand fantasies. As Lucille screamed from the bathtub that I wasn’t listening to her, Eliza coughed and sneezed in her own little window of misery. Eliza has a cold. I’m not sure what’s going on with Lucille.

Well, I suppose I have a clue. She and I have been tangled in the delicate dance of power struggle for a while now. Instead of moving together gracefully, we are stumbling over each other’s toes and, in some cases, tripping each other on purpose. Read More »

Sometimes life throws you a curve ball. It happens all the time really, but last fall our family got one the form of a herniated disc in Seth’s back. He went from able to work, to able to work some, to flat on his back on the living room floor. We went from a family that made ends meet to a family that couldn’t anymore.

At that point we’d lived in Missoula for nine years and knew well the money dance that is a part of all of our lives here. No one moves to Missoula to get rich and we, like nearly everyone we know here, had done the calculation of low wages plus quality of life and figured we’d come out on top. Then we did the calculation of work-at-home-mom plus debilitating back injury and the numbers didn’t look too good.
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Yesterday I was walking across the street holding Lucille’s hand.

“Whoa, Mama,” she said. “I just saw a rainbow!” She stopped in the middle of the street, in her pink sparkly shoes and stared at the ground. In the rush of the moment, standing on wet pavement, I wasn’t sure what she was talking about.

“Right there,” she said pointing toward a circle of oil on the slick street. It’s true, it did look like a rainbow.
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