Pendulum

One minute we're baking banana chocolate chip muffins and emptying the dishwasher together.

The next she's refusing to wipe the excess Penaten from her finger or put her underwear on so it doesn't get all over.

In another minute I'm wrestling her to get the damn underwear on and my only pair of maternity jeans has become covered in Penaten, a substance I have never been able to remove from any kind of fabric.

Now I'm sitting on the couch after wiping down my jeans with Goo Gone, polishing off my second muffin and pretending not to know she's at the top of the stairs.

Later, she'll be all sunshine and roses and I will still be balancing on a tightrope of nerves and frustration, unable to accept that for one of us, it's over and done, time to move on, what's the problem, Mommy?