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When you love something with your whole heart, you worry that you will lose it. Learning to navigate that worry, to silence that particularly lethal version of fear without also killing the blissfulness of love, is the challenge of parenthood.

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The kids cried too much. I yelled too much. They ate too many crackers and I drank too many cans of pop. No one ate any vegetables. I was impatient.

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Pack the kids in the car and go through a drive-thru and get some coffee. Trust me, it’ll make your day better.

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Instead of talking about how little I would sleep, I wish people told me about how isolated I would feel.

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I am no longer a motherless daughter, I am a mother, and the meaning of this day will forever mean more to me than it ever could have in the past.

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Figure out what that buzz is for you and do it — each and every day.

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Under the milk ducts and unpainted toenails and old yoga pants, you are still YOU.

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I know way too many parents who don’t have fun. Don’t do that. You have to choose to have fun and have a good attitude.

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But here is my secret: I am a liar too. Or I was, for much of my life. I remember the moment when I realized that I had a hand in what type of reality another would live by. That I could carve out my own secret nook beneath others’ expectations and exist in that delicious, sovereign space.

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It’s never been more glaringly obvious than it is now that there’s only one of me and four of them, and all of us have different needs in any given day.