The Mom Salon | March 2021

Motherscope LLC | San Diego, CA motherscope.com Cover Illustration by Alexandra Harvey | Mothershaped The Mom Salon logo by Samantha Acker | Gemini Designs Copyright © 2021 by Motherscope LLC and the individual contributors.

All rights reserved.

Leonard, Jackie (editor)

The Mom Salon | March 2021 The Mom Salon features the writings of Motherscope’s 2021 Contributors, appearing in rotation from Mar. 2021 through Feb. 2022: Kathryn Bailey, Eunice Brownlee, Kelsey Cichoski, Heather Cleaves, Laci Hoyt, Micah Klassen, Shanthy Milne, Alyssa Nutile, Holly Ruskin, Kaitlin Solimine, Colleen Tirtirian, Megan Vos, Melaina Williams

SUBMISSIONS We believe every mother has a compelling story — and we are challenging you to take ownership of your story, to speak your truth. Motherscope examines the corners of motherhood we don’t often talk about. Be specific, be personal, be real.

We want to hear from you! Check our Submission page for up-to-date information on how to contribute to our next issue. motherscope.com/submit Inquiries: hello@motherscope.com

In This Month’s Mom Salon: Foreword by Motherscope Founder, Jackie Leonard

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Holly Ruskin | milestones // .

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Melaina Williams | Postpartum Glory, The smallness, 3 A.M.

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Alyssa Nutile | Don’t Call Us Special

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Megan Vos | Rest and Release

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Foreword 2020 was a lonely year. Maybe one of the loneliest on record. How odd has it been to partake in such a collective experience while still feeling so incredibly disconnected? Maybe not that strange at all if you call yourself a mother. Another widely collective AND isolating experience.

During these uncertain times, we cling to the glimmers of hope and connection we can find. They are there, as they have always been, and we as humans naturally seek continued opportunities to close the gaps between us.

Writing is powerful. Anytime I invite stories for my review, the writing I receive always blows me away. When I opened applications for regular paid contributors at the end of last year, I thought I’d be searching for four writers so I could publish consistently on the Motherscope blog.

Thanks to the exceptional writing I encountered, and a big idea I couldn’t ignore, four turned to thirteen and blog contributors became a team of remote writers in residence for the year.

The Mom Salon, Motherscope’s monthly print zine, was born.

The mission? Deliver stories to the homes of mothers across the globe, inviting engagement, discourse and reflection.

The impact? We get to cast our net far and wide to create a dense social circle that anyone can be a part of, regardless of where you are.

In your hand is both a conversation starter and companion. Within each issue, you’ll encounter the stories of four to five women experiencing motherhood in their own unique ways. After each reading, you’ll find space to record your thoughts too. In essence, this is your opportunity to dialogue with a group of moms each month.

May each of the stories within these pages remind you that, though we may be separated, we are closer than you think.

Welcome to the Mom Salon.

- Jackie Leonard 2

milestones // .

By Holly Ruskin Not long after my daughter was born, I was sent a ‘First Year’ baby book by a very kind relative. It sat on our kitchen table along with other lovely gifts and the usual post-birth ‘too tired to even consider tidying up’ detritus for about a month. Every time I walked past it — usually with my daughter crying in a sling while I desperately tried to get her to sleep — I would feel a pang of guilt at not having noted down a single milestone.

Postnatal depression (PND) had overcome me like the wave of a tsunami and just getting through each day was an achievement, never mind whether or not my daughter could smile or sit up on her own.

Eventually I moved the book into her bedroom where it sits now on her bookshelf. I managed to find a quiet ten minutes recently and leafed through its pages, looking for important things I could remember. The first time she rolled over was on Christmas Eve; her first crawl in the new year and the day she let out a beautiful peal of laughter was while she was in hospital — a scary time, punctuated by the pure joy of that moment.

Needless to say, as a new mum recovering from PND in a global pandemic, there are many blank pages in my daughter’s ‘First Year’ book. I’m sure in years to come I’ll look at it and realise those empty spaces are memories in their own right; visual reminders of how hard that first year of parenting really is. But more than that, how many moments are unrecorded — missing — from our own motherhood journeys, because we’re too busy caring for another human being.

Matresence is a hugely important time in a woman’s life, perhaps the biggest life shift she will ever experience. Yet there is very little research into it and much less written about the process of moving from woman to mother. I recently posted a poem I’d written to my Instagram account that spoke of how I look inward, rather than back at my daughter, to find the milestones that I’ve achieved as a mother.

After all, she is not a product of my success nor is she a marker of her own. My daughter is her own being, much more than the sum of her parts and I value her unique soul more than the moment she walked for the 3

first time. While I love the sentiment of recording all the moments I may one day wish to remember, there is something important in marking the time it took me to become her mother. We’re sold countless baby products — I have been lured into acquiring many of them — as though they are commodities detached from the women who made them. There is a baby business that is all about the different ways we can accessorize them or help them to crawl/walk/run (often before they’re developmentally ready) and it’s booming. So baby milestones often seem like fabricated ways to make us enter them into competition with other babies, or themselves and even us with other mothers.

But more than that, I feel strongly that as woman our achievements are often undervalued by a society still skewed toward a patriarchal (male) idea of success. Yet as a mother I know I have reached the summit of many more mountains than I ever would have climbed before. What about my milestones? Our mothering milestones? Where’s our book?

I should caveat here — as most mothers seem inclined to when they spend more time talking about themselves than their children — that I love my daughter deeply and hope one day she’ll recognise the milestones she sets for herself. The ones she worked towards and is proud of, regardless of what is set for her. And I’ll be right there next to her, cheering her on.

Now though, I realise that I also hold this same hope for myself as a mother. To set, recognise and celebrate my own mothering milestones.

Like the first time I woke up in the morning full of hope not dread. The day I realised I could look after my daughter on my own without fear. The moment I looked down at her little head as she nestled into my breast and felt a rush of love more powerful than I have ever experienced. The first solo trip to a coffee shop — just me and my daughter — after a terrifying bus journey (first time mums will recognise that disorientating feeling of everyday activities suddenly seeming impossibly difficult). Then there was the time my husband was in the hospital and I had food poisoning, which meant staying up all night alone either feeding my daughter back to sleep or vomiting into a toilet — or both. Making it through that night is a milestone that proves my strength as a mother, helps me remember that I CAN do this hardest of all jobs and sometimes I can do it alone while also emptying the contents of my stomach.

All this is not to say that I wasn’t grateful to be given a beautiful place to store those first precious memories of my daughter. There is something special about knowing one day I’ll sit down with that book and feel the 4

warm pull of nostalgia toward those incredible 365 days.

But I want us to remember that our journey as mothers is equally as important and our ‘First Year’ milestones deserve their own book. Perhaps a beloved old notebook or a brand new beautifully embossed keepsake.

Even the Notes app in your iPhone. Wherever you choose to record them, I hope the minute you finish reading this you set about reflecting on your own mothering milestones.

Because we are the makers and it’s in our bellies where we knitted those babies together. And our hearts that are cracked wide open when we birth them, and they are laid on our chests for the first time. Our eyes are the first ones they look into.

It’s our lives that change irrevocably in that first year.

So we wholeheartedly deserve to remember the milestones that made us the mothers we are today.

HOLLY RUSKIN has been a writer all her life but started exploring the poetic form after the birth of her daughter in 2019. She graduated with a BA in English Literature & Film going on to complete an MA in Film, specialising in feminism and the representation of women. As a lecturer and freelance writer, she has edited screenplays, written short stories and academic essays. But it is writing poems about motherhood that has brought her the most creative joy. She co-founded ‘blood moon poetry’, an inclusive and welcoming place for female poets to submit their work for publication. A selection of her work is published in an anthology of stories about postnatal depression titled ‘Not the Only One’ and her poems have been published in various zines, anthologies and journals.

She also writes for Harness Magazine and is a Motherscope contributor.

Holly lives in Bristol, UK. She can be found on Instagram @mother. in.motion

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Engage with Holly’s Story: Reflect on your own mothering milestones. What are the moments that helped make you the mother you are today? Which milestones surprised you? What are the milestones you have yet to hit, that you are most looking forward to?

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Postpartum Glory

By Melaina Williams My thighs have grown Wider, softer, more dimples.

My calves curve like the sides of almonds and my toes remind me of hors d’oeuvres.

My stomach is round Flesh and fibroids.

She likes to play in the empty pool of my belly button.

The rare time I giggle at a glance of my midriff.

My arms are categorized “mother;” arms I always saw on the women who were nurturing, correcting, cooking, laughing on the phone or after church.

My breasts are very soft, duty filled.

She looks up at me mouth wrapped around areola.

Her cocoa eyes sweetly call me the mama she has yet to say aloud.

I’ve been looking in the mirror longer these days especially when I am naked, 7

eyeing with kindness the newly formed parts of me blessing them, thanking them for carrying me, for carrying her.

I always end at my face that has plumped to a ripened plum.

The corners of my mouth curve upward.

My cheeks rise You look good, woman.

You look good.

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The smallness She has to come out tonight.

And like a genie snaps her fingers, I am small. 12 instead of 35.

Side bangs set on a pink roller. Fluorescent, neon and always glitter. Too shy to not cry. Wondering what the world holds for me at the dedication pages of my Baby-Sitters Club books.

You sure you’re not having twins?

More than 5 fibroids equaling the size of another baby. If you want to make God laugh, they say. My doctor did it for him at the sight of my birth plan. I will read, paint, meditate, envision, pray myself into the natural birth I want.

They’re going to cut me.

Yes, I am small. Surrendered to her time, her BIG who will soon reveal herself. Exit and enter grandly: A spotlight. An audience. A blue curtain.

A small baby girl lifted.

I gasp. A glorious gasp, loud and uncontrolled. From my small has come big, boundless and beautiful. Cheek to cheek we meet. She hits a high soprano note as they take her away. Her sound rings through the hallway. Doctor laughs, They always know their mothers.

I smile. Stare into the surgical lights and think of how she may feel this smallness one day, this grain of sand, sedentary stone, ray of light.

This humble honor to be a glorious piece of the ocean, the mountain, the sun’s perpetual shine.

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3 A.M. On grieving my cousin, Tamara Hector; now a beautiful, celestial mother.

Young children dreaming of their mother.

Reforming her beauty as their eyes glide right to left, left to right, under those soft domes of flesh.

A phantom print of a mother who will never wrinkle or ask them to repeat that again Louder! In this ear.

She will live maybe for thirty seconds one night; other nights a lifetime as she smiles with very little words while walking the shore, which drifts into the living room centered in the sanctuary that suddenly becomes her bedroom where she sits facing a window.

The sun static amid rise and set.

They watch her not knowing whether she will rise to work or lay to rest.

But for certain they feel her love that even in their waking, never burns to ashes.

Love they will feel at 3 a.m.

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as they stare at the ceiling wondering if she’ll ever visit like in the movies: sit at the edge of the bed, stand in the corner of the room. walk out the door with just a glimpse of a white cotton hem.

If only they could touch it, reach her again.

Young children will dream until they have children of their own and then they will rationalize: Bad things happen.

That’s the depth of it.

People die and people live and die later.

But close to 3 a.m. with their eyes dancing the dark, she will be there pleading for them to get up It’s time for school.

MELAINA WILLIAMS is a poet, playwright, singer/songwriter from Inglewood, California. She finds great joy in connecting with people of all backgrounds through creative arts, especially creative writing.

Melaina studied Creative Writing and Theatre at USC. Her book of poetry, “Bless Your Sweet Bones” was published by the historical World Stage Press in Leimert Park. She also penned, “The Humble Commode” a chapbook. She currently lives in Los Angeles and spends her days writing and binge-watching Cocomelon with her daughter.

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Engage with Melaina’s Poetry: Open-Ended Writing Space

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Don’t Call Us Special

By Alyssa Nutile My daughter Gemma will be two years old by the time you read this.

Every inch of her is filled with that classic toddler cuteness, with perfect round cheeks, deep soulful eyes, and a delicate little nose. She finally has enough hair for two little ponytails that stick straight out from her head and curl over, forming one perfect ringlet each. She looks like me and like her brother at the same time. And she has our moods too, smiling uncontrollably at funny jokes and silly noises and wailing with deep sadness at minor inconveniences, like when she drops her favorite toy.

I like writing about her like this, because it makes her sound so normal, like every description of a two-year-old ever recorded. Cute and round, like most toddlers are, but otherwise perfectly mundane. Not special.

Dear God, not special or unique or worst of all, inspirational.

You might be lost right now, so here’s some context: My daughter has a genetic neurodegenerative disease. Energy deficiencies, global developmental delay, seizures, and an under-developed brain are just a few of the symptoms. She needs a toddler-sized wheelchair to help her move around. She has therapy twice a week to help her develop alternate communication skills, since she doesn’t have the ability to form words yet. She has other therapy sessions too, to learn to use her hands and to strengthen her muscles. She still receives most of her nutrition from a formula mix propped up in her Boppy pillow, because she can’t hold her bottles or otherwise feed herself. She’s never had a lick of a popsicle or a taste of juice or even a bite of strawberry, not because I don’t want her to have treats, but because her genetic disease is managed by a ketogenic diet requiring her to eat mostly butter and cream for all of her solid food meals.

When I gave birth to my first child, a sweet, neurotypical and non-disabled son, I dreamed that he might be exceptional. He already is, at least to me.

But for my daughter? I just wish for all of us to see her in all the ways she is perfectly normal, not for her “specialness.”

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*********** I am routinely asked, as delicately as a fellow mom at the park can muster, “Why does she have that chair?”

I know they really want to ask “What’s wrong with her?” but it’s 2020, and most of us understand that’s not appropriate to say out loud anymore.

Still, the curiosity persists.

I mutter, “She has special needs,” not because I like the description, but because I know its shorthand for a person with disabilities, and I don’t have the energy to get any more specific.

I don’t just dislike that description; I hate it. Special implies something positive, something that everyone wants to have and to see. But Gemma’s disease is not special. It’s rare, but it isn’t a gift or a prize. It will take her from me long before I am ready. It will cause her pain and will confuse her mind. It will make her tired, so so tired. It does not feel special.

It feels like avoidance too. A way for those unfamiliar to my daughter to brush off their discomfort about being in the presence of a child with disabilities. A way to ignore the fear that they too might have a child whose life is destined to turn out exactly the opposite of how they imagined.

They have been faced with a reckoning in the form of this cute, sweet, and significantly disabled child. She is loved and cared for by her family and a large team of medical professionals, from the nurses who assist me with her care daily to the doctors who study and monitor the progression of her disease. But she is also broken in a way. Not “functional.” Not “useful” in any economic sense. Not societally “valuable” in the way we’ve been taught to think about it. But you can’t say that about a baby, and it’s hard to confront the fact that we’ve been conditioned with a worldview in which disabled humans can’t be as valuable as other humans. So, they call my daughter special instead. I understand the impulse and the history, and yet I still cringe internally every time. *********** “She came to you for a reason: a special child for special parents,” I hear on a monthly basis (if not more often).

But I am not a special parent. I’m not even an exceptionally good parent.

I am not patient. I am not selfless. I am not calm and grounded.

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I’m a ball of anxiety. I make decisions out of fear when I’m capable of making them at all. I argue with doctors, sometimes out of genuine concern and advocacy for my daughter. Other times, because I am just angry at the world, and they happen to be in the room. I am frustrated and short-tempered and exhausted.

I wish I were special. Maybe I’d have the skills to contribute more research to her disease. Maybe I’d be able to better discern between the constant stream of medical interventions offered to us. Maybe I’d be able to accept the inevitability of our situation.

Behind every “special,” the implication is that it’s special for ME to do this. No one else could do it, and I chose to take on this life. That makes me special. Different.

It’s another diversion. They desperately need me to be special because that means this life could only happen to me. They bypass the reality that because I am not special, they could have my life. We are separated by chance, not design. *********** I take solace in not being special. I look for all the non-special moments in our life now. I don’t want to feel special or be labeled “special.”

I watch my two children, my son, who hit every milestone a four-yearold should have, and my daughter, lacking all the skills of a non-disabled two-year-old, snuggle on the couch while watching Monster’s Inc. for the hundredth time.

I stare into my daughter’s eyes, her face lighting up the way every child’s does when looking at their mother, and sing her favorite nursery rhymes as a thousand generations of mothers before me have done.

I show my children the freshly fallen snow, bundling them up to feel the crisp air and to taste the icy snowflakes like I did as a child.

I squeeze them both closely, finally understanding the poems of motherhood; women writing about how their hearts now lived outside their bodies, in little beings who we try to protect, preparing them to live on without us eventually.

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These moments feel special and universal all at once. I relish them. They are special in a way that I don’t have explain. They don’t need caveats or euphemisms. They are moments that feel unique to my children but are understood by humans all over the world. This is the only realm in which I want to use the word “special.”

ALYSSA NUTILE is an artist, writer, mother of two, and advocate living on the shores of Lake Erie in Erie, Pennsylvania. Her daughter Gemma has a debilitating genetic disease, and Alyssa’s work focuses on the emotional, mental, and physical realities of loving, parenting, and advocating for a medically complex child. She’s currently writing a graphic memoir about her pregnancy and first year of life with Gemma.

You can see more of her writing and artwork at AlyssaNutile.com and follow her daily life on Instagram @alyssanewt.

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Engage with Alyssa’s Story: Motherhood is both a universal and wildly nuanced experience. Reflect on what normal looks like for your household. What are the ways in which these experiences are unique to your family and personal circumstances?

How have comments from those outside your home about your family impacted you in the past? What have you learned?

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Rest and Release

By Megan Vos At 5 a.m. one morning in January, after a string of terrible nights of sleep, I found myself standing over my six and nine year-old daughters.

They were in my bed while my husband slept downstairs and I moved between various beds and couches in our home — one of those nights when everyone was moving, and nobody was sleeping much. I had seen every hour on the clock, starting at 9:30 p.m. when I first attempted to go to sleep. Both girls had nightmares at different times, the smoke detector started beeping, and just as I fell asleep around 3 a.m., the cat threw up.

Finally, I thought both girls were asleep, and I slipped out of bed to give up on the night and move into the “endless cups of coffee” portion of the morning. As I opened the door, they shot out of bed, whining and crying for me to come back.

On a different morning, I might have climbed back into bed and snuggled close, but on that morning, I was touched out. I couldn’t take one more minute of being kicked, hugged, jostled, breathed on. I tried to negotiate with them, but the moment escalated, and I found myself half yelling, half sobbing, “Stay in bed! Or you know what? I don’t care what you do.

Just get up if you’re not going to sleep anyway. I’m just so tired. I can’t do this.”

I had started taking a Positive Parenting Solutions class online the week before. The premise of the class is that children have an inherent need for attention and power, and that if parents provide those in positive ways, negative behaviors will decrease. One of the first lessons was a parenting inventory to determine your parenting style, which can shed some light on how you, the parent, might contribute to some of the power struggles in the family. The four parenting personalities — comforting, pleasing, controlling, and superiority — describe “a gut reaction that often happens when you’re stressed or angry.”

As I clicked the always, usually, sometimes, never boxes, I felt pretty sure I’d get the “comforting” personality. After all, I have wanted to be a mom for as long as I can remember, naturally falling into roles where nurturing was a requirement. Babysitting, teaching, trip-leading, nannying — I 18

never considered a career that didn’t involve caring for others. When my results came back, and I saw that “controlling” was my primary parenting personality, followed by “comforting,” I felt a combination of shame and disbelief. I did the inventory again just to be sure. Same results. Needs to be in control. Models organization and leadership. May be rigid and controlling. May invite power struggles.

As I read the description, I saw myself earlier that morning, seething as my six-year-old refused to put on her socks and shoes and go to school.

I saw myself every single night for as long as I can remember, rushing through bedtime, knowing that my sleep is contingent on executing tasks as quickly as possible. Of course, the parenting personality framework isn’t all encompassing, and the class provides some helpful suggestions for being less controlling. Still, it was a helpful and also painful reminder of how I react to my daughters when I’m feeling overwhelmed.

I have been thinking a lot about whether my controlling tendency is inherited, or whether it’s a response to the circumstances in which I am parenting. As with most parenting questions, I suspect that the answer is a mixture of both — nature and nurture are interwoven. My grandmother, Rena, who died in 2019, was incredibly rigid. She had strong preferences for restaurant tables (near the window, always); she never ate junk food; her house was spotless until her Alzheimer’s became advanced, just a few months before she died.

I knew she loved me unconditionally, and at the same time, she had opinions about my weight (preferably low), my hair (preferably long and pulled back), my clothes (preferably not my go-to leggings and hoodies, which have been my uniform since well before the pandemic). My mom is far more relaxed than her own mom was, but we have talked about her worry that, like Rena, she too has a rigid side.

In my young adult, pre-parenting life, I was the opposite of controlled. I constantly lost my keys . . . and my wallet . . . and a lot of other important things. I was messy and I spilled everything (okay, I still do that), and the first time I pulled into the garage of my first house in Colorado after driving across the country to move here, I promptly smashed both side mirrors of my car. I’ve always been responsible with work and school, but I balanced these with a carefree lifestyle during my twenties. I said “yes” to camping trips and ski weekends; to happy hours and to girls’ nights.

After knowing each other for just eight months, my now-husband and I drove my Ford Focus sedan (with its still-smashed mirrors) to Alaska for 19

a summer in 2007. We saw glaciers, grizzly bears, breaching whales. We inadvertently camped next to a meth lab; we quit our dangerous kayak guide jobs; I threw a camping stove that had caught fire into the ocean.

We drove home three months later, battered and a little worse for the wear, but certain that if we could survive that, we could do anything together. My husband still says that my relaxed, up-for-anything attitude was one of the reasons he fell in love with me.

Parenting, however, has brought out a different side of me. From infancy, my older daughter has thrived on order. As a tiny baby, she didn’t like wearing socks in the car, didn’t like any music that might be interpreted as even remotely sad, and hated her car seat. She never took a bottle and rejected most solid foods, and I breastfed her on demand for seventeen months, when she told me one day, “all done,” and never nursed again.

Even at eighteen months, she was reserved. If another toddler approached her at the playground, she’d shake her head and say, “No, Baby.” When she was a baby and a toddler, I didn’t realize the extent to which I controlled her environment to try to keep her happy. I was just a new mom with a busy working husband who was responding to the needs of her baby.

Somewhere along the line, it started to feel less like I was being responsive, and more like I was tiptoeing around to avoid the inevitable meltdowns, reacting to her unhappy moments with disproportionate anger and frustration. Living far away from family, with a husband who works long hours, I spend a lot of time alone with my daughters. I can’t call my mom to see if she can pick the girls up after school, or show up at my brother and sister-in-law’s with two tired kids and a pizza after a rough day. It makes sense that I’ve developed systems to make my long days with the girls go as smoothly as possible. During the pandemic, though, I have noticed myself clinging to the systems and routines at the expense of connecting with my girls.

I do not make concrete New Years resolutions, but as 2020 ended and I thought about what I wanted for 2021, the word “rest” immediately came to mind. 2020 came on the heels of 2019, which was a challenging year for my family. Rena died, and my mom was very sick, and I was already feeling depleted when the pandemic began. The combination of COVID-19, the political climate, and the residual stress from 2019 was toxic, and I suffered stress-induced abdominal pain for much of the fall of 2020. By Christmas, my health had improved, but my exhaustion lingered. I made the Christmas magic, and then I was done. Time to rest.

For the moment, my daughters are going to school in person four 20

days per week. I fully recognize my privilege in having a choice about whether to work outside the home, and while COVID has been mentally challenging for me, it has not affected my family’s income. While my girls are gone, I clean a little, I figure out dinner, and mostly, I rest. I rewatch early seasons of “Grey’s Anatomy” and read; I scroll social media and I text with friends. But as I sobbed, “I can’t do this” at 5 a.m. that January morning, it occurred to me that paradoxically, I’ve been separating, compartmentalizing, and controlling my rest. I do it when the girls are at school. When they are home, I manage, I delegate, I accomplish. I make meals, and supervise bedtime and morning routines, but how often do I stop doing and truly focus on them? How frequently do I flop down on the couch, let them come to me, and rest with them?

A few moments after I sat down, literally crying into my coffee, both girls crept into the living room. “I’ll get us a fuzzy blanket,” my older daughter said. I cried some more. My younger daughter looked at me, her big blue eyes full of concern. “It’s okay,” I told her. “I shouldn’t have yelled. I love you, and I’m also sad and tired.” I put my arms around them both, leaned back, and pulled them close.

During non-pandemic times, MEGAN VOS produces Listen to Your Mother, a live show featuring local writers’ stories about motherhood.

Now, she has shamelessly embraced Peloton spin classes and bread baking, and finds solace hiking in the mountains above her Boulder, CO home. Megan loves to ski with her family and try new recipes with her partner. Her writing has been published in the Birth Stories and Radical Mama editions of Motherscope and in The Kindred Voice. You can read more of Megan’s writing on her (now rarely updated because: pandemic) blog, www.familygrowsup.com.

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Engage with Megan’s Story: Open-Ended Writing Space

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Continued Thoughts:

Every mother has a compelling story. What’s yours?

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