life

8PM

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8pm is also when I start my child’s bedtime routine.

While headlines refresh and the world holds its breath, I will be standing next to a little stool in our bathroom, helping tiny hands squeeze toothpaste onto a brush. I will remind her to spit, not swallow. I will wipe her face with a warm washcloth and kiss her warm, rosy, damp cheeks. I will tighten the clump of messy curls on top of her head.

She will pick out a book. Probably one we’ve already read a hundred times. She will interrupt me halfway through to ask questions that have nothing to do with the story. I will answer anyway.

We will sing a song while I help her into her jammies. The same one, every night. I will tuck her in just like a big in a rug. I will whisper, “I love you to the moon and back.”

And tonight, I will hold on a little tighter during our group hug.

Because in the back of my mind, a quiet question will be echoing: Is my country bombing Iran right now?

Night is already falling there.

Somewhere across the world, another parent is beginning their own bedtime routine.

They are brushing teeth. They are smoothing blankets. They are telling stories in a language I don’t understand but a rhythm I would recognize instantly.

They are loving their child in the exact same way I love mine.

And what are they wondering?

Are they listening for sirens? Are they watching the sky? Are they trying to sound calm when they are anything but? Are they holding on just a little tighter, too?

The symmetry of our hearts and the dissonance of our circumstances is staggering.

Because motherhood does not change across borders. Love does not need translation. Bedtime rituals do not belong to one country or another. They belong to all of us.

And yet, the safety wrapped around those rituals can be so uneven, so fragile, so dependent on decisions made far away from the quiet moments where children rest their heads on their parents’ shoulders.

Tonight, at 8pm, I will do what mothers have always done. I will create a small pocket of peace inside my home.

I will choose softness. I will choose presence. I will choose love.

But I will not pretend the world outside does not exist.

I will feel the weight of it. I will carry the awareness that while I am turning off a nightlight, somewhere else a parent may be bracing for something unimaginable.

And still, I will whisper the same words:

I love you. I love you. I love you.

Because if there is anything that connects us across oceans, across fear, across uncertainty, it is this:

We are all just trying to tuck our children in safely at night.

And tonight, that feels both heartbreakingly simple and impossibly profound.

Hug your babies tight. Hug your loved ones right. 

Shit is fucked up, but we’re all gonna be okay. I hope. 

– Meig

Anniversaries make me sappy.

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Eleven years of marriage.
Sixteen years of loving him.

Sometimes I sit in the quiet of our home, usually after bedtime when the world finally slows, and I try to wrap my mind around that number. Sixteen years. A whole lifetime of memories, of growth, of becoming who we are together.

We started with so little. Just two people figuring out life side by side in our very first apartment. Back then, love looked like late night conversations, shared dreams, and the kind of laughter that only comes when everything is still new and full of possibility.

And the beach is where it all took root.

There is something about the ocean that feels like us. Wild and steady at the same time. That is where our story really began, sun on our skin, salt in the air, falling into something deeper than we even understood yet. I still remember that cruise to Honduras, Costa Maya, and Belize, the moment it all shifted for me. Somewhere between the waves and the quiet moments together, I realized I was not just in love.

I was home.

Since then, we have built a life piece by piece. Two homes after that first apartment. A new chapter here in Austin, where everything feels a little lighter and a little friendlier, like we landed exactly where we were meant to be.

But if I am honest, the most defining part of our story was not where we lived.

It was what we waited for.

Twelve long, quiet years.

Years that tested us in ways no one really sees from the outside. Years filled with hope, heartbreak, patience, and an unshakable commitment to each other. There were moments it felt impossibly heavy, but we never let go. Not of each other. Not of the life we believed we were meant to have.

And then, her.
Our daughter.

Three and a half years ago, everything changed in the most beautiful way. The silence we carried for so long was replaced with laughter, tiny footsteps, and the sweetest little voice calling us Momma and Daddy.

Watching him become a father has been my favorite chapter of ours.

The way he loves her. The way she looks at him. The patience, the playfulness, the quiet strength he brings into our family. It is everything I ever dreamed of and more. There is something so sacred about seeing the person you have loved for over a decade step into a role that feels like it was always meant for them.

We did not just build a life.
We built this life.

One filled with resilience. With deep roots. With a kind of love that has been tested and proven again and again. A love that grew up, weathered storms, waited through silence, and still chose each other every single time.

Eleven years married.
Sixteen years together.

And somehow, it still feels like we are just getting started.

I would choose him in every lifetime.
Always.

-Meig

The Weight of Enough

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There’s a quiet tug of war that lives in my chest every single day.

When I sit on the floor and play with her, really play, the kind where I let the dishes pile up and the laundry stay unfolded, I feel it creeping in. You should be cleaning. You’re falling behind.

And when I finally stand up, push through the exhaustion, and start picking up the house, there it is again. You should be with her. These moments are slipping away.

It feels like no matter where I stand, I am standing in the wrong place.

Did I make her smile enough today?
Did I give enough hugs, enough kisses?
Did she feel how deeply, wildly, endlessly loved she is?
Did I do enough?

Mom guilt does not whisper. It hums. Constant and relentless. Especially when your body already feels like it is fighting its own quiet battle every single day.

Because chronic illness does not clock out.
There is no off switch.
No pause button.

Every ounce of energy becomes a decision.

Do I spend it on the dishes or on her laughter?

Do I push through the fatigue to be present or do I rest so I can make it through bedtime?

And somehow, no matter what I choose, it feels like I am failing something.

Tonight I sat on her floor, pulling her pajamas over tired little legs, soaking in her bedtime cuddles. My body felt heavy, completely emptied of everything I had to give.

And still the thoughts came.

Why did I get so frustrated today?
Why will she not just poop in the potty already?
Why did I lose my patience over something so small?

It is in those quiet, end of the day moments that the guilt hits the hardest.

Because I want to be everything for her.
The patient mom. The fun mom. The calm mom. The always present, never tired, endlessly gentle mom.

But I am not.

I am human.
I am tired.
I am doing this while carrying more than most people can see.

And as I sat there, stuck on the floor for just a moment longer than I wanted, because getting up felt like climbing a mountain, I looked at her.

And she looked at me like I was her whole world.

Not a cleaner house.
Not a perfectly patient mom.
Not someone who got everything right.

Just me.

Her momma.

And in that moment, I was reminded of something I so easily forget.

I am not the perfect mom.
But I am her mom.

The one she runs to.
The one she laughs with.
The one she wants at the end of the day.

Even on the days I feel stretched too thin,
even on the days I lose patience,
even on the days I question everything,

I am still exactly who she needs.

And maybe, just maybe,
that is enough.

Love y’all. Go hug your babies. You’re enough. I promise.

-Meig

Three Is Magic

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No one told me three would be this beautiful.

Everyone warned me about three.

They said it with knowing looks and little half laughs.

“Oh just wait until she’s three.”
“Three is when the attitude starts.”
“Threenagers are something else.”

What nobody told me is that three is perfection.

Three is a tiny voice yelling from the other room, “I WILL DO IT MYSELF!” while struggling to pull on shoes that are definitely on the wrong feet.

Three is spinning in the living room saying, “Check out my moves, Momma!” and dancing like the whole world is watching.

Three is independence blooming right in front of my eyes. It’s tiny hands that don’t need mine quite as much anymore, but still reach for me when she’s tired.

Three is Gabby’s Dollhouse on repeat. Again. And again. And again.

Three is dance parties at 10 pm when bedtime should have happened an hour ago.
It’s music playing too loud, twirls across the living room floor, and one more song before we even think about pajamas.

Three is the moment the chaos finally slows down and she crawls into my arms for sleepy cuddles before bed. The kind where her whole little body melts into mine and I remember she’s still my baby, even while she’s becoming her own little person.

Three is hug attacks.
The kind where she runs at me full speed just to wrap her arms around my legs.

Three is messy and loud and exhausting and absolutely magical.

Everyone warned me that three would be hard.

What nobody told me is that three would also break my heart a little.

Because every “I do it myself” is a reminder that she needs me just a tiny bit less than she did yesterday.

And while I’m unbelievably proud of the strong, confident little girl she’s becoming, there’s a quiet part of me that wishes I could freeze time right here.

Right here in the middle of dance parties and hug attacks.
Right here between independence and sleepy cuddles.

Because three is everything being a girl mom was promised it would be.

And I’m trying so hard to soak up every second of it.

Because motherhood is this strange, beautiful thing where your heart grows bigger every day, even while you’re grieving the versions of your child that quietly disappear along the way.

Yesterday she was a baby.

Today she’s three.

And somehow both of those things exist in my arms at the very same time.

And tonight, when I tuck her in and she whispers “I love you, Momma,” I know someday I will look back and realize…

three was never something to survive.

Three was something to treasure.

And I’m treasuring it. Truly.

Go hug your babies and water your plants. Maybe take your vitamin too.

Meig