At first parenthood was as I’d expected. Exhausting, sometimes heinous, occasionally divine. I held my children close enough to feel them breathe, laugh, swallow. Then my days got more complicated, and although there’s nothing unusually challenging about my children, I often find myself responding to their sudden and inscrutable moods, mighty wills, and near-constant arguing by turning into a wild-eyed fishwife. Some interactions are so strangely familiar, it’s as if I once starred as Little Orphan Annie and then, decades later, found myself cast in the revival as Miss Hannigan.
