There we would be, playing in the sun on a summer afternoon, and we would hear the unmistakable sound of the ice cream truck heading down the street. Collectively, without a word, we would all stop whatever we were doing, listening, gauging the distance, weighing our options for weaseling our way into a treat, glancing from one to another, knowingly.

This is a poem my daughter wrote when she was in high school. She got the idea from a story that I shared with her. Because I’m the one who carries shark teeth in my pocket. I don’t carry them all the time, only when I am afraid and need a little extra oomph in my step. It’s a habit I started completely by accident, and I know to most people it sounds incredibly weird, if not perhaps even a little bit gross. But I do it, just the same.

So there I was on a June morning, standing, facing the expensive and sadly unused bicycle, when I heard the back door open and a pajama-clad, sleepy-eyed Taylor walked out, squinting into the sunshine. I turned around and our eyes met. Immediately I saw her body stiffen, defenses up, face firming--I felt my own body do the same. Here we were again--squaring off on our beautiful June Saturday--a familiar battle of wills on the horizon. And then I just stopped.

I took a break from posting blog entries. The holidays came and went. I have worked to make a blog with content that is upbeat/positive/uplifting. And lately, I have struggled with that, especially in writing. I have started and stopped countless entries, with intent to return to them when I can make them better, make them happier. It’s not that I don’t feel happy or joyful or any of those things, but winter is a tough time for me.

He walked with a limp, but he appeared to be young, probably early to mid-twenties. He had black hair that was straight but shaggy, long-ish and slightly unkempt. He was clean shaven with a baby face, but his cheeks jutted out and his face was sunken with dark circles under his eyes. His eyes were bright blue with long eyelashes, and he was tall, quite tall, actually, but he was also rail thin with a too-large belt trying hard to hold up his too-large jeans.

Store bought tests were about to affirm what I already knew--I was pregnant. This was not a planned pregnancy. My husband and I had only been married six months, and we didn’t *think* we wanted any more kids, but neither one of us was really committed to making a permanent move that would keep us from having kids either.

I ran across an advertisement while I was in Florida in June for the Yale Happiness course, which anyone can take for free online. The course is a social experiment of sorts, which has incidentally become the most popular course in the history of Yale University. As a nerdy type who loves coursework, I signed up immediately. This course is quite a journey…

I got pregnant and became a mother to Taylor unexpectedly when I was just twenty years old in 2002. I loved her with a ferocity and depth that sometimes unnerved me. And I threw myself into motherhood with reckless and wild abandon.

The photograph that accompanies this post is the view from the back door of the first porch I ever fell in love with.