Hot dogs, running, and Cool Moms

Plus a short story about my first period

Hope Halloween was mostly fun for everyone and that your meltdowns were minimal. I am thoroughly enjoying my kids’ mini Twixes and mini Snickers while they’re at school living their best lives.

Alfie the tree frog appears to have left for greener pastures (or maybe he just left to burrow into the ground to prepare for himself for froggy ice-cube status).

Here’s a picture of him from 2 weeks ago though because I love him.

Reading

This thoughtful, empathetic piece by Virginia Sole-Smith on co-parenting with an ex who espouses harmful diet culture behaviors is a heartbreaking (and infuriating) read, but it’s an absolutely necessary one.

“Every Wednesday is a stress eating day,” Heather says, of how the boys come back to her house clearly ready to make up for feeling restricted at Paul’s house. But the permission they have to eat at Heather’s house is still hard for them to trust, especially Leo. “The next day, Leo will not want to eat anything. It’s a lot of ‘I can’t eat that, I don’t need that.’” Sam used to ask lots of questions about the different ways Heather and Paul approach food, but these days, he seems to be making up his own mind. When Leo worries, Sam tries to reassure him that he can trust the food Heather serves. “Sam will say out loud to Leo, ‘It’s okay buddy,’” Heather tells me. She sounds both proud and heartbroken.