![A Toddler Boy A Toddler Boy](https://brevitymag.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Colorscape-069-slide-290x290.jpg)
A Toddler Boy
Your daddy had a dream, my mother tells me, about a toddler boy. A perfect mix of my eight-years-younger brother Joshua, my parents’ only son, and my sixteen-month-old Lydia, my parents’ only grandchild. The dream-toddler had Joshua’s eyes, Lydia’s cheeks and chin, both babies’ blond curly hair. We’re on the phone—me in Oklahoma, my mother...
![Chopping Chopping](https://brevitymag.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/20170919_035225-slide-290x290.jpg)
Chopping
This baby is sucking the life out of me, my daughter says, and I want to return with Just you wait, but I don’t, because I know how annoying mothers can be, always sounding warnings. Instead, I stand chopping—onions, celery, a breast and a thigh from a chicken—making a thin soup that will pass through...