Jenna Glatzer, Ghostwriter

but this is one of my favorite pics ever. Also, the other day, I bought Sarina a toy guitar at a garage sale, and there were no batteries in it. Sarina spotted the guitar and tried pressing its buttons. "It broke," she told me. "It just needs batteries," I said. She walked into the living room, pulled out the television remotes, and removed the batteries from them. "Got the batteries!" she announced. 17 months old. I love this kid. P.S. I'm getting divorced. It's not something I want to talk/post about, but it's something that's awkward having people not know about for so long. So there it is.

Before I was a mother, I thought women who said things like "My kids are my whole world" must have pretty sad lives. I thought it must be a drag to have to think of someone else's needs before your own all the time. I thought my career defined me. I didn't understand all the fuss about breastfeeding and why women would ever want to continue it for more than a year. I cared about suffering children, but I didn't physically ache every time I heard about a child who was abused, starving, suffering from a disease, or abandoned. I didn't know that spending a Friday night making stacks of paper cups and watching a toddler knock them down could be a really great night. I didn't know baby kisses could be the most memorable kisses of my life. I hated pink. Shopping really wasn't my thing. I had no idea it could be so much fun to shop for things for my child. I didn't understand that all the gross things kids do aren't gross when they're your kids. I...

On August 3, 2008, at approximately 9:30 p.m., my baby ceased being a baby. It all started last week, really, when she began talking in complete sentences. I asked, "Sarina, do you want me to open the door?" and she responded, "Mommy, open the door." Several 4-word phrases and sentences followed. She dropped a quarter in her grandparents' pool and said, "Money in the pool!" What got me the most, aside from the fact that she was 16 months old, was that she was speaking in gramatically correct terms. I was unstoppably happy, glowing with the pride of a parent who's just found out her daughter will be the valedictorian of her class at Harvard AND has paid off her schooling with the money she's made as a cover model for tasteful magazines. Then the unstoppable happiness stopped. It happened when I was preparing for Sarina's bath. She was playing in her room, and I went to her closet to check for diapers. She came up behind me and tapped me. ...