by liz petrone

Maybe it’s the slightly crazed and manic expression I wear on my face when I go out with all four children in public, or maybe it’s the way my shoulders droop towards the ground with exhaustion like an elderly but equally dishevelled and flat-chested Captain Caveman, but people seem to always stop when they see me with the four babies, stare and say, not unkindly: “Boy, you sure do have your hands full, don’t you?”

Or maybe it’s that quite often my hands are literally full, piled high with snacks and drinks and crappy toys made out of plastic and discarded shoes and ponytail holders and piles and piles of garbage that for some unbeknownst reason must always be