1. Cats. The idea of a kitten had seemed so charming after we left the theater empowered from seeing Puss in Boots. The kitten that had looked so cute and that we adored went home with us from the shelter. Well, now she is big and poops on the rug and vomits in my bedroom. I have thrown up every time I clean up her mess and have resorted to trading sexual favors with my husband for his role in the hazmat duty.

2. Puke. Other people’s but particularly my own. When I was so sick while being pregnant and had to care for a little person with the stomach bug too. We lay in the bathroom, me propped on the toilet seat and my one year old splayed on the extra bare crib mattress. My husband had left with the two year old in hopes that our entire ship would not sink.

3. Food. Feeding, meal prep, grocery shopping, refrigerator cleaning, pantry organizing, lunch making, snack distribution, candy warden. Do I add anything else or is that sufficient? I long for the days when feeding my children meant my bosom or a bottle. Plain and simple, choosing formula brands, nipple ointment, plastic bags dated with a new sharpie marker and it has all come to this.

4. Laundry. Where did this laundry come from and who did it when I was growing up? I know the laundry room was in the old fashioned location, beside the kitchen and had an upstairs laundry chute that I could still squeeze in at age ten and drop below to to a pile of pillows. I don’t remember my mother doing, folding, sorting or putting away. I was raised to believe in the laundry fairy and she has deserted me. Clothes run amuck here and everywhere, they are overflowing from baskets, backpacks, unpacked suitcases from Spring Break, just a few weeks ago. I complain, nag, yell, cry, lay in bed in defeat surrounded my more clothes and I think of my mother and I plot her punishment for not warning me.

5. Driver. When I got my license all I could think about was getting out of wherever and fast. I had practically tricked my mother into letting me take the test though I had basically no driving experience, just so I could drive when she thought I was deemed ready. Within two hours I had headed to the beach, a few hours away and still unsure how to make a left turn. Driving was a thrill, a joyful showing of independence and now it has come down to this. Fighting against my very soul not to get a minivan, trying like Hell to remember who to pick up when and where, and traversing in a mobile trash pit that beckons more guilt after untangling myself from the laundry. Don’t forget the moldy dry cleaning languishing in the back forgotten with the broken weed eater I offered to take to be fixed. Last month.