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What I’m learning about raising a child through all of their 'first times.'

The other times will have their own meaning, with different value and depth, but when you meet your first child, it will be that very thing: the first time, never to be replicated again.

She will be impossibly small, and her chin will waver with an accusing uncertainty from the moment they place her warm body into your arms. How can you be my mother? You don’t look like you know what you’re doing.

And this will be true because, of course, you do not have the slightest clue.


You will assess the situation together, this first child and you. As a mother, you will notice the indentations where her knuckles should be, the rolls of fat that circle around her neck, her mottled skin and bald head. Improbably, she will seem insanely beautiful. Terrifyingly fragile.

She will hate the loudness of the room, the brightness of the lights. She will miss her old, wet burrow, with its cramped safe corners and dark shadows. Her furry brow will fold slowly. Then her unseeing eyes will blink up into the near space between the both of you, where you hold her close to your chest. Well, I guess this is it. We will have to make the best of it.

And then she will begin to cry. And you will begin to cry too.

In a day’s time, you will bring your daughter home and grow her up, in all the ways you know.

You will figure out how. She who knew from the beginning you never knew it all will regard you with purpose anyway.

She will do amazing things while you are worrying away the time. While you are cutting away the crusts. She will grow milk teeth and then grown-up ones. Someone named Mrs. Bastien will teach her cursive and make her learn which is the left hand and which is the right. She will save worms from baking on the sidewalk in the sun. She will love the things you hate and hate the things you love, and you will drive each other mad — all before she learns to drive.

Me and my daughter, Annabelle. Photo by Nicole Jankowski.

As her mother, you will do amazing things, too.

You will learn to need less: less sleep, less care, less time. You will give more. You will learn to tell the difference between "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" and "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on the recorder, but it will hurt. You will not say things you would almost always have said, just to keep the peace. What hard strength there is in the measurement of unsaid words. You will be in a hurry to get to the better times when the times are worn and exhausting. Then you will hold your breath and wish it would all just stop spinning, when you realize how quickly 5 years old became 10 and then 10 years old became 15.

You will cut your own teeth, sharply, on the mothering of this first child. You will do the worst job this first time. But it will be the purest experience, the one that lives forever in your gut. The one that makes you homesick, always, for the time when she did not know anything but you and it was all so very new and unfiltered.

It will be wonderful and terrible, heartbreaking and tumultuous. You will hate it sometimes, and you will love it. You will stand nearby and watch her figure out the balance of things with the eye of someone so simultaneously invested and so incredibly powerless. It will hurt you more than she can know.

Do not tell her how much it hurts.

One day you will be counting her fingers and her toes, and the next, you will see her looking off into some foggy distance and she will be smiling. It will be the first time you realize she is counting the days until she leaves you for her first adventure, all alone.

You have only minutes now, it seems, until she leaves the house for the last time with her bedroom door wide open. There are only fleeting ribbons of days and wispy years until the last time she goes — the time she goes away, when she won’t be coming back again.

For the very first time.

Joy

Sorry, Labradors. After 31 years, America has a new favorite dog.

The American Kennel Club has crowned a new favorite.

via Pixabay

A sad-looking Labrador Retriever

The sweet-faced, loveable Labrador Retriever is no longer America’s favorite dog breed. The breed best known for having a heart of gold has been replaced by the smaller, more urban-friendly French Bulldog.

According to the American Kennel Club, for the past 31 years, the Labrador Retriever was America’s favorite dog, but it was eclipsed in 2022 by the Frenchie. The rankings are based on nearly 716,500 dogs newly registered in 2022, of which about 1 in 7 were Frenchies. Around 108,000 French Bulldogs were recorded in the U.S. in 2022, surpassing Labrador Retrievers by over 21,000.

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via Google and Freepik

Google's new personal information removal submission page.

In the internet era, the idea of personal privacy is all but a myth. With a few keystrokes just about anyone can get your home address, phone number, email, age and the names of your family members. The fact that this information is readily available puts us all in the dangerous position of being the victim of fraud, stalking and violence.

What makes the situation even worse is that our information was put online without any of our consent.

The good news is that Google just made a big change that gives us all a little more control over our personal information. On April 27, the company announced it will allow anyone to request removals of their personal information from its Search feature.

“Open access to information is a key goal of Search, but so is empowering people with the tools they need to protect themselves and keep their sensitive, personally identifiable information private. That’s why we’re updating our policies to help people take more control of their online presence in Search,” Michelle Chang, Google’s Global Policy Lead for Search, announced on the company’s blog.

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Joy

An 8-year-old snuck his handwritten book onto a library shelf. Now it has a 56-person waiting list.

Dillon Helbig's 81-page graphic novel— written by "Dillon His Self"—captured the hearts of his local librarians and their patrons.

Dillon Helbig's 81-page graphic novel captured the hearts of his local librarians.

Writing a book is no easy task, even for adult professional writers. Many would-be authors dream of a day when their work can be found on library shelves, unsure if it will ever come.

But for 8-year-old Dillon Helbig, that day has already arrived—in truly unconventional fashion—thanks to his own determination to make it happen.

Dillon wrote his 81-page graphic novel, "The Adventures of Dillon Helbig's Crismis" (written by "Dillon His Self") in a hardcover journal with colored pencils over the course of a few days. He even put a label on the back of the book that reads "Made in Idho" [sic] and put an illustrated spine label on it as well. Then, without telling anyone, he brought it to his local library in Boise, Idaho, and slipped it in among the books in the children's section.

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Becca Moore and Raul Torres having margaritas.

Becca Moore is a popular TikToker with over 800,000 followers who's known for her funny, laid-back takes on dating. Like any influencer-type she was at the Coachella music and arts festival in Indio, California recently. While she was at Coachella, she was robbed of her phone, rental car keys and wallet.

“I went to Coachella this weekend and I thought this guy was kinda hitting on me but then he just robbed me,” Becca says at the beginning of her three-minute TikTok video with over 3 million views. After the festival, she was left with no ride, money, or means to get in contact with friends and family. She was stranded in the desert.

Becca’s friend’s hotel called her an Uber so she could get to a local store to buy a new phone. The driver she was incredibly lucky to be connected with was a lot more than a guy with a car in a time of need, he was a guardian angel named Raul Torres from Fresno, California, six hours north of Indio.

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Joy

44 years ago he became her protector after a terrible act. Today, they've been reunited in love.

Betsy and Irv are finally getting the happy ending they deserve. Together.

It’s pretty safe to say that everyone loves a good love story.

There’s a whole genre of music and movies dedicated to the idea of someone being swept off of their feet after circumstances tried to keep them from their true love. Romance novels could single handedly keep public libraries and bookstores afloat. Everyone loves "love" and the story of Betsy and Irv just takes the cake. Betsy Sailor attended Penn State University as a business major, which was almost unheard of in 1978 and Irv Pankey attended the university while playing football. The pair’s paths never crossed, until an unfortunate incident bonded the two forever.

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@SopheAlice/TikTok

Best way to travel, really.

As they say, “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.”

This old adage was brought to life in a whole new way after two friends who thought they booked tickets to Budapest, Hungary, instead found themselves heading to Bucharest, Romania.

Just a minor 500-mile difference, but who’s counting?

TikToker @SophAlice posted a video of the pair realizing their mix-up, which went viral and set them off on an impromptu adventure based entirely on the comments they received.
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