pretending

The boys eat raw cookie dough and wander into the woods alone, and I do my best to manage the terror. It’s what you do when you have a child, isn’t it, open yourself up to unimaginable pain and then try to pretend away the possibilities?
I did not fully realize that half of parenting would be making decisions and the other half would be panicking that whatever decision I made was wrong.

Also a considerable part of parenting, the third half? It might be pretending engagement I do not entirely feel. Like participating as little plush penguins fly airplanes and enact battlefield scenes all day.
Seriously though, a big part of me, the part that is not making decisions or panicking or pretending, is mostly just grateful for all of it.