Bath Bombs
Two short, personal essays written in my Notes app from the comfort of my bubble bath
While not my usual approach to essays, these weren’t ultimately written with the intention of being shared. Rather, they spilled out into my Notes section while I shamelessly took the phone into my bubble bath the other night alongside some dark chocolate. I hope one, or both, resonate. x
The Curious Parent
My therapist recently called me a curious parent, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt more seen. She said it after I shared how much I want to know my daughter — not just raise her, but actually understand her. To let her show me who she is, rather than assuming I already know. It struck me because curiosity feels like such an ordinary word, but in parenting, it’s everything. It’s what keeps me from turning her feelings into my frustration, her confusion into my control.
I told her how I don’t believe in the idea of the “terrible twos.” I think it’s the adults who make that phase terrible — the ones who expect emotional regulation from a brain still learning what emotion even is. Two-year-olds aren’t defiant; they’re discovering. They’re learning cause and effect, boundaries, language, power. They’re expressing everything they feel in the only way they know how — loudly, honestly, without pretense. What a gift, really. But also, what a mirror for us. Because it’s our discomfort with their bigness that turns it into conflict. Is it hard? Oh, hell yes. But it’s also such a gift, if we allow ourselves to see it that way.
When she’s unraveling — when the socks are wrong or the world is too much — I try to remember that my job isn’t to fix it; it’s to meet her in it. To show her what regulation looks like in real time. Here are a few ways I do that:
I stop what I’m doing and get down on her level so she can see my eyes and know she’s safe.
I say, “I see you. I’m listening. Can you use your words to tell me what you’re feeling?”
We take a deep breath together. Sometimes two. Sometimes nine.
I ask, “Do you want to show me something?” — an invitation back to her world.
And often, it’s as simple as, “Do you need something to eat?” because hunger disguises itself as a lot of things.
It doesn’t always go smoothly. I lose patience. I repair. But more and more, I’m learning that curiosity softens everything. It makes space for both of us to be human — her, in her growing; me, in my trying. And maybe that’s what good parenting really is: not having all the answers, but staying curious enough to keep asking the right questions.
Build a Home That Feels Like an Exhale
As we’re in the depths of designing the home we just moved into — the one our girls will grow up in — I keep coming back to a single thought: I want it to feel like an exhale.
Not the kind of house that photographs perfectly or follows every god-forsaken trend, but one that wraps around you when you walk through the door. A home that feels steady, lived-in, soft around the edges. The kind of space that can hold you through every version of yourself — the good days, the undone days, the ordinary ones in between.
For years, I designed spaces the way I lived: efficiently. Always trying to make things look “put together,” to prove something through it being perfectly polished and, just so.
