From the Caregiver's HAErt — Danita LaShelle Jones

“Oh, I had that,” said the woman on the other end of the phone line. I had to cancel a meeting I had scheduled because my oldest daughter, whom we fondly refer to as…

The familiar number flashed across my phone screen, and I audibly groaned. After a particularly arduous morning dealing with late school buses, forgotten lunches, and a few involved errands, I had finally reached a…

I stared down at the incoming text message and completely froze. The beeps from her monitor in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) had finally settled into a consistent rhythm. Although our oldest daughter,…

I haplessly fell backward on my bed, blew a sharp breath out of my mouth, and stared at the ceiling. We had made it to the middle of the week without any incidents with…

I sat in my idle car and drummed my thumbs on the steering wheel. Another glance at the clock revealed that it was 10:57 a.m. I had three minutes left before it counted as…

One of my favorite ways to relax at the end of a stressful day is to play games on my phone. I pick games that require minimal strategy and effort. I’m a happy camper…

After a losing battle trying to find a comfortable sleeping position, I sat up in bed, maneuvered my laptop around my large, pregnant belly, and started Googling “tips on having twins.” By hour two,…

By the time my husband and I added a set of twins to our already rambunctious 5- and 2-year-old, family and friends appropriately named our house “the Circus.” Sure, there were families out there…

There I was again, speaking with hushed tones into my cellphone as I talked my husband through the tangled wires I knew he was digging into on my side of the bed. “What else…

In retrospect, I took a lot for granted. My 12-year-old daughter, whom we affectionally refer to as Ladybug, has probably seen more doctors than the average child her age. Although her visits started with…

Of all the places to have a meltdown, mine happened in the parking lot of the public library. Last summer, my daughter, whom we affectionately call Ladybug, was hospitalized several times overnight due to…

I am a theater person. I was introduced to it in kindergarten, majored in it in college, and have taught it at every educational level. As a result, words that would never pop…