I'm sitting downstairs eating chocolate chip cookie dough with a spoon from a tub.  I'm coping with this day: the boy on the playground singing an entire George Strait song to me, the same boy who cries often and hardly smiles.  The girl who pulled a folded envelope out of her pocket from the local jail It's from my real dad.  He wants to see me and explain something to me.  The seven hugs I received, the three I love you's, the thought that went through my head during the hugs: maybe I should cut my hair and read up on lice.  The way the sixth grade girl smelled when I got down on her level to tell her I thought she was brilliant with multiplication.

I'm submitting the last of my re-certification papers today and I'm having a hard time putting them in an envelope.  I'm sitting down here with my cookie dough debating between these two: another year pouring into unseen children or the pursuit of my own children.

Right now the only thing that's clear is this delicious dough.  And this truth: one tub might not be enough.