A February Note
A few gems from my Instagram saved folder, including toddler yacht rock, "bicycle face," and a wildlife reel that made me cackle. Plus, a poem for you.
Hi!! How are we all doing? Somehow there are…checks calendar…just two days remaining in the month. What even was February? My family got hit hard by a bug which meant we had at least one child home sick for seven straight business days. A new household record! Fortunately, while nursing fevers on the couch, we had the winter Olympics to keep us entertained. My favorite part? Watching so many incredible athletes who are also moms compete.
Also, my four-year-old’s Olympic commentary consisted of smashing up two minced oaths. Whenever he saw something particularly mind-boggling, he’d say, “What the heck in the world?” It cracks me up every time.
One major February highlight was revealing my book cover and hearing from so many enthusiastic friends and readers. Spring is just around the corner, and Little Apocalypses will be here just in time for Earth Day! As you know, pre-orders make a big difference and it would mean so much to me if you ordered a copy.
Now, onto the good stuff I’ve been saving all month for you…
First up, a few gems from my Instagram saved folder:
I can’t get enough toddler yacht rock: funny songs composed by a dad with lyrics written by his three-year-old daughter. My personal favorites? Such an Important Mermaid and Regular Rabbit (an earworm, be warned).
This stunning wintry art installation plays with light and color atop a frozen landscape. Now, I’m begging for someone who still has snow on the ground to please recreate it with sunshine and magna-tiles and report back if it works.
Bess Kalb is an absolute force and testified before Congress to make the case that comedy and satire are vital to a healthy democracy and must be protected.
My three favorite Olympic moments (in no particular order): (1) Elana Meyers Taylor winning the gold and immediately hugging her nanny and children (also she wrote a love note to her kids on her hand to wave at them when competing). (2) Eileen Gu’s brilliant response to a journalist’s rude question — a master class in owning her accomplishments. (3) Alyssa Liu’s whole thing, including her post-skate stoke: “This is what I’m f*cking talking about.”
As if we needed more proof that Barbara Kingsolver is a national treasure.
Do I need a new hobby and why is it this one?
Thrilled to see that Dr. Aurelie Athan’s groundbreaking work on matrescence is finally getting its due. How brilliant is this ad campaign calling for the term to be added to the dictionary? “It’s time to GAF about mothers.”
Have you heard of bicycle face? A fabricated medical condition popularized in the 1890s that was apparently meant to discourage women from taking up cycling (and freedom). Now, I’m wondering if this was the precursor to RBF.
Bookmarking this excellent advice for writing (and also life). I’m learning to trust my own judgment, but it’s a process, no? “Which is not to say that it’s right—it’s just mine.”
A wildlife reel that made me laugh (volume on, it’s important).
Lastly, my coworkers and I shared our childhood photos and my Lisa Frank trapper keeper came out to play…
A poem for you:
My month in pictures:
Happy hour: Recently, at the end of a long week, we wanted to hang out with friends, but there were mountains of folded laundry on the kitchen table and I didn’t feel up for hosting. So we met up at the beach instead. It was perfect. While our kids climbed trees and scouted for rocks, we sat on driftwood and faced the sun, chatting until the day dipped below the islands. Then, we went our separate ways and settled in for a cozy movie night. A 10/10 Friday night.
Knitting update: I knit myself a cashmere bandana. As The Cut put it, this winter we’re all just “tying a scrap of cashmere around [our] neck[s]” and it seems like everyone I know — our preschool teacher, a mom at basketball practice, my group chat, etc. — is either wearing a Sophie scarf or in the process of making one. I thought I’d breeze through it since it’s such a simple pattern, but as it turns out, I’m really bad at counting rows for increases and decreases. I finally broke down and kept track in my Notes app. Four hundred and thirty-eight rows later? It’s on.
DIY Valentines: Inspired by Rose Pearlman, my daughter and I made batch Valentines for her first grade classmates. We found paper doilies in the craft cupboard (leftover from making snowflakes) and, after some brainstorming, decided to use a white crayon for a watercolor resist effect. The whole project took a couple hours, tops, over the course of a weekend, and required minimal parental involvement. The only thing I did was make the heart stencil. We also showed some love to our favorite beach and met up with friends for a community-wide Valentine’s Day beach clean-up. My daughter wrapped up a few treasures she found on the beach to give as gifts, grains of sand included.
Repair month: Three years ago, Emilia Petrarca declared that January is “Repair Month.” The magic of Repair Month is that its momentum has carried me into February. This time around, I mended the sleeve of my puffer coat after it snagged on an errant climbing rose cane. I’ve also taken two pairs of jeans to our neighborhood tailor to be properly hemmed. It took less than five minutes to stitch my coat, and about that long to sort things out with the tailor. Every year I ask myself, why did I put off these tasks for so long? It makes me think, what other months should we arbitrarily designate for getting things done?
Slowing down: I’ve been working from our kitchen table most days so I can keep an eye on my senior dog, who is starting to need more help getting around. I’ve also been spending time on our makeshift kitchen couch, a la Catherine Newman, originator of the kitchen couch TM. I hauled our patio loveseat indoors for the rainy season and it’s been such a soft landing spot.
A few things I’ve read and appreciated:
“There are brilliant stories built on omission, on silence, on what remains submerged. But there is a difference between choosing deliberate restraint, and hiding from something you are not yet willing to write.” — novelist and writing coach Chelsea Bieker on the best advice she ever received in Wake Mom Up
“The structuralists wanted systemic change: clean water, chemical-free food, a government that would actually hold corporations accountable for what they put in the food supply. The individualists were more libertarian in orientation: they wanted the freedom to skip vaccines, drink raw milk, and treat their kids with ivermectin. These groups overlapped heavily, but their politics pointed in fundamentally different directions . . . The pipeline that recruited them ran in one direction. But pipelines, under enough pressure, can run the other way too. The question is whether the left is willing to build the infrastructure to receive them, not as converts to be claimed, but as mothers who were right about the poison and wrong about who was going to stop it.” — Emily Amick on the two types of MAHA moms and why it’s important to recognize the difference in The Poison Was Always in the Pipeline
“These images begin with a simple premise: that nourishment — or lack thereof — is ecological and political. Wellness is shaped by the health of watersheds, forests, soils, and oceans, and by the systems that decide who eats well and who pays the price for that consumption.” — photographer Bodhi Shala for Atmos in Nourished by a Living World
Finally, MPR News remains an essential source for continued coverage of the plight of Minnesota immigrants who remain in hiding and the mental health consequences of family detainment.
And now, something to ponder:
“Science describes accurately from outside, poetry describes accurately from inside. Science explicates, poetry implicates. Both celebrate what they describe. We need the languages of both science and poetry to save us from merely stockpiling endless ‘information’ that fails to inform our ignorance or our irresponsibility.” — Ursula K. Le Guin in Deep in Admiration (PDF), a short talk given at the conference Anthropocene: Arts of Living on a Dangerous Planet at UC Santa Cruz in May 2014.
More soon, including updates on the seeds I’m starting and my TBR pile. Until then, wishing you all sorts of good things.
xK
Thank you for reading Oh, Good. I’m delighted you’re here. You can pre-order my essay collection Little Apocalypses: Essays on Motherhood, Climate Change, and Hope at the End of the World (Harper Perennial, April 2026) on Bookshop and follow me on Instagram, if you’d like.
loved, this Kaity! thank you for including me <3
Give me that bicycle face!! It's why I never drive my car 😎 and that poem and your scarf!! It turned out so cute 🥰