I’m making lunch: a sandwich for William, a sandwich cut up into little bites for Edward and Elizabeth to share. Grapes. Whole milk for the twins, in the pink sippee cup. Water for William, who will otherwise fill up on milk and not eat his lunch.

The twins are still young enough to need their grapes cut, so I’m cutting grapes into quarters. Periodically I eat a grape. Now we’re down to three grapes, one for Edward, one for Elizabeth, one for me. I select the best grape, and eat it. Then I think maybe this makes me a bad mother.

That’s the 1950s I’m thinking of, though, right? The days when what defined a good mother was that she put everyone ahead of herself. She ate the burnt toast, as Teri Hatcher recently put it, or I guess that’s how she put it, from the title of the book I haven’t read. She took the piece of cake with the frosting peeled half off, the piece of pie that got all cheesed up because it was the first one out of the pan. (Mmm, cake. Mmm, pie.) She served everyone dinner, and then didn’t get to eat much of her own because she kept leaping up to get things for everyone. My grandmother was this kind of woman: my grandfather, standing in the kitchen, said he’d like a glass of water, and she hopped up from her chair in the living room to get it for him. That’s screwed up, though, right? We can agree on that?

Still. Taking the best grape.