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Pick Me Up, Mommy
Published 8/16/26
The other day I was walking home from the beach with my two-year-old. I had a beach chair on one arm and a beach bag on the other, the big one, the one that somehow weighs forty pounds no matter what you put in it. I was hot. I was thirsty. I was doing the math on how many more houses until ours.
And from somewhere around my knees: "Picky up, Mommy. Pickyyy up."
My first thought was not a Hallmark thought. My first thought was: can you not see all of this stuff I am already carrying?
And then I looked down and remembered he's two.
He can't see the stuff. He can only see me.
So I did the thing we all do, the shuffle. Chair higher on the shoulder, bag into the crook of the elbow, one deep breath, and up he came. Was it comfortable? No. Did we make it home? We did. Do my arms still remember it? Absolutely.
Fast forward a couple weeks. My son is at daycare and I'm walking my dog. Just me and the dog, which after two and a half years genuinely qualifies as a spa day.
And I see her.
Another mom, getting a toddler out of the car, arms full of the toddler ecosystem, the bag, the water bottle, the snack cup, the mystery blanket. And her kid starts in: pick me up, pick me up, pick me up.
She sighed. Loud. From across the street I felt that sigh in my bones.
I almost said something.
I wanted to walk over and go, yup I know that exact feeling, I had it at the beach two weeks ago, and I want you to know you're doing great. I also wanted to just carry something for her. But my dog would have lost his entire mind, and there's no version of that interaction that helps anyone.
So instead I'm saying it here, to her, and to you:
I see you. The sigh is universal. Every mom you have ever met has stood in a parking lot or a driveway or halfway home from the beach, physically at capacity, while a small person demanded to be added to the pile. Every single one of us has thought, “I cannot carry one more thing,” and then bent down and picked up one more thing.
It feels lonely in the moment. It's the least lonely thing in the world.
It's happening in a million driveways right now.
And here's the part I only think about later, never in the moment, because in the moment I'm mostly thinking about my elbow: the asking stops. Not today, not this summer, but someday he'll just... walk. He'll carry his own bag. My arms will be free, and I'll have a picture somewhere of the beach-bag era, and I'll probably stare at it longer than I should.
But that's later. Today, if you're in it, arms full, sigh loaded, small voice going picky up, this is just me, from across the street, telling you: same. We're all here. Shuffle the bag, take the breath, up they go.
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