About

Hi, I’m Jill.

I started this project because, five days before I was expecting to return to work following maternity leave, I lost my job. FIVE DAYS.

And, you know what, it was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I think.

While I was initially pissed and heartbroken, I eventually decided (read: I needed something else to do besides cry) to look at my circumstances as an opportunity to journey down a new path and tell the corporate grind to suck it forever.

I was tired of limited vacation, waking up to an alarm, and getting gussied up every day to work long hours only to feel exhausted when it was finally time for me to do the things I wanted.

Knowing I wasn't truly fulfilled in my career, I couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps losing my job was the universe telling me I was ready for a major change. The problem was I had no other work experience or even other interests which meant I had some exploring to do.

Cue writing. Actually, no. Cue a serendipitous experience with my mother.

So, my mom never kept anything from my childhood. This was something I never questioned until I met my mother-in-law who has handed down to us a curated collection of treasures from my husband’s childhood.

After giving my mom grief about this for years, she turned up at our house soon after I’d lost my job, triumphant that she had, in fact, kept something! It was a book that I had written called What’s Good For A 10-Year-Old? I was amazed at my 10-year-old self. It was really good! And it even rhymed. 

I read that book over and over that day, absolutely cheesed with ‘Little Jill.’

The next morning I woke up to our toddler at my bedside as I often do. I pulled him in bed with us and started playing with his perfect little toes as he fell back to sleep. While I massaged his feet I started making a rhyme in my head about his fingers and toes, and after a few minutes had written a whole poem about his little body.

I thought to myself, hey, that was pretty good!

So I reached for my phone and wrote it down. Soon my husband woke up, and I said, “Listen to this...what do you think?!” He thought it was pretty good, too, so I started reading it to anyone who would listen!

Ten Little Fingers, Ten Little Toes is the first poem I ever wrote (as an adult), and I am currently working on turning it into a children’s book with my husband and daughter as the illustrators and my son, of course, as the inspiration!

In the meantime, I wanted to share some of the other poems I’ve written, all with motherhood as the common thread—the unfiltered kind of mom life. I’m talking about those moments when you’re just about to blow, and the toddler throws a cup that hits you right on the tit. Ya, that kind! ;)

My hope is that Mom Said Duck will bring moms (and dads) together through humility and laughter, understanding that this wild thing called parenting can be as funny as it is trying.

Later Duckers!