I am a huge advocate for the normalization of parental weed usage, especially for parents of kids with special needs. That shit requires mad patience. My son, for instance, is autistic in a developmentally delayed/cognitively accelerated type of way. So, most of the time he is a charmingly silent savant who will assemble a QWERTY keyboard from alphabet blocks on a whim, or snatch your phone, bypassing security only to access the camera and make a short, weird, awesomely surreal video.

“I had expected my mouth to pucker but there was no sour punch to match the pungent fragrance.”

But there are also meltdowns of truly epic proportions that, for a parent, can be emotional wrecking balls. Parenthood is a terrifying journey, regardless of the astral plane your kid resides on, and I stand firm that weed can keep parents calm, cool, and collected despite having to keep frail animals both alive and aware of social contracts. For instance, were it not for the glittering bowls of Gabriel Cannabis’s Sherbet bookending one recent family adventure gone wrong, I would probably still be quietly weeping in a corner somewhere.

The name Sherbert suggests a sweet perfume and mouthfeel to match, but my first impression was that the aroma was more “hedonistically aggressive” than “bubble-gum delish.” The first whiff turned my face inside out. I recognized black peppercorn, citrus-scented gasoline, and an English garden lovingly planted, perennially nurtured, and then sprayed liberally by a skunk. Like a New Yorker to summer garbage smells, I recognized and appreciated it immediately. It’s a beautifully layered funk that only a stoner could love. The flavors were earthy and mild compared to the scent. I had expected my mouth to pucker but there was no sour punch to match the pungent fragrance. Lungfulls were smooth and easy to hold, and the exhales were rich and satisfying. The onset was reflective of its 26.4% THC content and its hybrid balance; first a classic fishbowl indica head high folded me into the couch like eggs into cake batter, and fifteen minutes later, a sativa body high slingshotted me from said couch into an unfocused action mode. It would be several more minutes before these two disparate highs simmered down and coalesced.

Outside, my husband was coaxing our kiddo into a bike trailer so they could have a ride around the neighborhood. My high had found a sweet groove that I knew would work well with a mellow pedal party, so I grabbed my bike and joined them. It was a perfectly mild summer morning, so we took an extended cruise through the park blocks and lush neighborhood gardens. The hybrid balance was such that I was blissfully disassociated from the smooth energy of the sativa, and we were able to ride through our (relatively flat) neighborhood and zig-zag for miles with ease. The high evaporated in time with the ride, rounding out a solid couple hours of bliss with a calm wake.

“I was rescued from the rabbit hole of parental anxiety and nightmare fuel.”

It was when we were ending our ride and about a block away from home that our kid unlatched his harness, stood up in the bike trailer, and tried to climb out into the street, nearly crashing the trailer and my husband’s bike in the process. Quickly, my husband curbed the bike, but our kid was too quick. And now he was running blindly in the street, panicked, helmet obscuring his face.

I pulled a swift U-turn and caught him before he made too much headway, and thankfully, our street was quiet of moving cars. But the ensuing meltdown was catastrophic, and because of my kid’s speech and comprehension issues, we had no idea what was causing his intense screams or physical freak-out. My husband carried our kid home while I, thankfully couched in the calm wake of the Sherbet I’d smoked a couple hours prior, balanced the two bikes safely back to our garden shed without breaking down myself.

Much later that evening, well past everyone’s bedtime, I had my second round with Gabriel Cannabis’s Sherbet. I needed a reprieve from the image of our child stumbling blindly in an open street if I was going to sleep, like, ever again. But I also needed to temper the body high, so I chased the small joint of Sherbet with a half a dab of indica and settled into the exact vast quiet that I needed. I was rescued from the rabbit hole of parental anxiety and nightmare fuel, able to sit in hushed contemplation with my sketchbook. Instead of the lingering panic that could have been, I was able to reflect on the day, enjoy the beauty of it, and examine the trauma of it free from the haze of my tearful emotion. Before long, I’d peacefully drifted off to sleep.

The bottom line: Sherbet set my day off with a positive push and closed it with peaceful ease. What more could I have asked for? The next day, I woke up refreshed, strode right out to the shed, and reinforced the harness on the ride-along bike trailer. That thing could hold down a buff kangaroo now.