Parenting a young child is very much about “firsts.” First smiles, first laughs, first steps, first words, first day of school—all wonderful and important moments in your little one’s life. I love those big milestones as much as anyone. Hey, take one glance at my Instagram and you’ll see that...
A few hours ago I walked into an empty, silent house—quite a change from the morning I’d just spent volunteering in my son’s class for its 100th Day of School celebration. I sat on the bottom step of our staircase and took a few deep breaths to decompress from the...
Oh hello there, 2016. I didn’t expect to see you so soon. If you’re like me, you’re probably still trying to wrap your head around the fact that we just finished out another year. I keep thinking “2016? As in 16 years after all that Y2K hubbub that I still...
If motherhood has taught me anything it’s to not assume. Ever. That old adage of what happens when you assume became an old adage for a reason: it’s true. For whatever reason, when mothers (myself very much included) spot other mothers out “in the wild”, we tend to give each...
I’m currently working through what (I hope) are the final days of a nasty case of bronchitis. I spent five of the last seven days with a seal-like cough, a dull headache, and a fever hovering right around 102, Tylenol be damned. Save a case of the flu and a...
As you probably gathered from my presence on this blog, I’m a writer. And although this is the year 2015, I’m one of those rare writers who still writes first drafts with pen and paper. For me, making letters with my fingers is the most efficient way to pull thoughts...
My husband and I decided to start “trying” in February of 2008. And we did. For three days, I think. But then we reconsidered. We were putting our house on the market that spring, and I’d only been at my job as a copywriter for a few months. Why add...
I became a mostly stay-at-home mother* a few months after our son’s second birthday. Around that same time, my husband’s work hours went a little kooky, often requiring me to solo-parent** our toddler from breakfast to bedtime several days in a row. I went from spending my days in a...
When my husband and I first began talking about starting a family—both during the abstract musings of our first years of marriage and later on as the ifs morphed into whens—we always said we’d have two kids. He’s an only child, and I’m the youngest of three, and we each were...
Our son turns seven in November. He can read, swim, tie his shoes (for the most part), and ride a bike without training wheels. He is very much A Big Kid. Even so, this big bad first grader is still jumps at the chance to snuggle in bed and listen...