I wanted a baby since I was a child. I played with dolls long past the age most girls gave them up. I was a 13-year-old perfecting swaddling, while my friends were learning about makeup and flirting. There was a …
A Body To Die For
For almost 40 years now, my body has been a work in progress. What started as the translucent body of a longed-after-baby has transformed through the years from the skin-and-bones body of a daredevil toddler, to the supple body of …
How To Take Your Kids To Church as a Solo Parent
Every summer I solo parent. I’m not a single parent, that’s different. Single parenting is real. Solo parenting is a strange alternate universe where I have a partner, but for six months it’s in the past: I had a husband. …
Advice for the Mom Returning to Work After Maternity Leave
I remember crying in my car for a couple of weeks after dropping my 3-year-old daughter off at my sister’s home, returning to the workforce 15 years later. With approximately 75 million women in the U.S work force today, …
A MOPS Story: One September Morning
I think my baby girl was about 6 weeks old when I first felt the itch to expand our world beyond the hammock in our backyard. While I loved snuggling my sweet newborn, I knew we needed a community. I …
Motherhood Is Meaningful
Sometimes I get discouraged. Being a mother with no other current employment seems like not enough; less than. I am surrounded by other mothers who appear to be accomplishing abundantly more. It’s in my face to gather time to take …
It Will Be OK
photo credit: Ashley Wright Photography First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes … well, you know the rest. It’s been beat into us as women that there is a natural progression to things: find man, make baby. But it’s …
The Anticipation of Waiting
There are a few events in my life that I can vividly remember the wait: My wedding day and the birth of my two sons. I remember the feeling of complete and utter lack of control I had on the …
10 Breastfeeding Wardrobe Hacks
After my sister, Caitlyn, gave birth to her first baby, she attended a friend’s wedding wearing a dress that was both flattering and trendy. This was a feat for a newly postpartum mom. She felt like a million bucks. Then her brand new …
Second Grade Dreams
Some kids dream about growing up to become athletes, singers or doctors. Me? I dreamt about college. I recall with great detail the day when my second grade teacher talked to our class about what we wanted to be when …