Nothing like becoming fatally anemic to get a heavy dose of “Mom Time Out.” Spending some time in the hospital hooked up to fluids and a blood transfusion gave me plenty of precious minutes I don’t normally have to think …
Family Fall Bucket List
When I’m out and about wearing our newborn daughter and “managing” my two boys (5 and 3 years old), complete strangers will walk up to me and say, “You are so brave.” Really? I think what they really want to …
A Mom’s Story: Why Do I MOPS?
I MOPS because I was a mom with a toddler, a marriage looking at its tomb, and a freshly emptied womb. I was 12 weeks pregnant when I lost my second baby and gained a depression that started on my bathroom …
Boycott Mom-Shaming
Mom-shaming begins as far back as conception of our little people. “Did you conceive naturally? Did you go through fertility treatments? Use a surrogate? Adoption?” It continues through birth. “Did you get an epidural? C-section? Homebirth?” The choices moms are …
Keeping It Cool When It’s Hot: Kids’ Playtime
We’ve had some pretty hot weather recently. I don’t know about your kids, but mine are not big fans of the high heat or humidity. In fact, it kind of makes us all a little cranky (OK, not my husband, …
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 Rebellion of Opting Out
Modern family life can feel a lot like a hamster wheel — a constant race you’re never winning. We overschedule our kids and ourselves, wedging some must-do activity into every waking moment of the day, until we’re short on time, …
Transition Points
Moving is stressful no matter how much you purge and prepare. Change is rough on everyone. As a military family, we moved from state to state and were in flux for weeks traveling and dealing with boxes. It sometimes felt …
How to Surrender “What Could Have Been” so You Can Enjoy “What Is”
A few years ago, cancer came into our family’s story and greedily tried to take the life of our 9-year-old daughter through leukemia. And although thankfully our daughter is now in remission, we learned first-hand that cancer is an extremely …
The Six Principles of Motherhood
We were sitting in the teacher’s lounge, day four of my very first week of teaching. I was chatting with Paula, a third grade teacher, who’d been in the business for 20 years. She had three teenage boys at home. …