I've caught the vision, and I can't keep it to myself. It's Wednesday. It's been a discouraging day of homeschooling as I wonder if anything I'm teaching is sticking, if I'll ever get the house clean, if I'm ever going to feel like I'm doing a good job of anything. Getting all four of the kids to ...
motherhood
An Hour of YES Everyday
"Mommy, will you play superheroes with us?" my boys ask. "Yes!" I say over my shoulder as I load the last of the breakfast dishes, "but let me put the clothes in the dryer first!" But before I do that, I need to find an empty basket to put the current dry clothes in. There are no empty ...
Life after the Third Baby (+a review of the new Omni 360 carrier by Ergobaby)
Life has been a series of figurative and literal storms for my family. In the past two months, my mother-in-law lost her battle with cancer and we experienced the deepest grief we've ever known, I gave birth to our third son a few days after her funeral, and Hurricane Harvey ...
To the Empty-Nester-Me with Love from the Still-Feeding-the-Chicks-Regurgiated-Worms-Me
Dear Empty Nester Me, It's hard to imagine me as you. Or them as adults. It doesn't seem like these boys whose behinds I'm wiping multiple times a day could ever grow up enough for you to be out of a job. Will they ever be capable of wiping all of the poop themselves? (This is a real question. ...
Here are your Labor Pains, Adoptive Mom
The pain wasn't what I expected. I thought if I could take a hard punch, I could endure a contraction. But the pain ran achey deep. The labor pain--it makes you feel sick, weak, powerless; there is nothing you can really do to relieve it. So instead, you have to learn to endure it, cope ...
“Girls don’t work, Mommy.”
So we were at the park, and my almost three-year-old is playing on this rope ladder. He's calling it his "work," and I'm finding it adorable. "I go to work just like Daddy," he shouts to me over his shoulder, "and I work so hard! Watch me, Mommy, I'm just workin with ALL my muscles." He's ...
The breastfeeding mistake I made so you don’t have to
Moms like to share their experiences with each other, right? And if we hear the same story enough times from different sources, we tend to believe it'll be true for ourselves as well. Breastfeeding is one of those mom topics that I love to talk about. When I was new to it, I was always seeking ...
How the new baby made you a terrible mom to your toddler (why it happened and how to make it better)
Somewhere in the fog of those first months after our second baby was born, something happened that I didn't think was possible: I had days where I flat out did not like my toddler. It's a hard thing to admit. But I started admitting it to other moms of two or more children. And you know what I ...
Honest thoughts from a mom of three under age three
I don’t know what we were thinking. When my husband and I were newly married we didn't really decide how far to space out our children. We knew most people had children two years apart but we were open to having them close in age. We did not realize how close our children would end up being. Now ...
Six things I’m doing differently with my second baby
1.) I'm cherishing the night feedings. I used to wake up and grimace in my exhaustion as I'd rise to feed my first baby. Not anymore. Infancy goes by too quickly. Now, with all the busyness that being a mom of two brings during the day, I cherish that precious time when it's just me and the new guy ...