That Staples back-to-school commercial about "the most wonderful time of the year" isn't wrong, but school starting back up can also be super stressful. You finally settle into a summer groove and now it's back to the school year and you gotta start the groove-finding...
This is the third post in a series about why and how I gave up yelling at my kids — for good. Read Part 1: The Meltdown and Part 2: The Plan. Here's what's really wild about this whole yelling thing: I'm actually a really good mom. By all accounts, I'm a great mom....
This is the second post in a series about why and how I gave up yelling at my kids -- for good. Read Part 1: The Meltdown. I knew that if I was going to make good on my promise to my child -- which I had clarified as "Never yell at you again because no one should...
On July 9, 2017, I lost. my. shit. on one of my 5-year-olds. It wasn't just a momentary lapse. It was a solid hour of us screaming at each other. A grown adult, having an hour-long screaming match with a 5-year-old. And I was going to win. As I watched him lose the...
When I decided to back the Generation Mindful Kickstarter campaign for PeaceMakers, I had no idea that this choice would change the course of my family in an instant. This might sound like hyperbole, but I'm being completely serious. This card game has been...
Last week Emmett busted his head open in some mysterious incident that occurred in the dark in the boys' room after bedtime while he was inexplicably on Miles' bed but they "weren't playing," "weren't fighting," and "weren't messing around." They were able to glue it...
A fellow multiple mom in one of my Facebook groups posted today about feeling frustrated with her 3.5-year-olds and feeling like she needs a break. I could read the guilt in her post as clear as if "GUILT" had been every other word she wrote. The only thing worse than...
Part of the reason things have been so quiet around here is that the Family-in-Training -- Daddy-in-Training, Mommy-in-Training, Miles, Emmett, a bullmastiff, a pug, and a Lynx Point Siamese cat -- recently moved from Central Virginia to West Central Florida. It was...
When I was pregnant, virtually everyone I met told me, "You'd better sleep now, because once you have kids you'll never sleep again!" and laughed like "Neener, neener, neener." There was no variation, except sometimes they laughed extra hard when I told them I was...
Why do other parents say so much discouraging crap to new moms and dads? I thought the misery-disguised-as-advice was rampant when I was still pregnant, but I had no idea what was to come once I popped those suckers out. These Debbie Downers were oh-so-uplifting when...
