Tag: Parenting
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Happy Mother’s Day to my Mama Friends
Sometimes as Mother’s Day approaches I find myself reflecting on how I’m doing as a Mom, and today, these are my thoughts… We are never going to be perfect. Sometimes we are going to be messy, and human, and moody. Sometimes we are going to feel real crappy at this. That’s normal I think. Sometimes we…
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I Never Wanted to be a Helicopter Parent, but I am one.
I like to think of myself as fun and relaxed, as brave with a touch of crazy. I’m the one who loves to laugh and awkwardly dance in public, the one who jumped off the cliff first and who shaved her head because she felt like it. I’m the one who traveled across the world alone. So naturally, I thought I was…
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15 Truths of Youngest Children
1. They don’t share. AT ALL. You are pretty sure that you will be working on this until they are in their seventies. The main problem is that the other kids give them WHATEVER they want, WHENEVER they want. When you ask them why, they say things like, “She screamed so I gave it to her.” You are…
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Not a Perfect Mom, but an Enough Mom.
I was going to be the Dr. Oz of parenting. I was going to be a guru, and then I realized that I would probably have to teach my kids to stop acting like wild raccoons at the grocery store. I don’t want to be negative but my kids are 10, 8,6, and 3. This is never going to…
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8 Things I Want my Daughter to Know
Dear Daughter, Look into my eyes and let me tell you, there are no limits. When I was young, I felt small in a large world. I was desperate to belong, so I tried to fit in. I tried to reduce myself to a puzzle piece in a giant picture. I tried to have straight edges…
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10 Reflections on Raising a Threenager
I have raised four threenagers. The first one was a kleptomaniac. The second one was a nudist with a rage problem. The third one was a tiny dictator. The fourth one is not out of the woods yet. When I discovered my first one had a problem with stuffing his backpack with other people’s baby…
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PSA: I Fired the Tooth Fairy
I fired the tooth fairy. I am all done moonlighting as an ivory collector. It was the fifth time the, “tooth fairy must have been so busy she forgot!” while my husband and I mouthed obscenities to each other over their heads, HOW COULD WE LET THIS HAPPEN AGAIN???! My son sat me down and gently asked, “Mom, are you the…
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How motherhood has changed me.
I was twenty-one years old when I held my son for the first time. I hadn’t yet a enjoyed a single legal drink and my idea of cleaning house was to not to. He was red and wrinkly and his cry echoed down the hospital hallways. He was perfect. I looked into his wide eyes and…
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Dear Kids, When I fail…
Dear kids, Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I see that you’ve grown over night. Your face is more defined, your eyes look older. A part of me is excited and in awe; I know you have so much ahead of you. Another part is scared because time is racing and I can’t slow…
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Why We Take Our Kids to the Bar.
Recently I went to a sports bar/pizza place for a friend’s birthday. There was sawdust on the floor, peanuts, and initials carved into the table. I thought, you know who belongs here? My kids. I was right. A week later we brought them. We got a paper tray full of peanuts and my husband instructed everyone that their shells were…