Ages & Stages

Coping With My College Kid Being So Far Away I know it’s often said that parents shouldn’t be friends with their kids. But it happened. My daughter messed around and became one of my very best friends. She was the first person to know me from the inside out. The first person I was fully responsible for and to. The first person who I have experienced their entire life with. She has brought my husband and me so much joy over the past 19 years and while some look forward to sending their adult children on their journey, I have dreaded it. She's a dancer who has always dreamed of living in Los Angeles, but selfishly, I would have been...

Property Brothers :: Money, Mercy, and Monopoly Flashback to New Year’s Eve, 2021. That night, we stayed in as Covid cases had spiked and gifted us with the Omicron variant. I would eventually become well-acquainted with Omicron a few weeks later. But on this quiet and cozy evening playing board games, laughing, and enjoying the “Mini Sweet Tooth Buffet” I’d pulled together following a last-minute Target run, I looked around and felt better than I’d felt in months. I could have sworn I tasted a bit of sweet hope intermingled with the sour gummy worms. That night we played Monopoly as a family for the first time. It had been at least a decade since I’d opened the game, and pulling that...

In Defense Of Public Schools Public or private? This seems to be a very hot topic nowadays. It’s easy to see why. We want our kids to have the best of the best, don’t we? We want them afforded every opportunity available to them so they grow into mature, responsible, HAPPY adults, right? That’s the goal! My family and I are very fortunate to live in a great public school district where we know they’ll thrive, but the question of public or private honestly never came up in discussions about education when our kids were babies. After all, my husband and I both went through the public school system and had no solid complaints. So here’s some reasons we LOVE our public...

This Episode Of Bluey Is Called :: Letting My Kids Teach Me To Play I had been begging the kids to get their swimsuits on so we could get out of the house. I felt like Chilli Heeler, gesturing desperately at the open door. "The door. It's right there. We could just – walk through it." But apparently, like Bluey and Bingo, we couldn't get out that door, either. Our younger son (7) was so excited to go he stood like an Easter Island statue glaring at his big brother (10), then started lecturing him in that tone of voice he uses when Someone Has Done Wrong. I felt the same way, and finally snapped at 10, who had shifted from reluctance ("I...

From One NICU Momma To Another :: You Are Not Alone My first pregnancy was completely normal … until it wasn’t. I could not wait to give birth to my first biological child. Having been in education for nearly a decade at that point, finishing the upbringing of a former student due to a tragic loss, and being blessed with a bonus daughter, I felt more than up for the challenge. I was fully invested in my prenatal care. I attended every doctor’s appointment, asked questions, and tried my best to be mindful of what I ate. Nothing about my pregnancy was out of the norm, and by all accounts I would go to term and deliver a perfectly healthy little...