Encouragement

It's one of my favorite times of the year, when fall is in full force, and people are cheering for their favorite team. School has been in session for a few months, and we are in a regular routine. We can say who we are rooting for, and we can say what we like about our team. We can also say what we don't like about the other teams or their fans. It's easy to label people for who they cheer for or what they stand for, whether it's football or something else.  As a parent, I hear other labels. There are labels that are so easy for us to use to describe other parents or their children. But our...

At dinner most nights, we play "The Question Game," where everyone takes turns asking a question that the entire table has to answer. One night, I asked, "What is one thing you would like for Mommy and Daddy to do more?" My four year old paused and then responded, "I want Daddy to read more books to me. And play more board games with me, too." Then she looked at me and said, "I want my mommy to get her haircut more."  I laughed, because I had just gotten my hair cut the weekend before on my birthday, for the first time in probably a year (and a half? 2 years? who knows). Clearly, it was just a recent activity. Then she made...

Many years ago, I read "Laugh, Kookabura" by one of my favorite authors, David Sedaris. Of course, I found many things about that particular essay to be funny, but one portion of it has stuck with me all this time and has only recently become relevant in my life. In the story, David meets a woman named Pat who asks him to picture a four-burner stove. She tells him, “One burner represents your family, one is your friends, the third is your health, and the fourth is your work.” She then goes on to tell him that you can only be successful if you turn off one of the burners, but to be really successful you have to turn off two...

If you haven't heard it now, you have heard it before :: Please keep your opinions to yourself! I finally reached my last straw yesterday while running through the grocery store to pick up a few items. I get the whole taking the kids to the store is like corralling a heard of wild animals, even more wild at times. Sometimes you do what you gotta' do. I normally try and do all the errand running while the older two are in school. This obviously makes life much easier during the school year. There are times when this is impossible, or you chose to bring them to the store with you for one reason or another. My reason this day was because...

When I became the mom of three girls, I realized that I have a very important job to do. I need to show ... not just tell ... my daughters how to be confident women who stick up for each other and know their self-worth. Looking back on my own childhood, the one thing that always hindered my ability to go for what I wanted or defend what was right was the way I viewed myself physically. I was a chubby kid who felt uncomfortable in large groups of my peers. I didn't want to be noticed for anything because then people would look at me. And if they looked at me, they would notice my double chin or that my...