Growing Up

Maxwell Gruver. That name kept me awake at night. Prior to becoming a mom, I would have heard Maxwell’s story, then brushed it aside with a shrug of the shoulder and a “oh, that’s sad” comment. My life now falls somewhere on the spectrum of remembering how easily it could have been to die at the hands of collegiate peer pressure mixed in with alcohol and bad decisions versus the mom in me feeling rage and sadness at this senseless death. Maxwell Gruver died one night at a fraternity party. The details are still unknown, but what we do know is that Maxwell was in his freshman year of college. I imagine that his parents delivered him to campus with high...

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...

I am the proud mom of three. I have two boys and one girl. My boys are bookends, and my girl is sandwiched right in the middle. (Birth order struggles) No, seriously it's quite a perfect order for me.  I love all of my babies. They each bring something unique to our family, but it seems I favor hanging out with my daughter more. {gasp!}  I honestly wasn't aware until one day, I was looking through my Instagram and noticed my daughter and I had significantly more pictures than my boys and me. I became a little worried (the perfectionist mom that I am) that I wasn't giving the boys enough attention. I started to think of how the world must...

It seems all of us, parents and kids alike, are struggling with fatigue year-round. A common topic of conversation with other mothers is how there are never enough hours in a day to accomplish the busy schedules we have and it leads to fatigue or even exhaustion. As a working mom, this a struggle for me too. I work full time but also want my child to be involved in activities, prepare and share healthy family meals, and take care of the needs of my family, but it can be exhausting and often feel impossible to do it all. As a registered dietitian, I know there are some healthy habits my family can adopt to help fight fatigue. As...

The first day of school was just a few days ago, and all day I couldn't wait for my boys to tell me about it. I was in the carpool line asking myself, "how can I get them to tell me the most details about their first day of school?" I expectantly waited to hear about new friends they met, their favorite activities, their favorite subjects, and what they played on the playground. I couldn't wait to for them to fill in the details since they had just started new grades in a new school.  After they got buckled into the car with their backpacks and lunch boxes, the answers I heard were good but short. "How was your day?"...