One hour after my son got home from his last day of kindergarten, I presented him with this piece of paper: Yep. I know. I am so mean. As he’d barely tasted the freedom that comes with the final clang of the school bell, as visions of days spent playing Minecraft danced in his head, I shoved some real-talk right
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I rolled over for what felt like the millionth time, hoping a change in my position would help the pit in my stomach dissipate. There was something I knew I needed to do, but the thought of actually doing it made my anxiety level skyrocket. I needed to ask a friend a question—an incredibly important question. But I was scared. What
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It’s been pretty much the same since he was two years old—right when we moved him into a “big boy bed.” He wiggles his toes in the water as I rinse his hair with the plastic measuring cup he’ll use to “make coffee” while he soaks. I wrap him up in a hooded towel, and he plops down on his
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Last weekend, I sat on your back deck as our three kids played. We laughed, chatted, and discussed the very imminent arrival of your third baby. When we married brothers, I honestly had no idea that I would enjoy your company so much. I am so happy that I get to navigate motherhood with you. The differences in our kids
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During the first few weeks of my son’s life, I went to bed every night totally exhausted (shocking!) and totally disappointed in myself. Even though the clock flipped through a full 16(ish) hours since I’d set foot out of bed, I felt I had very little to show for it by the time I got back in. The dishes were
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If you look back at pictures of my son in the hospital after his birth, you might notice that he’s swaddled in the standard blue-and-pink-striped baby blanket in almost every shot. That’s because, other than diaper changes, baths, and an occasional loosening of the blanket during nursing sessions, he was swaddled. Pretty much all the time. And I really, really
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I’ll go ahead and say it: pumping sucks (pun totally intended, by the way). Compared to the feeling of your little one tucking into you as you marvel over every inch of his or her sweet face, the idea of hooking yourself up to a nicely-packaged milking machine is about as appealing as…well, hooking yourself up to a nicely-packaged milking
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I’d like to say before I had kids I was “normal”. I went to work. I wore cute clothes. I ate at restaurants. I went out with friends. I was a pretty typical almost 30 year old. And then I had my first son. He came flying out in the car on the way to the birth center. In the
Read moreI can’t believe that I’m doing this, but these are my boobs. And these are my boobs in “nursing” shirts. The other day someone asked me if there was really a need for what I was hoping to create. I was sitting on my couch waiting for my toddler to empty his toy chest for the tenth time of the
Read moreMy son was born in early December. I had a wonderful home birth followed by a two week lying in period. It wasn’t my plan to lay low for two weeks, but I found that I really needed it. I was sore, grumpy, the weather was nasty, and in all honesty I wanted to go nowhere. Around the middle
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