As my child’s first birthday approached, our family and friends excitedly asked if we were going to do a smash cake. I smiled and said we were going to give her a chocolate cupcake, but I expected she would barely touch it and certainly wouldn’t eat it. The thing a lot of people didn’t know was that our baby was

This morning as I was pouring my cup of coffee (that first one of the day, when you still have hope that you might get to drink that same cup while it’s still hot), I could hear my 5-month-old son screeching in the living room. He hasn’t mastered the typical giggle yet. Maybe the screech is his giggle. It sounds

Open up Facebook on any random day, and you’re likely to see that someone has posted “Happy National (fill-in-the-blank) Day!”  You name it, there’s a holiday for it: Happy National Ice Cream Day! Happy World Siblings Day! Happy Pets with a First Name That Starts with C Day! And I have seen the complaint appear often that with an over-saturation

When I was pregnant with my first child, I read that if your baby won’t stop crying, take them outside. I didn’t truly appreciate at the time what world that one piece of advice opened up for me, but five years and two kids later, it’s my answer for just about everything. Bored? Go outside. Lonely? Let’s go outside. Overwhelmed?

It’s likely that if you’re a mom of littles or you’re close to a mom of young children, you know about Facebook mom groups. These groups are formed based on location, or birth month of their baby, or style of parenting, or love of a particular motherhood brand (ahem, Latched Mama Love), or any other commonality that brings moms together.

If I have to decide what we’re having for dinner one more night this week, I am going to lose my mind.  Every few weeks, this becomes my most pressing and urgent need: to not have to make one more decision. And while at first I thought this must just be a “me problem,” it turns out it’s a psychological

Sometimes I get caught up in the highlight reel that is social media. There’s nothing wrong with it–the perfectly posed, filtered, aesthetically-curated photos proudly displayed front and center on any given mom’s instagram grid. I’ve got those pictures, too, and I treasure them.  I like that those moments are captured–when my kids’ outfits are matching, and a professional photographer somehow

I felt like my baby stole my sanity the instant she was born. I used to be a list-making, task-crushing, organized, and focused productivity machine. I was efficient, nothing slipped through the cracks. Now that I am a mom, if I brush my teeth and put on clothes that I didn’t wear the day before, it’s pretty much a win.

The moment my second child was born and placed in my arms, I recognized that familiar full tidal wave of all-encompassing love washing over me. There was that same exhilarating moment of this brand new life being placed in my arms.  There he was: that face I had spent 9 long months dreaming of. The feeling that I could spend