Sliding Back to Normal Life + New Project

It feels weird to be home and normal because it feels so home and normal. I was on the road for two weeks–first the Finding Your Fiat conference in Illinois, then a partial day home, then packed up the kids with my mom & sister and flew to New York to stay with my other sister and her family, then AA joined us and we all drove down to Virginia to see more family, joined by my dad, and other sister & spouse. That’s the last few weeks in a nutshell. A very run-on sentence one. I posted a lot on instagram–things like how karaoke with Marie Miller is fabulous (especially when you’re singing uptown funk with Laura), NYC cousins make birthdays so much better, and…

READ MORE

my favorite photo art for the house {britt fisk photography giveaway!}

Britt and I met two years ago–TWO years already!–and she’s been one of my favorite e-friends ever since. She and her husband and littles live & work on her ancestral ranch in New Mexico. Aren’t you already following her on instagram? And her blog? Her eye for photography is par none and I’ve so loved experiencing the joy that her work brings to those I’ve gifted it to–my dad for one and my daughter for the other. Then she sent this print and I about died. Britt offers in life photography services for people in the lovely state of New Mexico, but the rest of us get to experience her lens through her shop! Shop with your 15% off discount “WHOLEPARENTING” through the end of…

READ MORE

On the Morality of Choosing to be a Working Mom

Short answer: being a working mom is NOT a moral question and it makes me crazy crazy when people say it is. Full disclosure: I’m not a working mom. I primarily take care of our three kids. I make their meals and clean them up. I drive them to activities. I read with them and help them nap (protest nap). I semi-tidy the house. I would consider myself a simple stay-at-home mom. I wrote a few years back on how I came to the decision to be at home, as a lawyer. I do work in the cracks and creaks between their busy days. I write this blog and sometimes get paid to write elsewhere. I sew organic baby clothing and sell it (when I’m not…

READ MORE

My Kids’ Favorite Things

While I’m parenting at a sub-par level. The mornings are long and seemingly without end but then lunch & naps start around 11 so it means my nap is nigh at hand too! During these mornings, my children have experienced a few of their new favorite things while I lay around with them, occasionally running after the toddler who*still* wants to throw things into the toilet. 1. Baseball cards. SuperBoy will sit with a bundle for over an hours, carefully examining who he has, what positions they play, their stats, and then work out a paper-version of fantasy baseball, setting them all around the kitchen floor. We get the cheapies one and a time from Target for good behavior, but we have about 100,958 so really he’ll…

READ MORE

the global artisan breakfast box

Let’s say you also have the crazy morning. The small kids not yet in school, but very much awake all-too-early kind of morning. The dragging your pregnant body down the stairs to prepare oats and toast kind of morning. It’s a blessing. It’s a stay-at-home mom life that really is idyllic in many ways despite or due to the sibling snapping, screaming, and overall protests. More syrup, please, every time. One very special brightening to my morning has been the Rise & Shine gift box from GlobeIn. The premise of this company is to curate handmade goods from around the world, send you the sweet box, and you not only get to enjoy the beautiful artisan work, but most excitingly for my children, you get…

READ MORE

I get it if you’re nervous about being pregnant again

I wish I could write comprehensively about pregnancy, loss, infertility, secondary infertility, and death of a child. Not that I wish I had endured all of these, but that’s a basic range of the female reproductive experience. It’s our sisters, our friends, our acquaintances. It’s the ladies we see on the subway that we don’t know struggle, and the ones sharing their journey with the world. I wrote about the thin space of being pregnant a few weeks back. Instead, I can only write authentically about my experience, one that’s ordinary and run-of-the-mill, and, in many women’s eyes, ridiculously lucky. I experience fairly textbook cycles. Charting and planning and abstaining when avoiding to conceive has “worked” for us insofar as our kids haven’t been surprises. When…

READ MORE