My fourth child and youngest daughter Anneliese just celebrated her 2nd birthday in March. Having reached this milestone a few times before with previous children, I am equal parts self congratulatory mixed in with a healthy dose of desperation. First off, I am pleased in the fact that I survived the initial sleep deprived baby years and have now progressed …
The War On Women
First off, you should understand that this is not a political post. I’ve been an activist, and at times a very effective activist. This post isn’t about that. This post is about people. One of today’s big buzz phrases is “The War On Women” I tire of hearing that phrase, especially with the context for which it is currently being …
Surviving First Grade:Tips From A First Grader
This week is our school Spring-break and all of our best laid plans for fun and adventure have been waylaid by a malicious stomach flu. It really isn’t right. Instead we have done a fair share of board games and easy crafts for those who could manage to get up out of their sick beds. During one particularly riveting game …
Why Our Family Cut The Cord On Cable
The beginning of the end happened one Sunday night about a year and a half ago when our older children, Jen’s Guy and I sat watching our favorite TV show, Once Upon A Time. As the show cut to commercials, the very first one was for a horror movie called Mama. My husband quickly muted the TV as I told …
Talking Tutus
Talking Tutus I am lucky enough to be the mother to three adorable girls (and one completely darling little boy who we’ll talk about another day). My girls are sweet, precocious, bold and witty with equal parts rough and tumble mixed in. I get great pleasure from watching my little Princesses climb trees and race down the street while dressed …
Just A Mom
Sometimes there are conversations that you are a part of or overhear that leave you thinking about them for days. Last week I was sitting in the children’s section of my local Library with my toddler Anneliese. She wasn’t really interested in having me read her any books, but instead wanted to play with the interactive kid’s structure the Library …
All I Need to Know In Life I Learned From Musicals
I might have been a strange kid, but some of my earliest TV/movie memories are of musicals.The thrill of watching Rodgers and Hammerstein, Andrew Lloyd Webber and more filled my little heart with happiness. I loved the dancing, the color, the costumes and of course the music. As perhaps would be expected, watching these musical “dramas” provided much learning to …
When Magic Happens
My family lives in Southern Arizona. Winters here are typically sunny, beautiful and clear with average temperatures ranging in the 70’s. On New Year’s Eve a storm blew in that brought cold and rainy weather. It also brought something else. Snow! This isn’t something that happens on a regular basis here so we bundled up the older children (we left …
My Wish For You
To all of my friends and readers, I wanted to let you know that I will be taking a few days off this week. Hopefully in order to make some good memories with my children. Truthfully, it’s about a fifty fifty draw how all of this will go down. Funny story about that, yesterday I sat all of my children …
How You Choose To Fight Is Important
Social media has been buzzing this week because of a recently released video of “Potty Mouth Princesses”. If you haven’t seen the video it features little girls dressed as princesses saying the “F “word for feminism. At least that is what the title and description of the video says. I am not linking to the video and I am not …
A Legacy Of Love
Sometimes as a blogger there are stories you don’t intend to share when you sit down to write, but try as you might one story or theme can take precedence in a post, almost unintentionally. This is one of those posts. I sat down to write about my experience as a sandwich generation and share some tips for caring for …
What Is Really Important
This week the Southern Arizona community has been bracing itself for the after effects of Hurricane Odile. Community wide we saw graphics like this to make sure we did not take this situation lightly. Do you see that big green swath with the words CATASTROPHIC FLOODING? Yeah, that’s where I live…. This morning as Jensguy and I watched the news …
Breaking News! Making Dinner Is Hard And Should Now Be Someone Else’s Responsibility
Oh the mind-bending hopelessness of the family mealtime!!! This last week I read a story on Slate that attempted to relate the findings and conclusions of a study by 3 North Carolina State University Sociologists: Sarah Bowen, Sinika Elliott and Joslyn Brenton. Their team conducted in-depth interviews with 150 black, white, and Latina mothers from all walks of life. They …
Tales Of A Middle School Mom
An unavoidable truth of motherhood is that our precious little babies do not stay that way for very long. No matter how much we wish we could freeze the process and stop their aging, we can’t and they will grow up. Thirteen years ago my first Princess was born. I remember looking at the tiny preemie baby in my arms …