Maybe I sort of kind of subconsciously and totally selfishly wanted Miles and Asher and Elsie to struggle just a little bit with the transition to 2.5 days of daycare. They’re doing great. They don’t get upset when their Daddy or I drop them off and Elsie is the only one super excited to see me when I come to the door. The boys mostly want to keep playing. Their care provider (or daycare mama), is probably the most fun and energetic woman I’ve ever met. For example, one night around 9 pm she texted me to ask something in which she mentioned rice krispie bars. I texted back with the answer and also, mmmmm, now I want a rice krispie bar. The next morning, when I dropped the kids off, she handed me a plate of bars. She’s so cool. She’s also really creative and adventurous. For instance, the kids love to […]
Our cupboards are bare. Not of food and pots and pans and a crock pot and vases. There is plenty on the shelves, but we’ve taken all the doors off and pulled all the drawers out. We began a project that seems simple enough until you actually do all the things it takes to do the thing. We need to sand first, but even before that, we’re marking each door and drawer so we remember where they came from. Otherwise it gets to be kind of a puzzle and you have to keep trying each space until the drawer slides in easily or the two doors close up with out banging together. Miles was using the drill to unscrew the hardware and I was pulling the doors off when he’d get to the last screw. Asher was feeding us each one pretzel at a time, while Daddy wrote up a map and numbered […]
Maybe you love funny and irreverent with a tender dose of mother-love. Or maybe you like poetry and stories that’ll make your heart all swell-y. Maybe you want to learn something, about motherhood and writing or how to chase dreams while being home with a baby. Whatever you love to read, I’m sure you love relatable and real…so here you go, mama friends. All different books by all different mothers for all different mothers… Fellow Austinite and successful creator behind glamajama, Heather Schuck is honest about the inevitable imbalance that is motherhood and work. What needs to give? How do you go about painting your life on YOUR canvas, the way you’d love to live it? Heather answers these questions and so much more in her vulnerable and inspiring book, The Working Mom’s Manifesto: My friend Robin O’Bryant is the most honest mother you can find, most likely. She’ll tell you […]
My friend Gi at Sweet Peas and Buddies asked me to come on over there and tell a story. I’m so happy to oblige. I’m sharing a post from before I stopped drinking. Re-reading some of those posts so often makes me shake my head. Not in regret or shame or some such thing. Just in wonder, I guess. That I could see my unhealthiness, but I wasn’t really willing to see it. Rewriting My Name is a story about Miles and being haunted by your history and learning to start again. You can read it at Sweet Peas and Buddies if you’d like. Peace. Comments are off.
We were walking down to the dock and one of my all-my-life friends was talking about income tax changes and how things got all wonky with moving to a different state. It was all like a foreign language to me, since numbers were involved. We talked then about how weird it is for us to sit around talking about things like taxes and school choices for our children and what we look for when we’re buying a home. It’s so adult of us to talk about these things, but I look at you and think you look the same as you always have, way back to childhood. Who are these grown-ups? Shouldn’t your parents be taking care of that whole tax thing? and we laugh. We sit three in a row on the edge of the dock and splash our feet in the water. It’s the most beautiful late afternoon, a breeze coming […]
I guzzle my first (and never last) cup of coffee. I don’t mean to, it’s just that it’s one of my last vices. I want to be a person who sips a fantastic cup of coffee, just one, and then goes on with a day drenched in 8 glasses of water and only whole foods. I drink a lot of water and I work hard to eat well, but I also love sugar as much as I love coffee. We addicts are far too aware of our compulsive behavior, at least in sobriety, so I bend and tip forward, pulling my eyes to my navel to dissect this behavior. Then I remember, I’m a human being. Flawed and a work in progress and imperfect and all that. One day I will sit and sip tea, decaf of course, maybe by the ocean and I’ll be wearing something white and flowy and the breeze […]
Asher passed me saying I can’t find my hair I fight back a giggle what do you mean, sweetie? The hair for my guy! he says it like it’s so obvious. Legos. Oh yes, the Lego hair. I find it later behind the bathroom door so I think it’s poop but it’s bright plastic brown hair. Asher’s hair is so blonde it’s white. He’s not home but I’ll tell him later. This morning he stood next to me feeling the tubing under his skin I said, do you know what that is? No, mommy. That’s the tube that goes up to your head to your shunt and it makes your body work right. His little growing less chubby hand rests there at the tube under his skin next to me on his neck. He looks deep in thought and I tell him that what’s under his skin makes him have tools of power […]
Now I can say I’ve been to Kentucky. I was a first-timer. I can also say Louisville without pronouncing a big E in the middle while also pretending I have a mouthful of marbles or bubble gum. My friend Holli says it would be spelled like this – Luavul (but don’t forget the mouthful). I have been practicing hard. I’m getting very close to letting go and garbling. We Minnaaahhhsoooohhhtaaahns are not terribly good at leaving out vowels…or consonants for that matter. Anyway, ya’ll. I had a fantastic time in Kentucky. I met lovely people. I spent time with Ellie and Holli. I sat under the stars on a perfect Kentucky summer night in an amphitheater while Brandi Carlile completely astounded me with her talents and the talents of her band. I had no idea. I screamed SHE SINGS THIS??? like three times during the concert because when I have heard her […]
Tomorrow morning I’ll be boarding a flight to Kentucky. I’ve never been to Kentucky, so not only do I get to add another thumb tack to the map of my life’s travels, but I also get to speak with Ellie. We’ve each done a lot of speaking, in different capacities and venues. This particular keynote is something new. We’ve created something dynamic, something soulful and maybe sometimes funny. We’re going to do some skits, tell some stories and read some posts. We’re going to talk to the people that have come to hear us and ask them questions and then listen like they’re the best movie we’ve ever seen…because we all are! We’re story people. Ellie and I so badly want our words to be worth the time of the people that have paid to join us and we’re believing that if we get out of the way, that will happen. Our friend […]
The house is growing dark around me. I just got the small people to bed after a busy day of re-entry, all of us home from time away. Ryan and the kids went Up North to stay with Auntie Janie and I was in NYC for BlogHer ’12. Ryan left this morning for a short work trip. He gets back on Wednesday and I leave Thursday for Kentucky. Life is normally not like this. We are not jet-setters. Well, I’m not while he is, but only because he works all over the place sometimes. Something about software. BlogHer ’12 was so beautifully exhausting. I roomed with Ellie and Maggie and I saw so many people I love like crazy and on Saturday night one of my favorites of them wrote on my skin with a big fat marker, “Go to the love.” I had heard this the night before from a new friend. […]
Somehow I have an extra five minutes before leaving for BlogHer ’12 in New York City. I’m sitting with the boys in the living room while Elsie and Daddy sleep. I’ve been up too many times in the night and then up too early and that’s just how it is, so I won’t go on and on about the sick in our house and what a trying week we’ve had. It was hard. I’ll just keep it at that. Death by a million paper cuts. I’m going to drive away in a few minutes with two bags and in one of them is my breast pump. (Sorry male readers.) (All three of you.) (You might want to not finish this little paragraph.) I’ll be hiding here and there on my days of travel and while at the conference, while running the Serenity Suite, to pump. And I know I’ll cry and I know […]
