My family and I recently got back from a two-week vacation up in northern Michigan - my happy place! It’s a trip we make often since my family owns a rental home there. While we always have a wonderful time, it’s not a quick drive by any means: we’re looking at a minimum of 4.5 hours, and that’s if there’s no traffic… or tantrums from the kids along the way. Over the years, I've braved … [Read more...]
How to Change Your Child’s Mindset in Just a Few Minutes a Day
This article first appeared on Self-Sufficient Kids in December 2018. Affirmations for kids are a powerful way to help children develop a mindset of positivity and success. Here’s how to get started: My daughter and I were sitting on the floor putting a puzzle together. We’d done this puzzle of mermaids swimming with fish countless times before, but the detailed section could get tricky. My … [Read more...]
More than Mom: How I Lost – and Found – Myself After Having Kids
They said kids change everything. You lose sleep over them. You cry over them. Your schedule revolves around them and their needs, and somehow through it all, your heart grows with so much love. In the process, your world changes SO much. What I didn’t know, and didn’t quite expect, is just how much becoming a parent and motherhood would also change me... and how it keeps changing me as they get … [Read more...]
Reflections on Motherhood Overwhelm… and How to Cope
Motherhood overwhelm is real… and if I’m being honest, I’ve tried writing this blog post at least five times now. I’ve been feeling the overwhelm extra hard in the last few weeks. We put an offer in on a house (and it was accepted - yay!) but that was the easy part. There was the inspection, and the paperwork, and the negotiations, and the back and forth… and through it all, there’s this thing … [Read more...]
What I Wish People Told Me About Having a Second Kid
Now that we’ve had our second kid, we're officially a family of four (well, five counting the dog), and it feels like it’s always been this way, as if our family is complete now with little guy, or Boo Boo as I’ve taken to calling him . It feels like he’s always been a part of the family. That said though, 2017 was a year of adjustment in so many ways, and, for me, it was a lot about learning … [Read more...]
