As a new mom, my New Year's resolution is to feel adequate just as I am.
For most of us, a new year is synonymous with a brand new you. But what happens if we resolve to simply quash the self-improvement urge? This new year, I resolve not to resolve. Don't confuse my promise not to improve as a refusal to grow or change. It's just that after seven-and-a-half months as a first time mother, I'm tired of feeling like I could be doing more. Doing better. Slowing down. Enjoying the moment. All while anticipating the next milestone and celebrating accomplishments. And then, wishing time would slow down; because after all, they're growing up too fast.
I completely underestimated how challenging blending our family celebrations would be.
When I got married I knew we were combining two families, and I knew that blending holiday traditions would be challenging, but I completely underestimated how challenging.
It's tough trying to surprise my kids with Christmas gifts. It's even harder to surprise my husband.
The person who's the hardest for me to surprise isn't our kids, it's the studly 34-year-old who shares my bedroom. It isn’t because he snoops, though. He’s pretty cooperative like that. We’re just such a team and make a habit of being so transparent with each other, that any deviation creates a disturbance in the force.
The working mom vs. stay at home mom debate is one that has gone on for decades. As a work-at-home mom, or WAHM, I lie somewhere in the middle. And while I am very thankful for this, I also want it to be said: WAHMing ain't easy.
Creating your own Advent calendar & other tips for making Christmas about memories, not presents.
Buy, buy, buy. I cringed that the verb was dominating my Christmas to-do list, and it wasn't even December yet. Looking back on my childhood, I remember magical moments with my family more than I remember specific gifts. I want my kids to have these kinds of memories, too, and not just a solid lesson in materialism...
Just because you're an exhausted mom doesn't mean your appearance should reflect that.
This trap is so easy to fall into for moms who don’t work outside the home. Maintaining our appearance is something that we can bump down a long to-do list, until it’s so far buried we forget it was ever a priority.
Relationship experts offer their go-to hot spots for single moms looking for love.
Now that I'm divorced and a single mother, I don't have much of a social life. Finding quality, eligible men feels more like a pipe dream. Meanwhile, my expectations and standards for a potential boyfriend are much higher now that I have children. And at my age I have a low tolerance for losers.
When I go out to eat, I usually get a sitter. I wish you would, too.
Apparently some restaurants have recently gambled that they’ll gain more adult business if they ban the below knee-height crowd. The concern about the parents paying for said short children is outweighed by all the single folks who the owners think will be attracted by their less sticky establishments.
As a mom, I think I should probably be offended by this, but I’m not. My husband and I are planning a date night out for our upcoming anniversary (go, team), and a sitter is definitely in the works. I’m looking forward to a night without children – and if I’m paying for a night without mine, I probably don’t want to have to listen to yours.
I've always had a checklist for my childrens' future mates. Gender never made the cut.
When you're pregnant you run through all kinds of scenarios in your head. You ask your partner if you'd keep the baby if it had Downs Syndrome. (Yep.) You wonder if they’ll go to college. (Damn well better.) And you spend a lot, a lot of time daydreaming about the amazing lives they're going to lead. So of course you consider their future mate.
To snip or not to snip? That was the question we couldn't get past.
I understand a man wanting his son to be like him, especially in this particularly masculine way. The thing is, when my husband was circumcised it was because of an actual, honest-to-goodness medical necessity. The foreskin was too small. It was painful. The surgery had to be done. If it were medically necessary, I would do the same thing. But otherwise, why put my son through elective surgery?
