I used to think strength meant loud and outspoken and unrelenting. Sometimes it is. But motherhood has taught me that strength is also soft and thoughtful and peaceful. It takes strength to say no. Strength to slow down. Strength to wait. Strength to say sorry. Strength to be uncertain. Strength to be imperfect. Strength just …
What kind of parent did you dream you’d be? Have you taken the time to ask yourself lately? Whenever I am in a slump as a mother, it’s generally because somewhere along the way I stopped envisioning and started just surviving. It can feel too daunting to stop and imagine what I really want our …
I’ve birthed four babies. Some of those babies I felt connected to in the womb and others it wasn’t until months after they were born before I felt the same level of connection. I knew I loved them, but the connection was different. It was easy to judge myself for that, like it was something …
You did so much last year. You may not think you did, but I promise you that you did. Some of you may not have included how many school lunches you made or finding your way through postpartum depression or how many times you got up with a fussy baby or going back to work …
We often search for joy as if it’s something we chase, we catch it for a moment and then it escapes us again. We look for it in the future, thinking if we are just a little better parents or thinner or more successful we will catch it once and for all. Even when we …
To read Ellie Coburn’s story is to witness limitless kindness and love (and to want to foster all the babies!). She is mama to three beautiful foster children ages 15 weeks, 16 months and nine, with an adoption underway and a revolving door for any new placements and circumstances. Reading about her foster care …
For November’s #motheryourself theme, I’m starting a new trend. It’s called “radical gratitude” (because doesn’t that sound like a perfectly obnoxious, new wave phrase?). It’s really just glass half-full kind of thinking. In any situation, but especially the hardest ones, the most stressful, the most annoying, the most heartbreaking, the most overwhelming, when my brain …
Last month my mantra was to cut the junk in a serious way. We moved into a smaller home, cut our monthly expenses in half, donated half of our things, simplified our family calendar all the way down to our meals, and, more importantly, I’ve been “Marie Kondo’ing” my brain. I’ve been thinking about everything …
