The children were asleep in their beds, an empty bottle of cheap champagne lay on its side, and the credits from Mad Men played on the television screen. These were all the ingredients necessary for a romantic date night, parent-style, and at this point a happy ending was pretty much guaranteed. “I’ll see you upstairs,” […]

I live in Tennessee where, despite laws limiting smoking in public places, plenty of people still do it. Hey, if you want to destroy your lungs, go for it. It’s your life and your decision. I just have one simple request: Don’t smoke around my kid. You’d think this would go without saying– but way […]

The end of the school year is nigh, and in addition to the usual frantic summer scheduling for the kids that fills up much of my spare time in April and May, we’ve also been busy trying to figure out where my ten year old will attend school next year. Punky will graduate from elementary […]

Dear Bruiser, This time last year, you were still my adventurous little kindergartner with a mouth full of baby teeth. What a difference a year makes. Between then and now, you’ve shot up several inches, lost most of those baby teeth, and transitioned from a little boy into a big one. And when I look […]

I’ll be the first to admit that I love seeing the Pottery Barn catalog in the mail. I can totally lose myself in its pristine, people-free pages, and dream of a magical place where clutter and scuff marks and bad smells and stains and toilets and LEGOs don’t exist. Just imagine if your house were […]

As a parent, I’ve stood on the sidelines of recreational sports leagues for 12 years now, and I’m convinced that we as a nation have completely lost sight of what youth recreational sports could and should be about. Instead of providing a supportive environment for all children to learn to play a sport regardless of […]

“Hello ma’am,” the lady at the register said as I placed a pair of girls tights down on the counter. “Are you ready to check out?” “I am,” I said smiling, already fumbling for my wallet in my purse. I had exactly five minutes before I needed to be back in the car and on […]

In 2006, I started writing a newspaper column based on this blog for the Nashville Scene, my local alt-weekly newspaper. The reaction was mixed… I wrote a tongue-in-cheek, often snarky account of my life as a stay at home mom, and people either loved the column– or they loathed it. The hate mail my column […]

A few weeks ago as I tucked my nearly seven-year-old son into bed, I put a hand lightly on his cheek and said, “I really don’t think I can let you turn seven. I’ll miss you at six too much.” “Don’t worry, Mommy,” he said. “I’ll always have six inside of me.” He laughed. “I […]

My fellow Americans, I feel the need to come before you and tell you that we have a problem on our hands, a problem that affects every single one of us: Friends, I’m talking about the gaps in public restroom stalls. Who among us hasn’t innocently looked up at the mirror while washing her hands […]