Spring has definitely sprung, which means it’s officially time for moms across America to panic about summer break. The kids will be out of school soon, after all, and they’ve gotta have shit to do. So hire those babysitters, ladies! Fill out those sleepaway camp applications! Register for every sport camp, art camp, coding camp, […]

I got married when my stepdaughters were 10 and 12 years old. Two years later, they were living with us full-time and I was pregnant. What followed was a whirlwind of acne and diapers, boyfriends and baby bottles, angst and alphabet songs. It was a hot mess of a time and a true trial by […]

  Last weekend, my eleven-year-old son and I went to the zoo. It was a cold, snowy day and we pretty much had the place to ourselves. We had fun watching the clouded leopards and Andean bears in their exhibits… But what we really enjoyed was the playground. The Nashville Zoo’s playground is massive– It’s […]

  I still vividly remember that sizzling hot July day, even though it happened more than a decade ago. I had taken my stepdaughters and daughter to see a movie, leaving my 4-month-old son at home with my husband. The theater was in an urban neighborhood, so we parked in a nearby lot and walked […]

My son stands before the oversized screen of our television, cheeks flushed, eyes glassy, tongue barely protruding from a corner of his mouth. After one incredibly long, motionless moment, he suddenly begins jumping up and down in time with the tecka tecka tecka tecka of his thumbs on the game remote. “Mom, you won’t believe […]

There are some elementary school moments I always want to remember. There are others I can’t wait to forget. I still remember my oldest stepdaughter’s final year of elementary school. Everything she did that year was treated in our family as a Major Milestone, requiring all of us to drop what we were doing and […]

This is a story about love. Not the kind of love you typically think of around Valentine’s Day — the frilly, frothy, butterflies-in-your-stomach love of pop songs and Hallmark cards. This story is about a love that’s messy and raw and, sometimes, unbearably painful.  It’s a story about a love that endures. When I met […]

Les Misérables is the longest-running play in Broadway history and a favorite musical for many (including me!). But should you bring the kids when it comes to your town or leave them home with the sitter? Here’s what you need to know before you go. I saw Les Misérables for the first time on a French […]

Hell hath no fury like a mommy blogger scorned, and Reese Witherspoon is learning this the hard way. The mom blogging world erupted over the weekend when news emerged that Reese Witherspoon threw some serious shade at the ‘mommy blogger’ community. After accepting WSJ Magazine’s Entertainment Innovator of the Year award, she had this to […]

I’m guessing it’s not good form to start off the review of a Broadway musical with a severe case of neck strain. But in my mind, the two are inexorably linked, and if you find that strange and annoying, well, welcome to my blog, people. You get what you get. So. I woke Wednesday morning […]