Category: Mama
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Read This Before the Doorbell Rings
Okay. Deep breath. Right now, the house is quiet. Stromps is probably loafed up in some sunbeam, completely unaware of the emotional hurricane about to hit. Your fridge is stocked, your laundry is mostly folded, and there’s that little buzz of anticipation underneath it all — like you’re standing at the edge of something huge.…
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Other Mommy, Stay Out
I just finished Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman and I feel like I need to sit in a well-lit room and snuggle a cat for a while. This book. THIS BOOK. It’s like someone cracked open the childhood part of my brain where shadows in closets and weird parental silences lived and just……
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Let’s Teach ‘How to People’
What if school actually taught us how to be good people? Because yes, sure, algebra and the mitochondria and sentence diagramming—fine, I get it, there’s a place for that, but you know what would’ve helped me way more in life? Knowing how to deal with a panic attack. Or how to file taxes. Or how…
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You Are Not Too Much
If I could whisper just one truth into every child’s ear, every single child on the planet, it would be: You are not too much. That thing you do—that big laugh, the weird questions, the way you can’t sit still, or the way you talk a mile a minute or don’t talk at all? Not…
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A Summer of Us
So here’s the wild thing — this summer isn’t just about surviving. It’s not just logistics, snack management, and sunblock. It’s an invitation. Three weeks with each of them. One-on-one. Three little chapters. Three strange, glorious, chaotic, possibly sticky journeys into who they are now. Who they’re becoming. Who I get to be, not just…
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With Snacks and Sanctuary
How to Take Care of Rain What do I need to take care of myself this summer? First of all: water. Like actual hydration but also lakes, ocean breezes, cold showers when everything feels sticky and overstimulating and like they might explode from the sheer volume of life. They need water in all its forms.…
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Two Weeks To Go
Psst. Hey, Rain. Not there yet. Not quite. The quiet still holds. Stromps is calm. The dishes aren’t multiplying. The fridge looks… optimistic. This is the last two weeks before it all begins. Before the door opens and the first pair of shoes gets kicked off somewhere you’ll trip over later. Before the rhythm changes.…
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We Need to Talk
So apparently that post I made the other day — the one about being nervous, about having my kids here this summer for the first time, about shifting from my worker-brain to my parent-brain and wondering if I was going to screw it all up — hit home for some people. Especially younger folks. People…
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Nine Weeks, One Nervous Parent, and a Very Opinionated Cat
Okay, so it’s happening. It’s happening. Nine weeks.Three kids.Three weeks each. One apartment in California that has never, not once, had to hold my parental brain, my work brain, and my nervous system all in the same space like this. I’m excited. I’m terrified. I’m spiraling a little, but in a cute, high-functioning kind of…
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Caffeine and Consent
Fast food is a treat! Sugar is a treat! Caffeine is a goddamn blessing sometimes. And I mean that in the most reverent, fully-caffeinated way possible. The thing is, when I was a kid, none of these things were “allowed.” Not really. Not with joy. Not with balance. Not with that soft internal yes that…
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Growth Through Challenge
What does it mean to get out of one’s comfort zone? This question has been haunting me lately. It popped up yesterday, and here it is again today. Did I answer it wrong? Or is this some kind of glitch? Maybe there are only forty curious minds questions, and now I’ll be stuck with this…
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A Request for Help
I don’t know about you, but I hate asking for help and try not to do it unless I genuinely need to. It seems like I need to ask for help quite often lately. Except, “lately” isn’t quite accurate – it feels like if I had been comfortable asking for help, I would’ve been asking…