A letter to my daughter: When you see me crying, it’s not you

My sweet girl,

We’ve discussed “the sickness.” We’ve played games of counting how many steps equates to standing six feet from the wall. We’ve had fun choosing fabric for your special masks that help you avoid passing “the sickness” to someone else.

I’ve lovingly looked you in the eyes and told you that “the sickness” is why we cannot see your best friends, hangout with your grandparents, climb and jump on the playground, or go to the store on a Sunday afternoon to get pink nail polish and a new LOL Doll.

We’ve been over singing fun songs that span at least 20 seconds and bought “cool soap” to help remind you to wash your hands.

We even joked about “the sickness” foolishly thinking that it’s only temporary. The joke is on us: it is a lot more permanent than we thought, and my soul is in mourning as I face the grief that comes with understanding that we need to settle in for the long haul.

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Ten things your kids won’t say to you when we look back on this time in history

1. You fed me too many pre-packaged meals.

2. You let me watch too much TV and screens.

3. I wish you would have put more effort into making me do more common core math assignments.

4. Fresh fruit would have been better than packed fruit, obviously.

5. I wish you would have cooked more instead of ordering take-out meals that consisted of chicken fingers, French fries, and pizza.

6. It would have been great if you would have violated the rules and put me in danger for things like prom.

7. I’m behind in life because we didn’t finish every art or gym project my teacher assigned.

8. You unfortunately didn’t teach me a new language or skill.

9. I wish we would have done more virtual meet-ups that I probably won’t remember.

10. You should have demanded a more consistent bedtime schedule.

Take a deep breath, mama. You’re doing just fine, and when your kids look back on this time, they’ll fondly remember how courageous you were and how hard you tried.

Thrive Thirty! A Brief Introduction

Lately I have been thinking about how to bring more value to my audience. Most of my followers (over 2k on this blog and 9k on the Gram!) are moms who are athletic. I kept going through ideas in my head about what content I can produce that is easy to understand, implement, and share…

…and it hit me one night: Thrive Thirty.

You Spelled “Intentional” Wrong: A Case For Redefining “Working Mom”

First, can you tell I am back in an academic setting? When titles of blog entries include the words “a case for,” it should be obvious that my head is stuck in research in some kind of way. Anyway…

Lately, I have thought a lot about this whole “working mom” thing and how it’s often looked at as something negative. Think about it. If you’re a working mom, you know that people feel bad for you like working is some kind of punishment: “Oh wow, that’s too bad” or “It must be hard not to stay home with the kids all the time. I’m sorry to hear that.”

Today, we are going to redefine “working mom.” Yes, it is a woman who has children + a job or career of sorts. But let’s not forget to give all these women credit for not only begin badasses, but for being intentional.