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Where are the Girls?

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Today, the fifth day of summer vacation, I’m making my girls clean their rooms. Three of them...together. Cleaning. There’s been yelling, slammed doors, shouting, thrown toys, hysterical weeping. It’s awesome. Yet, all I can sit here and think is how lucky I am. In my nice house in a nice, safe city, in a safe, prosperous county, in a state with the 5 th largest economy in the world, in the richest country in the world…I’m so lucky I have the opportunity to sit here and listen to my kids battle their way to a clean room. I’m not walking across a desert, or hiding from murderous gangs, or fleeing a home buried in violence or mud. I am not begging my rich neighbor to let me in so I can scrub their floors, tend their nice houses and lawns, pick their crops, make their food, or wash their dishes, so I can feed my children and keep them safe. I’m not sitting in a chain-link cage wondering where my babies are – the babies I suffered and struggled to get to saf...
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Not One More

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7,000 pairs of shoes.
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Say Hello to my Little Friend

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This is Circle. Isn’t it cute? It’s not just another cute, little gadget though – it’s my little helper, my partner in crime, the engine of my evil plot. Seriously though, this thing is awesome, and I really recommend all parents get one. Unless you live in the wilds of Sweden with no computers, internet or WiFi – in that case feel free to skip it. If you don’t live in the wilds of Sweden, and you have kids in your house, sit down for a minute and let me tell you all about my little buddy. But First A couple of things: I've been researching kids and internet safety since my oldest was born (so, 13 years now), I've found lots of resources and followed too many terrifying rabbit holes (never do a Google image search for "Fluffy Unicorn" without parental controls...just sayin') I was horrified to discover Chromebooks, which the kids' school uses for classwork and recommends for homework, do not support any kind of parental controls or internet ...
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Just a Light Touch of the Plague

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It all started with a rejected dinner, and it was a darn good dinner too – one of the kid’s favorites which is why the rejection of said dinner was so strange. Half-way through, Quokka dropped half her sandwich and said, “it’s good mom, I just can’t tonight.” Tomato-basil soup and a tuna melt, mmmm Coming from Quokka, this is a major thing. The girl has never met a dinner she didn’t eat – even when it was my disastrous attempt to make brussels sprouts – she will do her womanly best to choke it down. She took her uneasy stomach to bed and was an immobile lump in the blankets within minutes. Then, Badger, who is still small enough to make middle of the night visits horror-movie-levels of creepy, woke me up at 2:00 am to tell me she didn’t feel well. After I peeled myself off the ceiling, I told her to try a sip of water and see if that would settle her tummy. Water running  Slurping noises Pad, pad, padding little feet across the hall and the creak of her bed frame A few...
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It's Not What You Think

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So, I felt like there was something I needed to talk about after the frenzy of Halloween candy consumption and before the holiday season, with its stuffing, cookies, pies, sweets, and Bailey’s, is upon us. A two-month orgy of savory foods and delicious treats, followed by the self-imposed penance of a resolution and the resulting massive guilt if said resolution is not carried through. Here it is: Don’t go on a diet to feel better about how you look. Really, don’t. It doesn’t work anyway. I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t eat fruits and veggies, or exercise to avoid a blood clot in your leg. I’m not even saying dieting doesn’t work for weight loss – after all, we see success stories all the time in magazines. It’s just that dieting until you’re raging hangry because you just know you’ll feel better about your thighs, or belly, or butt if only you could fit into size 6 pants…yeah, that might not turn out like you think. Your…trouble spot will get smaller and the scale will show...
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Floored

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The dog died and our last reason for not doing something about our awful, disgusting carpet died with him. When we bought the house 12 years ago, we were informed the owner had installed the cheapest possible carpet to sell the place. It was indeed cheap, and crappy, and really light beige. But, you know, kids and dogs, and potty training, and chocolate milk, and juice, and muddy shoes… We just…let it ride…for more than a decade. Once, in a fit of exhaustion, I ripped the carpet out of the dining room, which was also the main traffic pattern in the house – path to the kitchen and all – because I couldn’t face the futile task of cleaning it one more time. We polished the slab, applied some sealer, and had a “designer” cement floor for a couple of years. The rest of the house was a scruffy calico of cheap oak veneer, tile, and fraying carpet mottled with stains. The stairs in particular were bad – both ugly and approaching official bio-hazard designation. I was repelled...
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I Need a Better Map

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Sometimes dramatically changing your life changes who you are. Sometimes you get to the point where you hardly recognize yourself on the other side. I’d always imagined myself from a young age as a career woman who would set the corporate world on fire and accomplish remarkable things. I always planned for children, but I was going to stop at two, and make both halves of my life function in tandem – working and momming with equal fervor. The thought of deviating from this plan – having more kids, jumping off the career track, staying at home – was entirely alien. Dare I say, inconceivable. And I did it for a long time. I started work in corporate America right out of school. Climbing my way up, steadily advancing my career – not as rapidly as planned due to the constraints of marrying and procreating with someone who’s chosen vocation created rigid, inconvenient schedules – and generally making it work just like I’d mapped out decades ago. For 12 years, I was as passionate ...
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This is How You do it, Baby...

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Summer so far... There's been fighting, rebellion, assault, and occasional fun. Right now, Badger's not sure if her arm is strained or just a little broken from doing cartwheels down the big hill at the park. Yay...summer...so much fun.
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Follow the Yellow Brick Road

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Life is tricky – I mean, we’re all trying to get it right, and even figure out what right is. And obviously, that’s something different for each of us. And then it changes as we go along. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I have no idea what I’m even doing here. At various times in my life I felt sure about where I was going, and what I was doing. Now, I really have no idea whatsoever – I’m making this shit up as I go along. At the same time, I totally have to tell myself #firstworldproblems. Seriously, there is no part of me that doesn’t recognize how lucky and privileged I am. Not that I haven’t worked hard for what I have, including the time and space to try and figure out what the hell I want to do. Yeah, I’ve worked hard, but it helps when you start out in a good place. Meanwhile, here I am. Trying to figure out where I go from here. This blog has been a loose collection of stories from my perspective as a working mother – which is a stressful, hectic gig. And, that...
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Central Casting

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For just a few minutes last week I actually wished that gender stereotypes were true. It was a fleeting wish that popped into my brain while Badger and I were waiting for the nurse to put a cast on her arm. Because, you see, if the stereotypes were true, I wouldn’t be sitting in an Orthopedic medical office having my little girl’s arm put in a cast for the second time...this year. She wouldn’t have abrasions running down the side of her face from her hairline to her jaw. She would be sitting somewhere, looking pretty and clean, acting sweet and gentle. Yeah, uh, no…not so much. The Rise of the Action Princess I mean, I wasn’t a wilting lily as a kid –most people labeled me a “tomboy.” Not ever really liking that label, I coined a new one for my ferocious girls, “Action Princess.” Why did I feel the need to make up a label, and one that included the word ‘princess,’ you might ask? Couple of reasons. First, the number of people, mostly older people, who refer to little girls as...
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