It started as a subtle ripple … snippets of conversations with friends near and far about a year ago: though we felt fulfilled in our personal lives (family, kids, etc.), we felt “stuck” in our careers. In time, it turned into a strong undercurrent, a theme of this stage of our lives that has been bringing us down — not to the point of drowning, but to the point of losing our footing, slipping deeper into the sand, and getting splashed more than we’d like. It’s not that we don’t love what we do … we do … and, in this challenging economy, we feel blessed to be gainfully employed. But in spite of years of trying to get ahead and leave…

(Note: Sometimes  I find writing I started but never finished … writing I intended to share on another platform, for a different audience. But when I found this tonight, I decided it to finish it and hit publish here. Because even in its essay format, the words belongs here on my blog — as a page in this chapter of my motherhood journey). I guess you could say I expected a bit more of an initial reaction when my daughter met her brother for the first time. While I dreamed of fireworks and an instant connection, I anticipated the worst: tears, a fit of rage … But what I got was something even more surprising. After months of build-up, excitement, anxiety … we got sheer indifference. …

From where I stood, my heart was in my mouth. We were at the Big Kid playground at the elementary school where Maya will be starting kindergarten this coming fall. This playground is intended for kids ages 5-12, and sometimes we venture over there from the Little Kid playground so she can test her climbing skillz, while Ben typically just chases her up the smaller of the slides. But not yesterday. No … yesterday he was on a mission to match his sister’s bravery and give me a coronary x 2. I had told him begged him not to climb any higher, that he was too little for this super-high, curved yellow ladder. But in either sheer defiance or a surge of toddler bravado, he sought to …

An entire year — 365 days, twelve months, four seasons –has passed since one of my best friends, Rachel, suddenly left this earth. I’ve dreaded this day for so long. April 1 is April Fool’s Day — a day for silly pranks and jokes — and I will always now equate it with the day Rachel died. I’d texted back and forth with her early that morning on her way to the hospital, wishing her a speedy procedure and recovery, and she assured me she’d let me know when she was done. But when I hadn’t heard from her three hours later, I got worried, and shot her a quick text, figuring she must just be groggy from the anesthesia. About an hour …

Yup, that’s me … the #MeanestMommyEver, at least according to my five-year-old. Of course, I’m probably tied for this glorious title with many of my readers (it’s a parenthood rite of passage, right?) This darling title was bestowed upon me in between the biggest hugs after she bit it big on the playground and needed some TLC … and the pride beaming on her face when she read a new book to me at bed-time. Because it’s all about the in-betweens. We remember the good and the bad, but it’s those in-between moments we’d rather forget that also define us — make us stronger women, better mothers. Moments like when our kids called us the …

One of the hardest parts of being a work-outside-the-home mom is that you miss pretty much everything that happens with your kids between 8-5:30: from the pride of reading a new word or trying a new food to playground giggles or tears. We hear it about it after the fact — either from our kids or from their teachers. And that can be hard. I know my kids are in excellent hands, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss them or sometimes regret not being home with them more. One of the reasons I love my kids’ school so much is they have a webcam parents can peek at during the day- something I blogged about at HuffPo a few …

Since she was small, Maya has impressed us with her ridiculous memory and attention to detail. But this week, she flat-out blew us away. We were in California for spring break — visiting my brother and sister-in-law with my parents and sis — and we spent our last day at Disneyland, just us four. The last time we’d been to Disneyland (pic below) was after my brother’s wedding in 2014, when she was 3.5 and Ben was a mere 8 months old. She had loved it and talked often of the “big castle,” the parade, the tea cup ride, and It’s a Small World — but a lot of that, in my mind, was because she would ask to see photos/videos …

With 100{7920e18cf5186565893a18d1f69fa52bf2806dc683a7bfcea51d671d2f7d8125} certainly, I knew potty-training Ben would be different than potty-training Maya. I was right — it has been different– but not how I expected. She was relatively easy to train, but he has been significantly easier–which makes me feel like I’m waiting for the other shoe to fall! We started putting Maya on the potty at 18 months and every now and then she’d go, with greater frequency over the next year. A bout with chicken pox (which I didn’t realize one can get while vaccinated, grrrr!) when she was 2 1/2 meant we were home-bound and I took that time home with her to daytime potty-train her. She had one or two accidents and never looked back. By…

Wow, do I owe my kid an apology. This morning I was in the midst of our usual harried morning hell trying to get four of us out the door to work or school, and Maya was dilly-dallying in her room, taking her sweet old time putting her socks on. This is not a complicated task; it’s something she’s been doing every day since she was TWO. And she was taking for-freaking-ever. I had been yelling raising my voice at her to hurry for at least ten minutes and, surprise, surprise … in spite of escalating, I was getting nowhere. You see, **rationally** I know yelling absolves nothing and only increases my blood pressure … but let’s be honest … I’…

Like most working parents, I miss the bulk of my kids’ days  during the week — days which I hear about through their stories, their daily reports, glimpses I catch on the webcam and the funny/embarrassing anecdotes their teachers tell me on the way out the door. I sometimes feel guilty for this fact — something I’ve been pretty vocal about here on the blog — but I live for their huge smiles and wild greetings where they leap into my arms. The minute I’m with them, my work brain shuts off. I’m back in “mom mode.” And I love hearing the latest school gossip: who is now best friends with whom, who went to the office, who ate seconds of …