Happy Last Day of School (for us, at least)!
Since I loved our Summer To-Do List lessons from last year, we’re doing it again. Each summer as our kids get older, they become more and more capable. I also feel more and more determined as a parent to stretch their comfort zones. Both Mary and I have something new up our sleeves for our kids this summer.
Continue readingFor this play date review, we’re tweaking it yet again. We’re sharing our first ever girl date!
Once Mary and I settled our spring break plans, we got tickets for the brood to go to Atlanta’s first-ever Panda Fest, an Asian food festival with dates in multiple cities across the country. Panda Fest vendors are mostly local and they specialize in Asian street food and snacks.
Attending were BOTH sets of twin girls, so no boys this round. My husband Troy also came for the food and to be an extra set of hands. H&K are two years younger than A&Z, so now we’re factoring in age gap for this play date.
Continue readingI’m not sure about Mary, but I’ve always liked the time between Spring Break and the end of the school year. It goes by so fast, the weather warms up, and the crush of the all the spring sports and activities start winding down. It’s busy for sure, but busy with end-of-the-year parties, award ceremonies, and bridging to the next school year. It’s also festival season in Atlanta, so we’re getting outdoors and switching up our weekends.
So for this last stretch of blog posts before our annual June blog break, we’re switching gears toward the summer and sharing Things We Loved.
Right after I gave birth to my girls and we got into somewhat of a routine, it was time for me to return to work. Yes, it’s working from home but my job at the time still included about 10-15% travel. I was planning on tampering off pumping and ending just in time for my first work conference; about 2 months away. I was explaining my travel plans to my mother (who was living with us) and told her that my MIL and SIL were also coming up during that time to help with the babies. She said, “I thought you said you weren’t going to be doing that [traveling for work] anymore. Who’s going to take care of them when you’re gone?”
I was super confused. I had NEVER said that I was going to stop work travel. It was one of the things I loved about my job. In fact, my mother was confused as to why I was even going back to work at all. Keep in mind, I was only going to be gone for 4 days.
First of all, homie’s got bills to pay including student loan debt. Second and this is where I dug deep, the babies have an entire second human who is able to care for them: their father (along with three other people I had already recruited). Of course, she was going to give me the typical he’s-the-one-who-has-to-work spiel, but I hit right back with this:
“I could be a sh*t mom and abandon my kids altogether and I still wouldn’t worry about them because Troy is an amazing father. If he needed to, he would be able to figure it out on his own and be able to raise them just fine without me. That’s how much confidence I have in him.”
She didn’t take too well to that, but having that conversation really made me double down that I would never be the full default parent. That I would reject any societal expectation of a mom because they are in fact bias and full of sh*t.
Enter The Good Mother Myth: Unlearning Our Bad Ideas About How to Be a Good Mom by Nancy Reddy. I received an Advance Reader Copy of this book from NetGalley.
Continue readingYay! New blog feature.
We’ve written extensively on PPD and how important it is for moms to take time for themselves. This recharges our social battery and keeps us balanced, so our entire lives aren’t completely ruled by our kids.
Looking forward, I came across a teen parenting account that said that one of the reasons teens stop looking to their parents for advice and quality time is because their parents aren’t fun. During high school, my parents never really had friends. They would work, make dinner, and watch something on the couch…every…damn…night. I love an introverted bed rot, but seriously no other people anywhere in the radar? Not even a best friend that I’ve ever heard of?
I feel like most of the parents I appreciated growing up were those that had their own social lives; they played more roles than just being a parent or an employee. They had interests and hobbies and would go out for girls nights. Their personal schedules were just as involved as their kids’. Overall, I feel like their homes were just lighter; and consequently, their villages were bigger.
So, Mary and I would like to propose a trade. We will exchange two playdate reviews, for two Mom date reviews. We love doing fun stuff with our kids, but we’d also like to try out some fun, new things that are a little more age-appropriate for us.
Continue reading
Child(ish) Advice 