“You’re going to speak French to the baby, right?” I would hem and haw and eventually agreed to it. Well, why would one hesitate? It’s a gift! You’re giving the gift of speaking and understanding a language! The benefits to your brain!

Unfortunately, we all live in the real world (and not in a Hallmark Channel movie) where sometimes kids get sick, roads get slick, and moms get stressed. Big time. The best way I’ve found to keep pre-Christmas anxiety in check is to avoid these four ways we moms tend to ruin the holidays:

Someday, my daughters won’t pronounce “spoon” as “foon” anymore.  Someday, they might not want to sing loudly for an hour.  Someday, my son will be running through the house on his way to wrestling practice (yes, my husband made me choose that specific sport) rather than trying to play in the toilet. 

I’ve always heard that major life events tend to separate true friends from the rest of them. I was fully prepared that being the first of my friends to get married and start a family would mean that I would inevitably be leaving some people in my past.

One of the ways that you might consider me “old-fashioned” is regarding thank-yous and showing gratitude.  I am a HUGE proponent of thank-yous, but especially written thank-you cards.  You might disagree.  Some of my close friends do.

“I can’t believe you’re being so MEAN!” our 11-year-old daughter told my husband and me. “You guys are the Fun-Killers!” Yep. That’s us. Mr. & Mrs. Fun-Killer.

A few years back, I had one of my most memorable “mean mom” moments. We have a rule that each morning, the boys are to clean their room. For a few months, they started pushing back and playing with toys instead of cleaning up.

Every pregnancy is different, and most women have completely different experiences each time, regardless of how many babies are involved.  Having twins first, I naturally knew my next pregnancy would be different.  If you’re pregnant with twins and are curious how this marathon is going to play out, here are my stories.

No one is perfect. No mom or child is kind 100% of the time. But I feel like if I can keep these 3 things in mind, my kids will be kind most of the time. And when they’re not, they’ll hear my voice in their head tell them, “That wasn’t a kind way to behave. Can you try again, please?”