If you are like me, then you genuinely like spending summertime with your kids. Most of the time. Just not all of the time. But there’s still a lot of daylight between now and that first school bell, moms. So here are some tips to keep your cool during the stresses of summer:

My son, like most young kids, is focused on a very specific interest. For some kids, it’s dinosaurs, dolls, or sports, but for my oldest, it is construction. Trucks – everything trucks. It is an obsession.

From here on out, I am challenging myself to see myself the way my child sees me, and to be the person that my second thought believes I am. And, it cannot stop with me – I challenge you to do the same.

I don’t think I fully understood it until I held them both in my arms. Now, looking back, I can’t imagine our life any other way. As crazy as it can be at times, I love being a twin mom!

I can take Rosemond’s advice to heart, keep my maternal ego in check, and give my husband an extra big hug tonight – because I truly believe from the bottom of my heart that the best gift you can give your child is a solid, happy marriage to your spouse.

It’s the final countdown to summer! You can smell the campfires in the air, the laughter of neighbor kids playing until darkness sets in, and relaxation right around the corner! So what are you doing to celebrate the start of summer vacation? I’m throwing my kids a party!

Long story short—the process was the same—IVs, screaming, tears—but this time 3 injection sites instead of 1. It was an outpatient procedure, and we were home the same day. The whole process went a little smoother (on mom and dad’s end anyway) because we knew what to expect.

Lately, I’ve started thinking that there is no such thing as work/life balance. Whoever made up this term was (like the rest of us) striving for it and believed that it was an attainable goal.

When I ended the blog last time, I found myself sitting in the office of a pediatric rheumatologist with my 4-year-old daughter, whose knee was the size of a softball, wondering how in the world we ended up here. We had been through knee aspirations at the surgery center, specialists, testing, etc., with no answers yet. Did kids really get arthritis? Or–was it something worse?

always knew that I would have to teach my children how to be patient, but it wasn’t until a few weeks ago that it dawned on me that I needed to teach myself as well.