girl football player

Motherhood and Madden Football: Lessons Learned

  Motherhood and Madden Football are more than Xs and Os. Madden football taught me four important lessons about how to mother my daughters–and it’s not just hugs and kisses.   Lesson #1: Decisions. Decisions. I had to decide on my storage capacity. Upgrading my smartphone allowed me to increase the amount of storage space […]
relevant word_dictionary

Is Your Motherhood Relevant Or Relative?

Asking if motherhood is relevant is like asking a human body, “Do you need a brain?”  Every mom wants to feel needed. But isn’t that relative?   If you consider one definition of the word relative, then the answer would seem to be “Yes.”  Your daughter is connected to and (in the early stages) is […]
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Work Family Balance: How Do You Measure Up?

  “Give ’em an inch and they’ll take a mile.” This quote–often used in a negative context– is said when someone has fully used and gotten the most out of the little that they have in a situation. However, for the sake of this blog, let’s choose to look at this quote in a positive […]
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How To Help Moms Not Get Sick With Specific SICK Goals

In 1981, George Doran coined the term SMART goals as it relates  to the process of accomplishing one’s goals. While such goals do need to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant,  & timely, the pursuit of those goals can wear you out if you’re not careful.   Identifying a specific goal is very important. But, if […]
vision glasses book

A New Year’s Vision for 2020

If you’re anything like me, goal-setting is a mixed bag. There are a lot of good goal-setting frameworks out there, but they’re also easy to get tired of.   One of the things I’ve done in recent years to set better goals is write down all of my one year goals … and then rank […]

Getting On The Same PAGE With Your Spouse.

Ever feel like you’re not on the same page with your spouse/significant other (SSO) about parenting? Maybe you feel an issue with your daughter ought to be handled one way and your SSO isn’t backing you up. Or maybe your SSO gets very adamant about what, to you, seems like something small.   Feeling all […]
baby on blanket

Making College Move-In Day “Good-Byes” Good.

  College move-in day “good-byes” are never easy. Why? Because, move-in day good-byes are loaded with all sorts of emotions. Those emotions can contribute to a variety of reactions and responses. For some, reactions—emotions that “act up” again—can range from sadness to snot-crying. For others, responses can range from silence to a simply saying, “Bye.” […]
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Top 3 Lessons Learned: Why “LadyBird” Couldn’t Sing.

  Last night, I saw the movie LadyBird. It’s a poignant film about the relationship between a critical mother and a vocal daughter (“LadyBird”) during the daughter’s senior year of high school. Their outwardly volatile and contentious mother-daughter relationship is only depicted on-screen three times in the: car daughter’s bedroom kitchen. The rest of the […]
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How To Raise Independent Daughters: 7 Mistakes To Avoid

  On some level, every well-meaning mom wants to raise  independent daughters. However, sometimes that goal can feel unattainable when she is tugging at your leg or clamoring for your attention. Those “tugging” and “clamoring” moments get expressed in different ways at different stages of her development. Regardless of the stage, it’s in those moments […]
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How To Prepare Your Child For Kindergarten

She Shared A Kindergarten Knock-Knock Video A mom (“Susan”) recently showed me a short video of her child telling a “knock knock” joke at a pre-K graduation ceremony. From what I could see, this mom’s child was prepared for kindergarten. I watched the video of her little one standing up in front of an audience […]