How to Order a Healthy Meal at a Mexican Restaurant

The Not Funny Stuff

It brings me so much joy to know I can make some of you smile with my motherhood disaster stories. I promise that I laugh every single day in spite of the craziness that is two kids one year apart. But I've also been given a teeny tiny platform and an even smaller soapbox to climb on occasionally and speak my truth from. I'm grateful for that opportunity because as scary as honesty may be, I want to share the not funny stuff. From NBC and onward, I learned that living openly had the power to touch more lives than slapping a smile on my face and answering "I'm doing great!" whenever people ask how I'm surviving. The truth is, as every parenting/mothering/toddlering/newborning blog will tell you, this time is not easy . It is really hard and lonely. It's squats and lunges for your character. People say unsolicited things to mothers with complete abandon and total disregard for how they might make a very fragile person feel. I'm guilty of this, t

Happy Birthday, Thanksgiving Girl!

One year ago, I was clinging to the hope that I would become the mother I so desperately knew I already was. I didn't know what it felt like to have my arms ache so badly after a mere trip around the grocery store. I had never gone without sleep for longer than a few all-nighters during finals. I still held onto the notion that I could never love anyone the way I loved my dog. I was praying for strength for myself and my family. And at this time last year, I was also praying fervently for the first mother my daughter had. Then and now, I believed wholeheartedly in her ability to parent and raise this daughter of ours. I would step in and do my best if she called me, but I had hope for her, too. If she changed her mind, it wouldn't be a tragedy for that little girl. 48 hours after her birth, Amelia's first mother, who wrote OUR last name on the birth certificate, signed a paper saying we were her parents. Forever. She made the bravest choice and a loving decision for her

Six Months

When I think about the fact that, as of today, I've been a mother for six months, I feel surprised. Such a short period of time, and yet it contains a lengthy list of changes. I was a mom long before I ever had a child that shared my last name. So is every other woman who longs for a child but cannot or has not been able to have one. It seems as if there is no way someone that was so recently a teeny tiny bundle of cells could change my life so completely in only half a year. But she did. And now, here we are, preparing for another baby to arrive by Christmas. I know the general opinion on a pregnancy after adoption is that we should be overjoyed at such a miracle. Don't get me wrong- WE ARE. But, I made peace with my infertility diagnosis. When Millie was born, my need to conceive a child of my own evaporated. I saw her as my own daughter, no different than if I had given birth to her myself, and it didn't matter that she didn't share mine or Eric's physical fe

Mama's Gotta Eat

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