There comes a point — usually during bath time when someone is screaming, someone else is hungry again, and you’re pretty sure you haven’t had a warm cup of coffee since 2019 — where you wonder if your kids will remember anything good about their childhood. Not the vacations. Not the birthday parties with the … Read more
My living room floor disappeared under a sea of blinking, beeping, battery-draining plastic for about three years straight. Between Sarah, Maya, and Leo, we owned toys that sang at three in the morning, toys that needed a manual to operate, and at least two toys so “educational” they made my kids cry from boredom. I … Read more
Every summer, it happens. The kids have been inside for approximately forty-five minutes and someone has already said the words “I’m bored.” You point at the yard — that beautiful, green, perfectly good yard — and they stare at it like you’ve just suggested they vacation on the moon. That was my life with Sarah, … Read more
The sky opens up, the kids come crashing inside, and within eleven minutes flat someone is hanging off the couch and someone else is crying because they’re bored. You haven’t even had your second cup of coffee yet. Every parent I know has lived this scene. I lived it more times than I can count … Read more
There comes a Saturday afternoon when you realize your child has been staring at a screen for two hours and you have no idea how it happened. One minute you were folding laundry, and the next, you’re watching your kid’s eyes go glassy in front of a cartoon that requires absolutely zero thinking from their … Read more
The summer before Leo turned twelve, I made the rookie mistake of thinking he’d “naturally” put down his tablet once the weather got nice. He didn’t. He sat on the back porch in glorious June sunshine, headphones on, neck bent at a forty-five degree angle, watching YouTube videos about other kids playing outside. I wish … Read more
My youngest, Leo, once spent forty-five minutes trying to “wash” a smooth river stone with nothing but a puddle and a handful of dead grass. At the time, I was checking my watch every three minutes, thinking about the mountain of laundry sitting in the hallway and the fact that Sarah had a soccer game … Read more
The day Maya decided her afternoon nap was a relic of her “baby days” was the day I realized my afternoon coffee was no longer a luxury—it was a survival requirement. I remember standing in the hallway, watching her bounce a rubber ball against the baseboards while Sarah and Leo finally slept, and feeling that … Read more
When Sarah, Maya, and Leo were little, my living room looked less like a home and more like a plastic graveyard. I remember one rainy Tuesday afternoon, tripping over a neon-purple block while balancing a colander of spaghetti. In that moment of sheer frustration, I realized that while their toy chests were overflowing, they were … Read more
The summer my oldest, Sarah, turned twelve, I realized we were losing the battle to the “blue light glow.” Every time I turned around, my three kids were hunched over like little question marks, thumbs scrolling through nothingness. I felt like a failure. I was the “gentle parent,” yet I found myself wanting to hurl … Read more