Second Son's graduation has me thinking about how I show up as a mom. I tell you, it's not how I thought I would back before I was one. When I became a mother, something inside me changed. Something went a little left. It's like a secret code was activated and now inside me lives a fierce warrior. When pushed, she pushes back. Hard.

Three years ago, I wrote about the value of a high school diploma. On this morning of Second Son's high school graduation, I'm proud to say he was one of the students who decided to flip the bird at me and cross over to the other side of the room.

I just did one of the hardest things to do as a mom: I pushed my baby out of the nest. Oldest Son came back to live at home, yet AGAIN, this past July. When he came home, he had a job, a car, a driver’s license, and car insurance. Gradually over the months since, he lost all of those. In addition, he lost his sense of autonomy and somehow lost track of his...

I heard my mother make comments all the time with my younger two kids like, “Oh my…this is like you all over again!” and “I’ve met this kid before somewhere…” and “I swear it’s like going backward 30 years!” All those times, I was generally amused, but didn’t really “get it”. Now, I...

Father’s Day is always a day of mixed emotions in my house. My oldest has a relationship with his father, and is now a father, himself. My middle child has no relationship at all with his father, and gets quite pissed off if you refer to him as that. He’ll tell you in a heartbeat, “I have no father…I have a sperm donor.” And my youngest...

Over the summer, Second Son came to the decision that he was ready to get serious about school and graduate. This was music to my ears, of course, because the first two years of high school for him appeared to me to be all about everything BUT getting an education and graduating. He’s had an interesting time of it this year because he’s fighting to catch...

I've always known my kids are smart. Most of the time, their smarts serve them well. But, on the odd occasion, their smarts get them into deep, deep doo-doo. PDD is eyeball-deep in doo-doo right about now, thanks to her smarts. Let me rewind.

One of Second Son’s classes this semester is Parent and Child Development, and one of the major components of his grade in that class is 48 hours as the daddy of a newborn baby. While this baby looks like an ordinary babydoll – don’t be fooled. The only thing this baby doesn’t do is move on it’s own. It’s programmed to cry, fuss,...

Ok, I feel I must warn you this post is probably going to be one of the more truly "unedited" posts of the year here. But, I believe everything happens as it does for a reason, so in keeping with the email Baby Sis sent which I share with you on the last post, I will attempt to be kinder than necessary...even if I don't want to. I will try.

Friday was Oldest Son’s girlfriend’s birthday, so this Grandma had two little ones spending the night. At this point, the best thing about Grandma’s house is all the computers, and beg and beg did they to ‘play game’. They are both potty-training, and were brought to me with underwear and no pull-ups. So, my first act of...