Hey y’aaaalllllll. Been a minute. But I’m here to give my magical beautiful two cents to you on this balmy Friday in February. Sad that we think just above freezing feels like spring around here isn’t it?! So I’m home today and can’t even put the tv on because the news is just ALL TOO MUCH. It’s terrifying really. It makes me sick inside. Those poor children that were killed and all I can do really, is hold my babies tight all the time. Like…. even when we are sleeping. We’re holding onto each other. This last weekend Mav had the flu, and so did Dan, and I didn’t even have the much needed drink I was craving because I was afraid to ruin my immune system during a very trying time. As funny as the man flu jokes can be, the flu in my house for the last week was downright scary. Dan needed chest X-rays and Maverick, at 2am of course, had a fever of 104.2 degrees. It was scary and terrifying but it’s behind us now and we are healthy and thinking spring from now until she appears 🙂 my message today is a simple one. I’m always inspired by something, be it small or large, when I decide to write a blog. And this one just so happens to be one geared toward my kids. Because nobody loves my kids like I do, and it takes a village, and because once you’re a mom you’re everyone’s mom, and every other adage you can relate to raising a family. I want to encourage everyone to THINK HIGHER. Think BIGGER. Think above a situation. When a little innocent child asks for something, and I don’t mean another LEGO set, I mean when he asks you for your time, or for a special trip to New Jersey, or a certain thing for dinner – say yes. These babies are only so little for so long before we have to hand them over to this big and frightening world that isn’t it our very purpose in becoming parents to SAY YES?! We are the chosen ones, the ones God hand selected for these little humans. We have brothers and sisters and neighbors who are part of our tribe in raising these little beings. We need to show them love, and sometimes that means pouring from an empty cup just to top off theirs. To make them smile. To help them gain their independence. To let them know other adults will love them well. It means sacrificing your Saturday night out because they’re sick and you just can’t part with them. It means allowing your nieces to sleep over even if they wake up at 5am. It means bringing your nephew home at 11pm because he wanted his mommy, even though at 8 all he wanted was to stay in Mav’s bed! Its sharing clothes and toys and winter boots with family to save each other money. It’s encouraging independence while teaching them it’s ok to need your mom. That when people say no to them, you’re usually gonna say yes. Because you’re their parents. Because as much as I know my parents taught me a lot through setting healthy limits for me, I remember all the yes and the no was never said to me like that. So when raising these little kids, remember to lift them up. I read somewhere that it’s in the first three years of a child’s life where they develop emotional skills like learning how to love and be loved; when they figure out the fundamentals of who they’re going to be, like if they’ll be a leader, an empath, or a follower. They build their self esteem and self awareness in this VERY SHORT and sacred window. So if you’re not saying YES to loving and guiding them, you’re kind of saying no. Recently I was in a position where I wanted to shake a fellow parent and tell them to think higher, think bigger, think with love. But at the same time I have to remember that even though people may judge me, I’m not going to sink to that level. Even though people may offer me advice I never asked for, I’m still going to love better. Even when they try to make me feel like my bank account equals my societal status or makes me who I am, I must rise above. I know that the choices I’ve made in life and the choices I didn’t make led me to exactly where I was meant to be. Which is on my couch, with a cold cup of coffee, a baby asleep on my chest and a very tall very handsome three year old who still wants me to hold him when he’s tired. It led me to the man who supports us, loves us, and even though he is usually so strong, he can cry with me when our son has a scary fever. Truth be told, all I ever wanted to be was a mommy. A mommy to these two exact boys. These beautiful babies that God chose for me and chose me for them. I’ll do my best, and then I’ll do even better; for them. Because between me and Dan and a handful of aunts and uncles and our beloved nana and papa (and of course our guardian Gaga) we are all these little boys have. Our duty is to lead them. To love them. And to teach them exactly who they’re meant to be. I pray every night for all the babies in my life, the ones that call me mama and the ones who call me auntie. There is NOTHING more precious and fleeting than a child’s innocence so let’s try to preserve it for as loooong as we can k?! As for me, my newest challenge is that Mav asked recently to go to a hotel for his birthday and have a celebration there. It’s the last year before he’s in a classroom full of kids that he’ll want to invite to a party. So do I do it?! Do I grab a cake and a small gift and plan a 4 year old getaway for the weekend?! Dare I skip the birthday party, the piñata, the goody bags and all that jazz and give the boy what he wants?! Or do I do what society says to do and throw an over the top birthday party like I have every other year?! Stay. Tuned folks. I’m trying to think higher here and I do believe memories far outweigh another f’ing firetruck. Like by a lot.

Maverick and Ace, I love you bigger than the ocean, and higher than the sky. Being your mommy is my soul’s main purpose on this earth.

I read something recently called the 5 minute rule. No, not when it’s okay to eat food that’s fallen on the floor, something way more useful. The idea that if you don’t do something within 5 minutes your brain actually kills the idea. I started practicing this new rule right away as that’s what this little rule is entirely about. Not tomorrow, not more than 5 minutes from now, but within the first few minutes you think of something, you must act on it or you will talk yourself out of it and your brain will go the extra mile and kill and bury any idea you don’t almost instantly act on. So since I read about this almost 2 weeks ago, I’ve lost 5lbs, I’ve become a better cleaner and organizer, a better enjoyer, a baker, a donating son of a bitch, a better mother, wife and all around I’ve become less lazy, less OCD, and more of a doer. I’d like to thank my 2am breast feed session which turned into me finding the actual end of the internet and brought me to this article that I’m telling you, has been changing my life!

So here it is. As you all know, my mom is no longer walking this earth with me. Some of the long term effects have shown their ugly faces ever since the shock and disbelief has worn off quite a bit, and now I’m living this new life as I know it. I’ve always suffered from a touch of anxiety, so though the feeling isn’t new to me, it’s absolutely more prominent. Since I’ve noticed this new part of my DNA, I have to acknowledge the things that once came so naturally to me, now sometimes feel paralyzing. While I realize being a 30 something with two little ones to raise, a marriage to nurture, a career to succeed at, a household to run and my own body to take care of, is a daunting task at best some days; I’ve talked to enough moms to know this feeling isn’t just all that, but that coupled with the loss I suffered a year and a half ago. So on an average good day, there’s anxiety now, and the greatest sense of being overwhelmed by making simple plans or running a 10 minute errand, or how pure panic sets in when being asked to do otherwise fun things, anxiety over taking on new endeavors, setting new goals, anxiety and guilt and pressure to teach two children while keeping them SAFE, respectful, well fed, kind and wonderful, is. A. Lot. It’s a fucking lot ok! And some days it’s a struggle but this 5 minute rule is seriously helping me out. It’s also inspired me to make a vision board. One that has my greatest hopes, deepest wishes, and biggest aspirations for this next year. Ones for me, my husband, and my children.

The five minute rule has opened my life up to this idea that I don’t have to be perfect but I have to do more than just exist, I have to LIVE. And I have to live now. And while I’m living, to be intentional about the seeds I’m planting. And how I love and lead while I’m planting these seeds. And how the fruits of my labor will be so much sweeter if my seeds are planted on purpose with a love bigger than me. With an intention greater than me. With a legacy I want to leave behind one day, in mind. With my babies, my favorite humans, having the best possible mother because she is taking care of herself while taking care of business. I knoooow that life can be down right hard, bitter, nasty. And if you have one experience that has knocked you down, you well know that sometimes it takes a minute to get back up. But it’s in that moment you realize that the universe is inside of you, and you have to give it back.

If you’re one of the truly blessed people who have a love that created life, then I’m talking to you! It’s our purest most innocent and important duty in this life to be KIND, to teach love without limits, and to spread the light inside of us. Yes it is extremely cliche on the last day of a calendar year to want to change and be the change and be a light or a life vest or a ladder for someone who needs it, but what about starting with yourself this year. Be who your kids need, who your people need. Be intentional. Be kind. Plant little seeds all over God’s green earth and plant those seeds with love. Lift someone up. Help someone out. Let someone depend on you. Let your light shine! And seriously, idk what article it was but it lit a fire inside my heart and I just wanna be the best version of myself now because I know at the very end of it all, n o w i s a l l w e h a v e.

This year, I’ve asked my husband, on many occasions if he could just try to love me a little bit more since I miss my mom’s love so very much. I’m normally not a very vulnerable person, and I hate to ask for help. And it was HARD to explain what asking for extra love meant because I didn’t understand it myself, I just knew I needed to be loved a little more by everyone and anyone who ever loved me, so I could feel again, so I could love again, so I could be patient again. And though he didn’t understand what that exactly meant each time I asked for it, he loved me more than he ever has. He poured his excess into my soul and filled a void inside my heart with his big unconditional love.

Together, we created a new life this year, we continue to teach our oldest son how to be a wonderful human and it’s been our greatest joy to watch our children play with and love each other. We welcomed new life on both sides of our family, we added my sister and her two dogs to our already wild life, and we let go of some very toxic people. We’re trying to live a life we are proud of while doing our best to make sure our kids have two happy and healthy parents. We, like many others are vowing to take better care of ourselves this year. To love better, to eat better, and to be better. To rise out of a primal, survival mode way of living to doing things out of joy and happiness.

This last year I tried so hard to find the silver lining in every situation, even the extremely sad or very frustrating ones. 2018 my mantra will be pray and walk away. Because with all of this being said, there are some people who just aren’t worthy of my light.

So, as this year, the second year without my mother in it, and the year I learned what true hurt with no protection felt like, comes to a close, I’d like to thank you. For reading my rawest and most vulnerable emotions. For saying nice things. For even reading this little blog at all. I hope for health, peace, happiness and success in whatever version you need it, but most of all I hope your heart is light yet filled up, that your mind is happy and I hope that your soul is free. If it’s not, please do something in the next 5 minutes to help yourself, or ask someone to love you a little extra when you need it the most.

Happy New Year friends. And cheers to you my mama 💛🥂⭐️

Despite the hustle and bustle of this holiday season, the world is a little extra quiet today; covered in a blanket of snow as the rain drizzles over it to make for a perfect kind of feeling. I don’t know that the feeling is all sad but for lack of a better explanation I feel melancholy today. It’s the second holiday season without you here. And the saying “things have to fall apart to …..whatever whatever something positive” is completely applicable to life as I know it now. Everything has fallen apart. Yes we have been blessed with two babies that would be your absolute pride and joy on this earth right now, but life got otherwise, ugly this year. Uglier than the pain of watching you leave. There have been the lowest lows, and I can really only count very few highs inside this last year. So mom, my Christmas letter to you in heaven on year number two is still a sad one. My heart hurts every day, and now it hurts more than usual. As I’m realizing I’ve become the matriarch of this family at an age I didn’t think I’d ever have to be so …much. Essentially I’m filling some very big shoes with half of the experiences. Because, I was still learning from you. I had just begun to learn so much about being a mom from the best. The very articulate mastering of all the different kinds of love you gave. The wisdom you had coming out of every part of your beautiful mind. The power you possessed and the vulnerability you weren’t afraid to show. The way you made me believe in Magic. I am not a quarter of the woman you were when you left this earth. I am not a quarter of the woman you were at age 33. I will never be exactly you because God truly broke the mold when He sent you down. Mommy, I miss you. I miss the big outrageous way you loved me. I miss the way your voice sounds. I miss the way you would reassure me. The shock is gone. I’m not entirely sure I believe and accept that you’re really gone so I still hold onto some little shred of light that some way you could walk through my door today. Tomorrow. Or even better, on Christmas morning. I guess I thought the hardest part would have been watching you suffer. Watching you take your last breath. Going back to real life without my every day dose of you. That was all hard. But the cloak of sadness has come and gone and when it comes it’s usually just as heavy as it was on the 24th of June 2016. I have so much sadness held inside my bones, inside my brain, inside my heart tissue. And when these days that used to be filled with so much love coming at me from you, everything stops and it just hurts. My wish is to find some peace. Acceptance. I’m ready for the good times. I want to worry less and fill up with more love. I want to live and love more like you did. Fearless, out loud, big ass love. I want to feel as good as you used to make everything feel. Safe. Light. Happy. I miss you every second of every day and sometimes still get confused when I get the urge to call you. I know you’re proud of us kids. I know you long for the day you see us again. I know you are at peace. I just wish I could steal you back for a second. Oh what I’d do for you. I’d give it all just to spoil you at Christmas.To feel your hair in my hands. To sit close to you on the couch. To hear you cackle. To love you in person again. I’ll hold onto my memories, while they’re holding onto me. Merry Christmas my angel. I love you to the moon and whatever’s after that.

Ya know how every year when you put up the Christmas tree you reminisce about the people you love, with the people you love? Yeah. We did that this morning. My favorite thing still is unwrapping the ornaments and remembering what each one means. What each one meant. How some have dual meaning or a whole new meaning this year. How some you’ve forgotten what exactly they mean but they’re still so special to you. It was just dan, mav me and acey and we were decorating the tree when our jubilee was happily interrupted by a phone call from my favorite aunt. I like to think that when she misses my mom she calls me, because I know when I miss my mom she’s the one I go to. We talked about packages that are coming in the mail, and how a card I sent her, made her thanksgiving. After we hung up I felt filled up, but also felt the looming sadness overcome me once again. I blinked a few extra times for a few minutes to bat the tears away to try and make this moment unsad, but then dan started having a memory out loud. Funny how some things that surrounded my moms passing are still so foreign and not at the tip of my brain, because I was so razor focused on trying to freeze into my memory something else at that exact moment. But dan said to me today “do you remember when your mom was….” and trailed off because I guess it still sucks for dan too, to say “died” because dying sucks. Imagine that. So anyway he recalled her being so worried about Allie. Like terrified and probably one of the main reasons she ever fought as hard as she did. One of the main reasons she hid how terrible she felt all those months. One of the main reasons she really felt alive at all. She asked dan, and yes I was in the room, but this was her moment with dan and she asked him “who will take care of my baby girl” and dan with a stern face and all the warmth in the world inside his eyes, he made a single statement, two words, and with so much weight and promise he said “I will.” And she must have trusted him and known what a good man my husband really was.. is. Even in that moment we had no idea what the reality would soon become. Death and dying plays some funny fucking tricks inside your brain and heart and logic. After all we have been through in our family since my mom has left this earth, somehow we still have love in our hearts and we care for each other. As my mom would say “we really give a shit about each other!” Though somehow we have moved through the months and found ways to make the hurt, throb a little less, we are still hurting. We have learned a lot about how my mother was the glue, the woman and the man of the family. The matriarch. The queen. I suppose she was the king too. The one who kept it all together. The important things, the trivial things, important dates, little trinkets of love, boundary-less love. This holiday season has been, dare I say, harder than the first set of holidays without her here. Maybe because shock was still protecting me last year. Maybe because my grief and disbelief was thicker last year. Maybe because people we thought would never make this loss harder, have made it just that. Harder. Than it ever had to be. But this year it is front and center that when I need her the most, she appears somehow. Today it was a song stopping in the middle and then “happy holidays” almost interrupting the previous song. Fun fact: this happened while dan was memory-ing out loud, and happy holidays was a song dan would sing overrrrrr and over again, consistently, just one part to drive my mom NUTS. So mom, thanks for that. And dan, thanks for that too. I just wish I could sit around my Christmas tree with my mom. And since I can’t have my mom here with me and my babies and my husband, then I wish I could sit with all her best friends who would talk about her like the queen she was. Telling us tales and stories about their childhood, their teen years, catholic school days, raising babies days, karaoke days, just ya know, her best days. Who would have ever thought my mom’s glory days would be one of the things I wish I could hear about MOST. Ugh. My heart. Well, I want to wish all my people the happiest holiday season. Do things intentionally and with your heart exposed. If you don’t, it’s not worth it. Love harder than you have to, forgive, forget. Love people who love you. Protect the people who protect you. If someone wants to be in your life, you’ll know it, because it’ll feel GOOD. I hope everyone has a healthy, happy, blessed and of course MERRY Christmas. As for me I’m loving up my three favorite guys, my newest roomie, and oh – before I forget – I welcomed my first nephew on my side and he is the perfect, most dreamiest little Apache baby alive. Send him all the love and blessings in your heart for me, would ya? Because new babies deserve to be covered in l o v e.

Oh hi perfect 💙

My husband told me over coffee this week “you are definitely not a lefty” …… does your husband do that? Light heartedly make fun of you for something you did? daaaays later? So I threw a bottle of yellow mustard at him with my left hand WHILE holding my baby in my right because POST PARDOM. And TWO BABIES. And SLEEPLESS NIGHTS. HI TEETHING, lookin atchu. Oh my God. If you are gonna judge me please stop reading now. If you’re one to call CPS, please, the time to look away is now. This week I think 3 different times I sat in a parallel universe, honest to God not knowing what damn day it was. I cried. a lot. I didn’t take one photo of my children on actual Halloween. I missed the parade the Saturday before Halloween because I had to work. Still can’t decide if I’m happy about that or not 😂 but I missed it nonetheless and Dan had to get two kids ready and dress them up and take them out in public and remember to pack the entire house before he did so. Because GOD FORBID daddies have to deal with spit up, or a blowout. My personal fav is how a man will get a beach towel to clean up a baby’s spit up while moms are over here like “just throw up in mama’s hands baby, just please don’t puke on the floor. I literally just swiffered one hour ago just PUKE IN THE HANDS my babe. No but seriously, sometimes I think he should be the SAHD 4 days a week and I should work more because he’s like …….. riiiiiilly good at dadding. So uhhh, oh yeah ok also – get ready, I did promise a non highlight reel; I downloaded Talkspace this last week. What is talkspace you ask?! IT IS A THERAPY AP. As innnnn, I went to my iTunes store, purchased an application on my phone for one hundred and twenty six US dollars. So A, I now reserve all rights to laugh at and/or judge anyone who hates to spend $1.29 on your favorite new taylor swift single; and B, it’s official, there is lit.er.ul.ee. An ap. For everything. I already fired my first therapist though and DANG that felt good. He was just not emotionally available and I stopped talking to guys like that in my early twenties. So yeah, the jury is out on whether or not I’m a fan of this ap as I’m in the midst of requesting a new therapist. However what I did wanna talk about today, in summation of one of the worst weeks in a very long time for me, is the power of silence, alone time, and hanging out with yourself. Putting your hand on your chest and feeling your heart beat. Taking slow breaths in and letting them out. Being intentional about your tone of voice, the words you speak out into the universe and realizing when you’ve argued with 2 people in one day, YOU ARE THE COMMON DENOMINATOR AND YOU NEED TO SEEK HELP. In the form of a therapy ap maybe 😂 see what I did there? I sit on the shores of my thoughts sometimes, not as often as I’d like, no. But I do. And when I do, it’s so very clear to me how powerful it is to have some quiet time with yourself. That any one person carries an ocean inside them. There are high tides and low tides, beautiful weather and storms. There are forgettable moments when the sea is calm and there is a familiarity about the shore. There are unseen things below the waves, and beautiful sights sometimes grace the horizon. I’ve said this before and I will say it again. This advice is great and it is pure and comes from a place of light and a place of innocence. It is ok to break down. It is ok to let your pieces fall to the ground and let them lay there for a while. It is also okay to voice the way you feel to the people who love you in a civil, loving, intentional, progressive way. It is ok, and healthy to feel hurt, to feel sadness, and to feel overwhelmed. It’s ok to cry. For me personally, a good cry can solve most any bad days or moods, and a good cry can surely lead you up to your ocean and once you let it all out, answers appear in the very question you may have found yourself basking in. IT IS OKAY, to ask for help. To ask for a hug. To ask for forgiveness. Life can be downright nasty some days AMIRIGHT? It’s overwhelming, it’s daunting, it’s a challenge – almost every minute some days. But then, some days, you wake up and even though it’s raining, you have a heavy kind of happy sitting on your heart. These are the days that God made. Where he places good in between the ordinary, redundant, mundane days. These are the days that make us, that keep us going, that remind us that life isn’t all that bad, if only for today. Because isn’t that all we have? I hope everyone has a wonderful, happy and healthy weekend filled with your favorite and most prized people 💜

Dear mama,I miss you. I just really miss you a lot today. Maybe it’s the new season that has just snuck up on me for the second time since you’ve been gone. Maybe it’s that Halloween is over and I never took the boys to your house to trick or treat because ….. you’re not there. You weren’t there to open the door and scream with happiness at how adorable your two grandsons looked. You weren’t there with little mini cauldrons filled to the brim with candy for Mav, and one with teethers and safety lollipops you would have assured me Ace was old enough to eat. You weren’t there with your witch hat on, and your corn stalks and haystacks weren’t out front because you’re not here. You weren’t there and you’re not here and days like this just rip my heart out of my chest all over again. You’re not here today to push me to start our holiday shopping. You’re not here to buy me a much needed pressie since I don’t spend much on myself anymore and wanna spoil me just because. You’re not here to pop up and listen to these Christmas songs that are floating through the air on this cold November 1st. You’re not here to snuggle with Ace while he sleeps. You’re not here and I still struggle on a daily basis to accept that this somehow is still my reality. Life without you. Novembers without you. Halloweens without you. Thanksgivings and Christmases without. You. Today I remembered for the thousandth time, that you are missing from me. That you will never walk in my door with your thick long duster, your red and white Christmas scarf, with bags from Homegoods and Carters in hand, smelling like Calvin Klein’s Escape and the hint of a freshly smoked cigarette lingering in your hair when I come to kiss you and hug you hello. The heaviness of your death is still alive and well and I just realized today how bad this still sucks that you’re still really gone. That we have to endure, somehow, another Christmas without you. Another hour without you. Another minute, without you. It surely is a different world without you here. We have Ace and Maverick and sweet little baby Roman on the way just about any day now. We all miss you. Even when we’re smiling, and trying so hard to fill the ever growing gaping hole that you’ve left here on earth, it hurts. It’s excruciating really. Can’t even think about you without that familiar lump sitting on my throat. I continue to tell the boys about you. Every day. Reminding them of traditions you instilled in us, and make sure I’m passing them down. I hate how much these boys will miss because they’ll never know you. They’ll never really remember your love. The way your presence could fill up my entire house. Thankfully, you loved me well enough, big enough, and hard enough for me to be able to mirror that love, and pour it into them like you did to me, I’ll sprinkle them with love sugar and teach them all about your specific, special kind of love. Mav loves to cook with me, and it’s so special because I remember loving to cook with you. Ace has Grammie’s mannerisms at just 4 months old so I know for sure when he was up there he was being molded by two sets of the greatest and loving hands he could ever be touched by. As for me, I weep with sadness for all the things I’m missing out by not still having my best friend by my side. I want you to know I love you. And I miss you. And I would do anything to have you back for just a moment this holiday season. My wish is for us all to please remember just how precious and short life really is. Do what makes your mom happy this season. Make the trip to see someone you love. Be kind to people during this time of year. And light a candle for someone you’ve lost. If you’re blessed enough to have everyone you love with you still, say a prayer for somebody whose surely missing someone dear to them on this first day of a very hard season. May God bless us all ❤️

For the first time in like, a while I woke up this morning and I felt good. No anxiety, no looming feeling. I sat with a hot cup of coffee before 8:30 and the baby fell asleep for his morning nap. Mav ate a healthy well rounded breakfast, my husband is working in the neighborhood and has guys working in our house, so my level of happy has far exceeded normal expectations for a regular Thursday morning. So here I sit. Surrounded by yet another new situation that life has presented me with. This past week my sister officially moved in to this crazy life of mine. Lock stock and barrel. We now have added two more dogs to the mix, bringing the grand total of fur babies under one roof to FOUR (send tequila, and quick). Y’all know already how I feel about my sister, she’s like my favorite human, my diary, my mirror, the personification of love, my sister soulmate, she (and my brother) are the closest things on earth that resemble my mom as far as humor, speaking with just one look, and after party gossip seshes go. Allie and Chris are some of the only ones who know all my secrets. My fears. My childhood memories. We truly belong to each other now. And I suppose we always have. 
So it has been one of my life lessons that life doesn’t hold back on anyone. For anyone. Life gets downright hard, and then it gets a little bit harder, and then it knocks you directly on your face and kicks you in the gut when you’re down. If you know what I’m talking about, then I hate that you do. I wish nobody understood how this felt, but I know so many of us do. So, sometimes you need someone to pick you up and hold you for a while. Or, if you need a minute, hopefully you have someone to lay down beside you and cry along with you. Sometimes the people who promised never to hurt us, well they damn well don’t keep their promises. You fake the smile and try to lessen the pain when in reality your heart is breaking inside. It’s very simple, and I’ve learned it doesn’t just apply to one person but to all of us. 
If someone wants you, they will show you they want you. If they love you, they will use actions to deliver that love. If someone is interested in your well being, they will speak with kindness and compassion to help lighten the load. When someone begins to put up boundaries and rules in love, it starts to feel a lot unlike love and more like something else I can’t quite find the word for just yet. 
We are all worthy of love. I’ve said this before, but imagine your mother. Imagine her smile. The way her hugs feel. Wow I’m already crying. Ok. So next, imagine the look on her face when you just know by that exact face that you made her proud. Perhaps you can even hear words your mom has said, or says to you when you need to hear it most. Hopefully by now you’re feeling warm in your chest, and excited in your throat. I hope a smile is playing upon your lips by the thought of your mother. The way she taught you all these emotions simply by LOVING you. The way she taught you love, JUST by loving you. She may not have even known what she was doing, and you surely didn’t when she was, but now here we are, grown, and comparing all love to that of a mother’s love. And friends, THAT is the love we all deserve. 
So today, and this weekend, and for the rest of your days here on earth, when you go out into the world – love your people like this. Take them in, protect them, and love them. Love them like they’ve never been loved. Celebrate each other, be happy for one another. As I get older I realize really how simple it all really is. Just to be kind and find a balance in life where you can create a legacy of love with your peeps. We, are all we have, so we might as well be good to each other. Or even great. 

So, here I sit on a Friday night a little after 6 o’clock, I’ve got Panera’s southwest-chicken-lime-hold-the-chicken salad in my belly, hocus pocus on my tv and a glass of relax collecting condensation to my right. Oh, and a baby on my boob. And a toddler sleeping. And my house is immaculate because we’re having Ace baptized tomorrow and mama splurged for cleaning lady extraordinaire, the fabulous and wonderful, always beautiful ~ Meredith. I spent my morning with the littles and Miss Meredith, and instantly wondered again why mom dates aren’t a thing. I had no bra on, and I’m pretty sure my left breast was leaking and guess who didn’t judge? MY GIRL. A few sentences in I think we both realized we need to do this very soon and with wine. Because ya know what? Parenting isn’t for pussies. Parenting is not for the faint of heart and one single normal 17-track minded conversation between two adult women in the morning over a hot cup of coffee is like a dream. It’s like a fantasy fucking vacation to be honest. Motherhood can be so lonely and ….isolating. You wake up before your kiddos and go to bed long after they’ve fallen asleep. You think for them, clean up after them, teach them and try to always have happiness in your tone. You decide between sitting in silence and drinking wine, or folding the laundry. You give give give and though its so extremely rewarding, let’s be honest, a little take would be happily welcomed. You must have the longest fuse and more patience than a person who might enjoy watching a pot of water boil. You have to think for another person/people before you ever even think of yourself. Like; today I bought my panera salad around 2 o’clock for lunch and just ate it @ 6 o’clock for dinner. Why? Because Mav NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDED a bike ride mom!!! Only to ride said bike for ten minutes before I had to push it home because being a bike riding tot is EXHAUSTING (for me). Then we come home, split the honey do list between the two adults and boom, candy corn like confetti all over the freshly cleaned floors… Needless to say, I took the part of the honey do list that allowed me to leave the house 😂😂 Yeah, I don’t remember the last time I took a shower alone, or the last time I’ve been alone period – and planning a simple event like the christening of my sweetest new addition has turned into a month long planning extravaganza and mama is TIIIIIIIIIDE. Say it with me, tiiii-erd. My babies have itchy noses and I have the beginnings of a sore throat but who cares?! Tomorrow is bring your baby to Jesus day and there is just no time for mom colds because PARENTING IS NOT FOR PUSSIES. As I sip my wine, I realize my baby is still on my left nipple and I can’t remember the last time I heard him actually drink, but there is a thing called silence, and like all the finest things in life it is not free and it is damn hard to find inside these very trying and tumultuous early years of parenting. As for me, tonight I’m choosing wine over laundry and I say cheers! To all my mom friends. To all the moms who do it all, cook. clean. work. love and give the very best of themselves, to these tiny little humans who have no idea that sometimes they are dancing all over our last nerve. That we cry in our cars. That we order takeout because all that getting a dinner on the table requires was just impossible this week. That our time together is precious, but how very important it is to find a time inside this weekend to take ten minutes to ourselves. If we don’t fill up our own cups, whose gonna?! Right? Right. So. May your cup runneth over this weekend. With wine, family, love, friends and sunshine. Drink it all up. As for me I’ll have all my favorite people under one roof tomorrow night and my heart could only be happier if somehow, some way, my mom could walk through that door 👑

Today I woke up and realized my son has had the same outfit on since he left nana’s on Tuesday. Is that disgusting? Yessss. Am I a little appalled by myself? Yes. But, does it really matter? No!! He’s having a good old fashioned, down home, drink from the hose kinda summer and I kinda love it. His dirty little feet are wiped every night, his little man-body is checked for ticks, and he’s slept for 13 hours each night for the past two nights and eats me out of house and home upon awakening, but hey he’s mine and he’s perfect!! So, yesterday was anxious filled until it wasn’t and all morning I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. But it never did, and I was petrified it would carry over into today, and poof I woke up and it’s all good! Sidenote: I did indulge in a few beers from 2-10 o’clock, and then had a bomb dinner with some wonderful live music, and then ice cream at Martha’s, because hi my best friends are in town and I never see them and I’ve been living on this pseudo vacation mode I like to live in during the month of August as to suck up all the remanence of summer, so give me all the summer shandys (yes I’m breast feeding, and I drink, because – wait have I already said this? – my milk supply is on FLEEK, and my freezer is flowing over with golden frozen goodness), all the neon, and all the humidity that my hair can stand because SUMMERRRRRRR!! I realized that it truly is what you make it. Ever since my mom left this earth exciting things that used to give me butterflies, sometimes give me next level anxiety now, but all my peeps near and dear know this, so I don’t know why I worry. I wish I could stop! Someday. And some days are still hard and I may just be really pleased with myself at how fucking amazing my laundry smells, or how I could brag about being a professional blanket thrower, because it’s the little things that mean so much (Luda voice!) and I’m kicking the SAHM games ass 4 days a week, so I’d say I’m doing ok! I even cooked a quinoa summer salad that I’ve been asked time and time again for the recipe! That never happens! Also, I bought an eggplant yesterday and I’m gonna fry the heck outta that sumabitch like my mama would have and make her do a little happy dance up in heaven that I’m frying shit and not baking it and that’s the kinda world I wanna live in. Also we had an electrician here all week who is legit the happiest man alive, and he put little nightlight outlets all throughout my house so I’m just gonna throw it out there into the universe and say, that it’s me, I’M the one having the best week ever! So hey universe, thanks, keep that shit up! I love you too 👑