Rage Against The Minivan

Today's guest post is from my dear friend Kelly Wickham Hurst, who is a 23 year public school veteran both in the classroom as a teacher and as an administrator for the last 10 years. She recently founded Being Black at School to advocate for the marginalized Black students who still, according to data and research, are disciplined at 4 times the rate of their white peers. Kelly asked me to sit on the board of this organization and I was happy to join her. She is the married . . .

On September 11, 2001, I was awake much earlier than I wanted to be . . . struggling with insomnia and watching mindless tv to try to get back to sleep.  I don’t remember what I was watching, but I do remember the program was interrupted to report on the first plane striking the tower.  It seemed like an awful accident, and I watched in horror, wondering how this could have happened.  When the second plane crashed, I woke up Mark, and we watched together in a state of shock.  . . .

On Thursdays, I post from the vault. This is from August 2008 There are so many days where, as a mom, I feel completely unequipped. I am often looking around and feeling like I am the ONLY mom fumbling this much and in so much chaos. I am the mom who forgets water bottles at playgroup, who forgets sunscreen at the beach, who forgets to pack lunch for preschool, who forgets the helmet at the skate park. I try very hard to overcompensate for this by being "intentionally organized". I . . .

My kids went back to school this week, and not a moment too soon. This summer . . . ugh. In theory I love summer. In practice it kind of sucks. Working from home with four kids around is not for the faint of heart. I was exhausted and constantly distracted and irritated and the kids were bored. I think even they were ready to go back to school. I realized while taking these photos that this is the last year I will ever have all my kids at one school. Jafta and Karis will never again attend the . . .

Here is a little tip for how I remember to have ongoing conversations about sex in our house:  I do it every Labor Day.  I'm firmly of the belief that the "sex talk" should be a continued developmental conversation that evolves and educates throughout childhood, but it's easy to let years go by without making the time to broach a topic that, at least in our house, kids would rather avoid. So Labor. Day is a reminder for me to do an annual check-in with my kids around their . . .