Picking Kids Up At School-Things They Don’t Tell You In The Carpool Lane

    Beware the dark scary high-wire act of motherhood that no one tells you about.      Until now.      That’s my job, reporting from the frontlines of a daily occurrence that was something in my pre-motherhood days I actually looked forward to.          I’m talking about—      The school pick up.      Pre-mommy me thought this would be a daily highlight!      After all, the kids have been gone all day.      You missed them. They missed you. As they

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Parenthood: Becoming The Fool I Warn My Kids About

           You could’ve warned me.             I’m talking to you, Dear Reader, who has been in this parenting game longer than the few years I have.             Why did you not explain to me that becoming a parent is perfect blueprint for looking like a fool?             Why is it that the very thing I try to warn my kids NOT to do I end up doing myself.?             Usually, of course, right in front of their faces.             I

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Why I’m Not Qualified To Parent A Teenager

My daughter just might be ready to call the authorities. Yes, it’s possible she might turn me in. Indeed, I must face the facts. The evidence. The now undeniable truth—I’m unequipped to be a parent to a teenager. Unequipped as in technically unequipped. Technically, as in technology. Technology as in, Dear Reader, how do you parent a teen when you have no practical life experience with the technology that steers, informs, controls, and inspires a teen brain? Truth is, this

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Oh, Yes I Did! Told Teen Girls What I Thought Of Their Fashion Choices

Maybe I should’ve kept my mouth shut. I find that a less attractive option the older I get. There’s that. Maybe I just shouldn’t have looked. But who could miss it? My eyes popped out first. Couldn’t Believe What I Saw Two teenaged girls behind me waiting to check out in the grocery store wearing shorts. Shorts. What an understatement that was. Shorts. Too long a word to describe the length of the garments on these girls. Hoochie mama shorts.

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The Day I Wish All Moms Could Have

Please catch my newspaper column each week in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the Dayton Daily News and other newspapers across Ohio.  Here’s this week’s column:     It seems unfair.      Really unfair.      It’s something so wonderful I wish all moms could have it.      And yet, only a small minority of us get to.      My fellow adoptive Moms, this is the column you could’ve written. That Sad Look         You know that sad look some people give when they see someone

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It’s Going To Be One Messy Year

Please catch my newspaper column each week in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the Dayton Daily News and other newspapers across Ohio.  Here’s this week’s column: Well, hello there, New Year you, who promises to be 12 months, 365 days, 8,766 hours, 525,948,766 of mess. It’s not that I’m starting the year as a Negative Nelly. It’s actually more about being grateful for what and who I have, which leads to reality, which in my case, and perhaps yours, means accepting life is messy. Anyone

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Thinking About Someone Special On My First Mother’s Day

             I think about her every day. We are forever linked through one of the greatest joys of my life. And I’ll never be able to tell her. That’s what I find myself thinking about this, my first Mother’s Day as a mother. I’ll never be able to say “Thank you” to the woman who started the job I’m blessed to continue. She is my daughter’s other mother. I’ve shared here in this column how I’ve recently come to

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Why Didn’t Anyone Warn Me Before I Adopted My Daughter?

  If I’d only known. Somehow, I thought by adopting a full-sized kid I would avoid biological changes to my body. Silly me. I met my daughter when she was 11. We finalized the adoption earlier this year. No, there were no post-pregnancy pounds to lose, as I had my figure back within minutes of signing those papers. I can’t blame any stretch marks on my body on pregnancy. Those were of my own making. But there is one key

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The Neighbor I Never Expected

Please catch my newspaper column each week in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the Dayton Daily News and other newspapers across Ohio. Here’s this week’s column: Leave it to my young teenaged daughter to succinctly describe a scene from the sitcom that is sometimes my life. “That awkward moment when you discover your gynecologist is moving in next door,” she said as she slid down in horror in the front passenger seat of my car. There is some teenager embellishment in

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