A Mom's Life

We all need a personal cheerleader, mentor, adopted parent or coach. When I went to graduate school I thought I'd spend my working days in a basement playing with old stuff. I thought that works of art and poetry influenced me the most. It wasn't until the last several years that I began to realize how many people have made an impact on me and that I want to give that care back. Through fate and circumstance I'm becoming an actual career coach. I help young people figure out what they want to do with their lives. I love the clueless students the most because I am able to watch them grow and mature right before my eyes. I help them learn to hand in their back pack and pick up a briefcase and maybe understand that they're not going to be a CEO overnight. It's empowering to empower others. I've benefitted from many coaches in my lifetime from the usual suspects- parents, relatives, teachers and bosses to my friends. Sometimes when we're down in the dum...

I've been running since my senior year of college when my roommate convinced me to try laps on the track. I started by running half a lap and walking, run a little, walk a little. By the end of the summer I was able to run 3 miles and had lost my freshman 15 and then some. I continued running through the my twenties and through and intense amount of change. Three states, a plethora of part-time jobs, a broken love, a blossoming love, graduate school, a marriage, career, house and baby later and I'm still running. Regardless of my location or daily schedule, I've run 3 to 4 times a week from anywhere between 2 and 13 miles per trek. I did stop running when I was pregnant. Like many first-time moms, I wanted to protect my baby as much as possible and felt her safety and health took precedent over my love of exercise. It took me over a year to even think seriously about running again and only was able to get back into it with the love and support of my mommy friend Maria...

Do you remember what it was like to climb the monkey bars? Or wiggle your way down a slide to quickly turn around and scale back up it faster than you went down? Did you hang upside down from your knees, rock back and forth and flip to end up on your feet, or at least your hands and knees? We are in Minnesota this week at Andy's childhood home- a beautiful ranch in a quaint suburban neighborhood where one backyard weaves into another like a lush, rolling park. The neighbor's have a swing set and Caroline is learning to hold on to the big swing. She grips the ropes as tightly as she can, pushes her belly out over her knees and tips her head back to feel the wind on her face. We all take turns pushing her as she refuses to get off, unless it is kicking and screaming. She climbs the stairs of the tree house and waits for Mommy to clumsily follow behind. She sits on my lap and we slip down the slide. Our joint weight allows us to pick up some serious speed and we feel the st...