Something Jason and I struggle with is making sure each of our individual children get enough quality one-on-one time with us. We finally seem to have hit a solution by just picking random dates on the calendar and marking them off as "Mom and Ike Night" or "Dad and Ezra Night." We have no specific plans for what we're actually going to do on those nights, but dammit, we're going to do something. For the last couple months, Mom and Ike night has mostly been about ribs. Ike loves ribs. He is otherwise our pickiest eater by far, but ribs, man. He will eat the shit out of some ribs. Chocolate milk is another must for Mom and Ike Night. (Please note the happy face drawn on the chocolate milk. He did that because that's how chocolate milk makes him feel. Thank you, chocolate milk!) These nights are a screen-free zone, so we usually bring along some word searches and books and art supplies. (And plushies. So, so many Very Important Plushies.) This past Wednesday was our latest Mom and Ike Night, and our plan was ribs, chocolate milk and a trip to Michael's for more art supplies. We ordered... Read more →

When Ezra was in third grade, I sat at a parent-teacher conference and listened to a teacher describe him as smart, but kind of lazy. His desk and backpack were a mess, he could never seem to find the right folder or worksheet, his homework was occasionally lost or late. She asked us about his nervous tic -- hands tightly clasped together, brought up to his mouth, then a strange tensing up of his entire body followed by a sharp intake of breath and a small shuddering shake/rattle. It started in kindergarten, we told her. He says it's just because he's excited. We figured he'd just outgrow it at some point, but it hadn't happened yet. When Ezra was in fourth grade, his teacher described him -- a little more generously this time -- as a daydreamer who required frequent reminders to stay on task or pay attention. He got B's and C's on his report card, and was overall a pretty average student. He tried the violin, and then cricket, quitting both in fairly short order. He began complaining that he didn't have any friends, that no one wanted to play with him at recess, and he stopped joining... Read more →

So I mentioned in the thredUP post that we went cold turkey on paper towels. This is a topic that I am 100% sure some other blogger wrote about years ago, and I am also sure that -- at the time -- I rolled my eyes so hard because that's some sanctimonious hogwash. Paper towels? Really? Sorry, I live in the REAL WORLD with REAL CHILDREN; gimme that good Quicker Picker Upper action. But now the planet is on fire and my kids are coming home from school crying about the polar bears dying, and why isn't anyone doing anything to help the polar bears, and I admit to having had SEVERAL Amy-Poehler-in-Wine-County style breakdowns over the last couple years. (Usually after consuming Amy-Poehler-in-Wine-Country levels of wine, but still. I CARE REALLY HARD!) Anyway, I thought we made the switch just a couple months ago, but after combing through the photo evidence, we've actually been paper-towel-free since July, when I first spent an evening cutting up a stack of Jason's old undershirts into a satisfying stack of rags of various shapes and sizes. Of course I took a photo of them. It was probably the most I'd accomplished in a... Read more →

This post is sponsored by thredUP. I recently attempted a closet purge. (And by “recently” I mean “my closet barfed all over my bedroom floor and I’ve only cleaned up half of it.”) I’ve known for awhile that I was developing a Fast Fashion problem, and then Jane Fonda announced she would never buy new clothes again and showed up at the Oscars in an “old” dress looking like honest-to-god FIRE, I thought, “YES I TOO SHALL BE A SUSTAINABLE QUEEN! I TOO COULD HAVE A DRESS LIKE THAT IN THE BACK OF MY CLOSET AND WOULDN’T EVEN KNOW IT!” So far, such a dress has not emerged, but I realized I wasn’t “developing” a Fast Fashion problem. I had one. So many Target impulse buys! So many cheap graphic tees and black cotton tank tops! So many things I bought online and didn’t end up loving but was too lazy to return! So many things I’m holding onto for no real reason other than a weird wardrobe form of FOMO. (Like, I found a dress that I guess I could wear to Da Club? But I don’t go to Da Club? I don’t even know where Da Club is?... Read more →

I can't count the number of times I've heard (or read) someone point out the fact that "ADHD presents very differently in girls vs. boys." And I would nod in perfect agreement, because yes! I have heard (or read) that many times! But if you'd asked me just how, exactly, ADHD presents in girls, I'd have absolutely no idea. "Differently," I'd probably answer in a serious and authoritative tone, because I love to bullshit my way through questions. "ADHD presents differently in girls." I mean, not shocking, as I do not have a daughter and certainly never struggled with ADHD as a child myself. Until I learned that actually, I probably did. (Struggle with ADHD as a child, that is. I did not discover the existence of a long-lost daughter I forgot I gave birth to. Just wanna make that clear,) Still maybe not all that shocking! I only learned the specifics of how ADHD presents in adults like, last month! And only went to my doctor two weeks ago like, uhhhh I think this is me? And I was right and it totally was me and now I'm finally medicating the right part of my brain for the first... Read more →

Let's take a short break in all the mental health content and get back to what I'm best at: Overly long and involved stories about pee. (Will Vyvanse effect the number of parenthetical tangents in this post? No idea! Let's find out together.) So first, an update: Tormund the foster cat is still here. During his time as the January Pet of the Month he did get a couple of inquires and even one application, but alas. No adoption. He's spending more and more time upstairs, thus retiring his "Basement Cat" nickname in favor of "Torrie." He still prefers to spend the night in the basement guest room, but will now cautiously accept the occasional company. Since the basement guest room and bathroom are also occasionally needed for human guests, we moved his litter box upstairs, next to Finn and Rey's boxes. (Inside what COULD be a wonderfully useful walk-in coat closet, but thanks to the wall-to-wall litter boxes, it is the Unholiest of Unholy Places, and we do not speak of it.) (It is also where we store all our IKEA shopping bags, and where we conveniently forget about them whenever we go to IKEA.) He seemed fine with... Read more →

Well. It sure has been a WEEK. Or technically, it's been three-and-a-half days that FELT like a full week. It's also been a roller coaster of emotions and a water slide of productivity, and okay, that's enough silly metaphors for today. Sometimes, I'm like THIS! But then I realize I need to change that first lyric from "For almost 30 years I knew something was wrong" to "For over 40 years," and suddenly I'm less at the 'I Want' Song portion of my life's imaginary musical and more like TIME TO ANGRY DANCE! (I only said I was done with the silly metaphors. I still have plenty of oddly-specific yet thoroughly tortured ones left.) "What if it was ALWAYS this?" I asked Jason last night, almost through tears. "What if everything, all of it, was actually just this?" I was angry and frustrated because the Vyvanse was working. Because I could clearly, easily and unequivocally tell the Vyvanse was working, because the Vyvanse kicks in your brain door and flips whatever switch it needs to switch within a couple hours. As opposed to an antidepressant that you need take for at least a couple weeks before you can decide if... Read more →

So this happened. I, a grown-ass 42-year-old woman, was (just! like yesterday!) diagnosed with adult ADHD. I imagine a lot of people are reading that and thinking, "Well, yes, Amy. Have you met yourself? Ever read your writing?" Other people who've known me for years, on the other hand, have already responded to the news with, "Huh. Really? Are you sure?" Either way, it feels weird! I have two different children with two different flavors of ADD/ADHD, so you'd think at some point (like maybe while filling out my four dozenth Vanderbilt parent rating scale) I would've stopped and thought, gee, this feels familiar. But it's that "adult" bit, which is admittedly different. I don't think I ever looked up that particular symptom list or that specific rating scale. And why would I? I was a quiet, well-behaved child who earned straight A's all through school and college. I landed my first real editorial job before I even graduated, and accepted my first big promotion the same day I left to go take my final exams. I used to churn out 10, 15. 20 blog posts a week for years without even part-time childcare! And I've spent more than a... Read more →