Dear Molar

Dear Molar, Listen, I try really hard not to be a helicopter mom. I don’t like to hover over my daughter and I like to give her the space she needs to grow and dream and eventually move out of my house and provide me with many grandchildren that I can cuddle and give back

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A Post Abroad

The itch began innocently enough with a series of gut pings – the precise way my biggest decisions often do. A trip overseas (ping), an e-friend and former expat’s book release (ping), an invite to Singapore and Amsterdam this year (ping, ping), a slow trickle of friends shifting across the pond for work and play

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Weekend Scenes

You can always tell when the Loechners have a project in the works, because there are extra dishes in the sink and repeat jazz music on the speakers and it usually means one of us is procrastinating on an even bigger project. For the past year, Ken’s been slowly-but-surely finishing our basement (that man is

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Raspberries and Renaissance

Ken and I had one of those quiet, non-interrupted dinners last week where the conversation kind of swims around from pizza to work to friends to – hey, what are we doing with our lives? It’s a rare occasion these days, because sometimes big ideas come up and my body is just kind of too

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A Gray Area

I’ve heard it said – in many variations – that peace is not the absence of chaos. It is, instead, a state of mind – the ability to rise above anxieties and fears and gain a sense of perspective that might dispel a brief, but great, moment of tension. And if that’s true (I think

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Diaper Bags

I received a request to share my favorite diaper bags, so poof: here they are. I’ll first note that – being a total baby novice – I had no idea that diaper bags were essentially just glorified totes. Sure, they come with bottle insulators or changing pads or special zipped pouches, but necessities they are

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Gravity

A few weeks ago on Clementine Daily, we ran an incredible interview with Mae Jemison, the first female African American astronaut to enter outer space. It’s such a monumental thing to speak with someone who has accomplished so much – with such grace – and I was amazed at the perspective she held close to

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