While many of you know that I've been staying at home with the kids for the past several years, I also am a part of something else that I hold near and dear. And it's something I'm excited to be a part of because, while it has been indescribably rewarding to truly shape my kids and watch them come into themselves, I know that I personally have struggled with being "just" that. I say "just" in quotation marks because, obviously, being a stay-at-home mom is a full-time job. It's often times exhausting and thankless and stressful and is completely pro-bono 100% of the time. But for me, there were times that I would feel that I wasn't enough. For myself. Before we get into all of the reasons why I should be gentler with myself (and trust me, there are a myriad of reasons), I want to say with complete support to the mamas who have made and are making the choice to solely be with their kids, I see you. I hear you. You are amazing. And to the others who are going through their own struggles of having to work or choosing to work or even wanting to work, I see you, too. I hear you, too. And you are also amazing.

That said, I recently became the manager to the flagship store location of The LB Brand.

Jen Roberts, the founder of the brand (who happens to also be my most serendipitous friend), started this brand from her kitchen table when she was a new mom navigating motherhood shortly after losing her own mother. She found herself in motherless motherhood. Wrap your head around that. You know how moms rely on each other? Facebook groups, mom groups, "Moms Night Out"s all exist because of the community that is so vital in lifting each other up and supporting each other. And a huge part of being a mother is being able to go back talk to your own mom about experiences or difficulties or milestones that happen as they come. But she didn't have that. Instead, she took her pain and emotional chaos and turned it into what is now The LB Brand.

Anyone who meets her is immediately inspired. She exudes an energy about her that brings people to want to tell their own stories. She empowers those who have had their own traumas and challenges to breathe and sit with their feelings because, quite honestly, everyone needs to feel things to understand what's happening to them. And her brand, this company, embodies all of that.

The thing is, there is no one way to be a mother. It is life-changing, to say the least. Yes, there are parts of me that will always be the same. There are other parts of me, bigger parts of me, however, that have shifted and evolved into something richer and deeper, hopefully wiser and more patient. I couldn't be more proud of the place I work and its core message: Live Bold.

Admission: I suck at keeping up with this blog. I didn't use to. There was a time when I was hungry to write and ramble. I would write about daydreams I had, places I wanted to visit, food I wanted to eat and clothes I wanted to wear. That was a time before children and time seemed so much slower and haphazard. It has admittedly been harder to carve time out of my day to find a quiet moment to sit still, let alone focus on a post that I want to share. But amidst all the chaos that has recently been the norm in our house (School is back in session! Akira is in pre-school! Anaïs rides the school bus and is now in 1st grade! I'm working part-time! And still running a household and a puppy!), the dust settled, even if only for a moment, enough for me to breathe and get back into doing something I remember I once loved to do.

Last year, I made it a goal of mine to read more. Just how much more was up to me but I gave myself a goal of thirty books for the year. And guess what: I actually reached it. I read memoirs and both fiction and non-fiction works. I read books on social justice and culture, family histories and anecdotes from first-generation American writers.

Some books were just so beautifully written like Pachinko by Min Jin Lee and Nina Riggs' The Bright Hour. Dennis Lehane's Since We Fell was a four-hundred plus page thriller I couldn't put down. And Hunger by Roxane Gay was emotional and raw and made me feel so many different things. Reading so much last year rekindled my love with books and gave me a better way to wind down at the end of the night instead of mindlessly scrolling through all my social media apps on my phone. Reading made me more empathetic and allowed me to let my mind explore other worlds outside of my own. And I noticed that my children started picking up more books themselves!

This year, I'm going to make it a point to read even more. I'm shooting for forty books and would love recommendations from you! I'm currently in the throes of The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin and I'm loving every page so far.

So tell me, what should I put on my list this year?

IMAGE SOURCE

Being current on this blog has been quite the challenge for me over the past few years. It's not that I would forget--it's that I was constantly pushing it to the back of my mind because I felt I had nothing to say. I felt like my posts were stale.

We are hitting the road for a much-needed Spring Break getaway this week and I can hardly wait. Being from Florida and now living in Georgia, long drives are not foreign to me. And I like to take these moments as opportunities to listen to something captivating to make the time pass more quickly.

A few weeks ago, we had a little birthday party for Anaïs in our neighborhood park. She invited a few friends from school, we ordered pizzas from the shop down the street, we had cupcakes and juice boxes, sparkling lemonade and Pamplemousse La Croix. We had a piñata! The kids ran around and the parents hung back and chatted. Grandparents came in from out of town to celebrate the wonder that is Anaïs. Once again, my incredibly talented friend Kaleen captured the best moments for us without missing a beat. 


In the blink of an eye, my baby girl turned five. Five! It just seems so big, you know? Gone are the days of having to nurse her when she needed comforting. Gone are the days of having to change her diapers or potty train her. She no longer needs me to help her get dressed. She doesn't need me to feed her. She doesn't even need me to hold her hand going down a flight of stairs. So much happens leading up to five and when it arrives, it's just as heart wrenching as you imagined, if not more.