It happened again, ladies. January came creeping quietly in while we were polishing off the last of the fudge and shoving the ribbon box to the back of the closet. Sneaky how it does that.
But I'm ready to greet it if you are. In fact, there's really no better way to look a new month, new year and — gulp — new decade in the face than to link arms and do it together. While laughing our tails off.
I'm a journalist, author and overwhelmed mother of two, and I'm here to dish with you about the puzzles and peeves of parenthood. From diapers to Disneyland, from Pilates to pinatas, together we'll mine for meaning in the mind-rattling and soul-nourishing exercise that is motherhood.
Have a good giggle at my unusual name. Some of what it implies is true: Yes, I'm a Californian. Yes, my parents wore love beads and too much fringe. But you'll find my take on kid-rearing to be neither hippy-dippy nor dusty old-skool — just unabashedly and, I hope, humorously honest.
Let's face it: We're not just moms. We're daughters and sisters. Wives and girlfriends. Workers and voters. We're women — and hotties at that. Guiding our spawn into adulthood is life-affirming work, but it's hard. And it helps to talk about it.
With a reporter's curiosity and a reputation for telling it like it is, I'll post candid, current musings here on birthday parties, carpools, homework, sitters, dinnertime drama and moms-in-the-news. I'll prod you for insight and read your feedback with relish. With any luck, our discussions will bring us all the peace that comes from proving that — ultimately — none of us really knows what the heck we're doing.
Let's make a pact as we stare down 2010 and dive into it together: This year we'll parent smart. We'll parent sassy. We'll parent with style. And we'll give the stodgy old Mommy cliche the spanking it deserves.