End of year projects and tests are happening. Report cards are coming home soon. Teacher gifts will be delivered, graduations will be recognized, and your news feed will be filled with suggestions on how to craft the best end-of-year gift (monogrammed apple key chains! Thanks a “latte” starbucks gift card holders!) and how to make the most of summer. Make your own kite! Movies under the stars with a sheet and a projector and lawn chairs! Sidewalk chalk bombs and silly string

Sitting in the waiting room of a doctor appointment this week, and one of the lovely clinicians offers me a cup of coffee. I shouldn’t really, she says. It’s not for clients. But, it’s so early. Do you … No thanks, I say. I’m already over caffeinated and it’s only 8:30 am. We start to chat. She really needs the coffee after the morning she’s had, she tells me. Long story short: a disappointed kid, which makes for a guilt-ridden working mom. I promised her that not chaperonin

There are a few Regina Georges running around - and it always seems like spring brings out the worst of it. These kids have been in class / clubs / bus / sports / scouts together since September - not by their choosing, just by the dumb luck of being thrown into the situation - and they have had enough. They didn’t choose these kids to be in their constant sphere, but there they are. And I know, I know, we can’t always choose our colleagues / neighbors / committee members and

Get ready for some serious end game spoilers, since there are about 20 minutes left in the school year and that is just enough time for a few major calamities. First, brown bag lunches. There are 42 field trips between now and the end of May and you are going to have to send in a brown bag lunch to at least a few of them. No glass bottles, no reusable water bottles that you need her to bring home at the end. 100% disposable. The green new deal has exemptions for elementary sc

Here’s the dirty secret of mom-ing that no one tells you. It’s not a TED talk or a PTA agenda item. No one at a support group tells you this and it’s not a hot topic at play dates- becoming a mom means becoming an advocate. We advocate all the time for our kids. We do it with our families, their schools, other parents, sometimes even other kids. Consider the conferences, conversations, or coffees when you’ve been a defender or champion of your kids’ behavior or attitude. We a