They sit there on my nightstand, stacked eight high, their spines decorated with pastel flourishes and encouraging titles. They are the Leaning Tower of Promise. A promise I never tapped into. Yeah, I’m kinda stupid like that.

I love being able to share with you all the big milestones in my life. It’s not my style to shy away from uncomfortable or personal topics, and I love hearing from all of you about everything from motherhood to fashion and beauty products, the work/life “balance” (quotation marks because HELLO, you big lie of a phrase!), and all the other changes and transitions that life doles out.

As if pushing a tiny person out of a small part of your body weren’t task enough, mentally preparing for labor alone can also be quite a chore.

I was 7 or 8 years old, walking circles through the handbag section of TJ Maxx, desperately searching for my mom, when to my relief, I finally heard her calling for me just a few racks away.

There are few things that humble a woman like going through a pregnancy. The physical changes alone are enough to stilt the swagger of even the most confident of women.

It was as I was walking The Green Mile toward the scale at my 31-week appointment that I considered, briefly, tearing off my sneakers to knock off a few pounds from the final tally.

Since buying our first swaggin’ wagon, I have come to realize something: There are two types of people in this world—people who care what you think about their car, and people who get minivans. I am the latter.

See that picture? That was my darling little daughter, three times, last night. Two of the three beds in our house have been christened, we had to do a 4am bubble bath to get the vomit out of her hair (hope you’re not eating breakfast!) and I woke up to three fragrant piles of dirty laundry to wash.

The closest I ever got to being in jail was, well, being in a jail. The Allegheny County Jail, to be exact, in Pittsburgh. In seventh grade, on a field trip for MADD. All it took was one look at the toilet in the corner of the shared cell to convince me that the slammer was not the place for me.

If you’re anything like me, you wait until the last possible moment to get the nursery everything in life done on time.