I’m not saying that kids these days are spoiled by the abundance of hot tool options that make literally almost any person able to avoid the Just-Stuck-My-Finger-in-a-Socket look that I rocked literally from seventh until 12th grade… Wait… actually I am.

So, you just had a baby. Welcome to motherhood! And welcome officially to The Dark Days of Your Nipples. (More on this later.)

I’m hardly a by-the-book person. In fact, the dozen or so books on parenting and baby sleep that I bought have all ended up serving as candle-holders on my nightstand, rather than actual resources to inform my mothering.

Let’s just take a moment and appreciate the extreme level of AWKWARD we experience every time we visit our OB/GYN.

In retrospect–and with a 5, 3 and 1 year old under my belt as my experience, so I guess not all that much experience, but certainly plenty enough to have some perspective–I can say that the moments I experienced any level of mom guilt have all been wasted moments.

It’s always fun to do things you’ve never done before, especially in your own hometown. I’ve done just about everything there is to do that tourist-y and fun in Pittsburgh, having been born and raised there, but there apparently was one fun thing that I missed in my 28 years there…

(*usually). Sometimes you get the crazy idea in your head that it is, in fact, possible to put on a full face of makeup with three young kids in the house. And then, you realize that you are a fool. A complete and utter fool.

So you may have seen it on my stories if you follow me on Instagram, but we went to the Indianapolis 500 with some family this past weekend, and I think I’m just now getting back on track with sleep and our schedules since getting home early Monday morning.

If you are anything like me, you’ve got a crap-ton of imaginary friends.My imaginary friends aren’t “imaginary” in the sense that they don’t exist; rather, they’re imaginary in the sense that they’ve never met me.

Today we found out that some sprinklers need to be fixed, there are shards of roofing littering the yard (no bueno for all the little bare feet that will be running about), the glass on the master shower is missing, and some other little things still need tweaking.