Mom life starts at conception and the adventures never really end…..

I’m a mom, but I guess you already knew. What you may not know is I’m a mom in a blended, very nontraditional family with seven kids. No, you don’t need to read that again; I said SEVEN. Like 1-2-3-4-5-6-7. The days in a week or if you’re a mom of boys, it might be the number of times today that you’ve said the phrase, “Why does it smell like urine in here?”

Why do I bring this up?

It’s the first thing that people seem to focus on when they meet me nowadays.

Wow, seven teenagers. You must be nuts.

Wow, seven kids…… I pity you

Wow, seven kids. Why would you do that to yourself?

However, seven I have and seven I would not give up.

Now that we’ve gotten past that nugget of information, let’s move on.

I’m in the process of finishing my bachelor’s degree and I work full time at a job I love. I am a bit of a nerd and I tend to steer toward things that one might consider geeky like reading for leisure and watching “Jeopardy” to learn things. I love to hike and take pictures and I’m a yoga enthusiast. I’m also a taco enthusiast, though. Life’s about balance, friends.

More importantly, I’m a parent and one that believes that there is not one right way to do this job. I believe there are some staples, of course, but that different families work different ways and that even different kids from the same family sometimes require different parenting techniques. I think there is far too much judgment in the world about how this job needs to be done and, as Dr Phil says the argument becomes “I’m right, you’re wrong. Take no prisoners.” The reality of it, though, is that we’re all in this together and it takes a village to bring up the next generation of truly great people that starts with mom-ing (or dad-ing) your brains out.

I’m far from an expert. I’ve been working with kids from day one and I continue to do so now, on top of parenting. Life experience has given me differently abled kids, stubborn kids, hurt kids, happy-go-lucky kids, free-spirited kids, strong-willed kids and everything in between. Normal is relative, folks. Let’s tackle this mom-ing thing together.