Mark your calendars for Monday, January 26th as the writers of Silicon Valley Moms Group discuss the book, Who By Fire, authored by Diana Spechler. New York City Moms Blog, where Diana currently lives, will be hosting. Given what is…

Continue reading → Who By Fire: SV Moms Group next Book Club Day is scheduled for Monday, January 26th

Having three kids aged almost 5 and under and living in a very small house (under 1200 square feet for a family of 5) in Silicon Valley, our living room/dining room/kitchen (it is all one room - a”great room” concept,…

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Continue reading → One adult chair in an otherwise chaotic house

Last night marked the beginning of Operation Cry-It-Out in the Maynard household. And boy are we tired. But the Operation must continue and failure is NOT an option. Our first child is and always has been a sleeping champ, so…

Continue reading → Operation Cry-It-Out Has Commenced

Before I got married, I regarded myself as a person who was on the “neat” side. If I were to take a one of those personality surveys you find in magazines, I’d easily check off “organized” as one of my…

Continue reading → Next Year, I’m Really Gonna Stop Piling

The holiday season may be time for special family events, but when it comes to boys - they still need an energy outlet. My boys are great at school, other families houses or any time they can go outsideto play….

Continue reading → Emergency Visit to Laser Quest

Last night it was raining. Normally I love the sound of rain pitter-pattering outside my window. But not now. Not in this old apartment. For some reason, the rain gutter right outside our bedroom window has issues. LOUD issues. Whenever…

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Continue reading → Embrace the crazy!

Being a mom is the hardest job in the world. I’ve heard it said time and again. But, it really is true. The reality of this thought hit home recently, when an opportunity to enter the professional workplace again crossed…

Continue reading → No Paid Time Off for This Mommy

Dinner is the only meal in which I require everyone to sit down at the table. It’s an important tradition from my childhood. As a busy working mom, dinnertime is the time to reconnect with my family. We talk about…

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Continue reading → Food Fight

Here we are at book club again at Silicon Valley Moms Group, as announced last week, and Silicon Valley Moms Blog is hosting. Today, we are talking about The White Trash Mom Handbook, authored by our own Michelle Lamar from…

Continue reading → Parenting for the School Aged Years - A book club for The White Trash Mom Handbook

In addition to my excitement about Barack Obama becoming our next president, I’m really excited to see a mom like me (no “just”) heading to the White House. During the election, much was made of Sarah Palin’s “just like me”…

Continue reading → A Mom Like Me in the White House

We all know that times are tough right now. No matter where you live, families everywhere are struggling to make ends meet. But I’m feeling pretty lucky right now. I’m so relieved I’m not one of those moms who’s just…

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Continue reading → Firing the Housekeeper

“Do NOT throw those toys down onto the ground! You’ll break it” I said to my son in frustration. It was the third time he decided to throw down the special Transformers his grandpa had brought back from an international…

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Continue reading → No More Toys!

You know what I’m talking about? That deep, no-nonsense, monotone voice. The one that’s often used to make your kids jump to do your bidding immediately…if not sooner? Well, I think it’s gotten out of control. I think I’ve gotten…

Continue reading → I Need To Get Control of My Command Voice

Finding balance in life is a real trick. I’m sure most of us struggle with it for most of our lives. Prioritizing what really matters with what I have to get done with what I want to be doing…it can…

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Continue reading → The Eternal Quest for Balance

You know how you read something so intriguing that it stays right there in the back of your mind until you actually do something about it? A few weeks ago, I read Anna’s post on the marble economy thriving in…

Continue reading → The Marble Economy Comes To Our Home

About month ago my husband upgraded his iPhone to the new 3G. I got the hand-me-down. My own personal first generation iPhone!! Let’s just say that excitement is hardly containable. I’m pretty much sure I’m in love. I knew that…

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Continue reading → iPhone, my personal nanny

I am $850.37 richer. Whoohoo!! That’s a lot of money. How did I get it? I returned things that I never used, never opened, never wore or were otherwise taking up space in my house…and sucking my pocketbook dry. I…

Continue reading → My personal economic bail out plan!

I have a problem. I don’t like to share. Actually, let me get specific here. I don’t like to share my food. With my daughter. Or my husband. Well, with anyone, really. Yeah, I know, I should have learned how…

Continue reading → Hands-off, Kid. That food is mine.

It’s been about three months since I’ve sorta fallen off the face of the planet. For the few times during the week I’ve managed to crawl over to my computer, I knocked off my work emails first and replied to…

Continue reading → My Green Pregnancy

Dear J, The next month will be a difficult one for us, and although you won’t remember it in the coming years, I wanted to write you a letter to explain why I’m not going to be there as much…

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Continue reading → A Letter to My Two Year-Old Daughter

The school year has started and my life is now more complicated then ever. I have twins in two different Kindergarten classes that both have after school activities and after school care (because I am a working mom). I have…

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Continue reading → Calendar Anxiety

Today was picture day at my six year old twin daughters elementary school. I’ve had their outfits picked out ever since I came across the adorable dresses at The Gap. One was black with cream colored embroidery, the other cream…

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Continue reading → Picture Day

My 3-year-old daughter C recently stayed with her grandparents for a week. One day during the trip C was playing with a family friend. C told the friend, “You are Olivia, I am Olivia’s mom.” C then started mothering ‘Olivia.’…

Continue reading → Toddler Self-Analysis…Cheaper than a Therapist, Darn Effective

I remember over 25 years ago the issues I faced as a teenage gal at my local Silicon Valley Highschool (Palo Alto Highschool). I knew other kids were having sex. Yes, really - in highschool. I did not have sex…

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• Senior sex symbols steal the silver screen, aol article Sex appeal is 50 percent what you've got and 50 percent what people think you've got. Sophia Loren You can find the rest of the article here. I'm not sure if you have to be an aol member to get the article or not, but it is encouraging. What do......
• The Romance Novel - Women's Porn? This question has been asked in one form or another since romance novels went mainstream. Authors have been dismissed because they write romance instead of science fiction or crime books or other normal genres.  If the cover has bulging pectorals and swooning women then it must be girl porn. Shame......

Continue reading → Teenagers Have Sex

Often I hear about summer ending, school starting again and moms having more time to themselves as a result, since their kids having been home all summer long. Well…that isn’t going to be the case for our family. For us,…

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Continue reading → Slowing down as we head back to (co-op) school

I remember the moment I stared at the double lines that appeared on the “Results Window” of the home pregnancy test. A super charge of adrenalin shot through me, followed quickly by euphoria. Yes! In nine months, we’ll be a…

Continue reading → What Happens When Mommy Gets Pregnant

While many mothers across Silicon Valley prepare for their babies to start Kindergarten on Tuesday (if they haven’t started already), I’ve been facing this week with dread. I don’t have a Kindergartner. I have a preschooler. One that gets left…

Continue reading → Left Behind

Something is happening to my daughter. That thing that no one warns you about when you have kids. Sure, we’d heard about stranger anxiety. Our mothers warned us about the terrible twos. And we all remember what we were like…

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Continue reading → Transformation of a princess

My husband and I had the fortunate opportunity this summer to visit Berlin and Paris, one full week in each city. We loved both cities and had a fabulous time. Amazing food, amazing art, amazing history. Almost everything I saw…

Continue reading → Put the camera down, experience life LIVE

Given that Google is chalk full of Googlaires – the employees that struck it rich when the company when public – perhaps co-founder Sergey Brin thinks it’s time to take back some of the employees cold hard cash. Google is…

Continue reading → Google Behaving Badly

“Too happy to be comfortable.” This is perhaps one of the loveliest phrases I’ve heard in connection with motherhood. I’m reading Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner, Pulitzer-prize winning writer, environmentalist and long-time Los Altos resident (please read his work,…

Continue reading → I am a mother, “too happy to be comfortable”

I think I’m losing my touch. You see, I was raised on a farm and in the mountains, and even though I’ve now been in the Palo Alto area forever, I still (in what feels like my DNA) harbor “country…

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Continue reading → Mouse Trauma

“Looook, Mommy! .. I have a silly hat!” TJ runs headlong into me with a plastic bin over his head, giving me a headbutt as I try to clean off the kitchen counter. Ouch! That hurt! Yep. This was the…

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Continue reading → Summer Bliss.. Well, Sort Of

Ah, Frances the hedgehog. That precocious, song-singing, funny little children’s book character. I loved her as a little girl. I mean loved her. To this day, every time I make brownies or chocolate cake and look into my mixing bowl,…

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Continue reading → Lessons Learned (& Hopefully Forgotten?) from Frances the Hedgehog

Summer is here and, with it, questions about what we will be doing in lieu of preschool for our 4-year-old boy-girl twins. Like some friends of ours, we haven’t signed up for summer school (because we do a co-op preschool…

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Continue reading → I’m so not ready to be a soccer mom

I just finished doing one of the craziest things I’ve done as a mother. Come to think of it, it’s probably one of the craziest things I’ve done ever. I drove 1,800 miles in one week with my 3-year-old and…

Continue reading → One Mama, Two Kids, 1,800 Miles of Open Road = Total Insanity

When I walked in the door after a 10-day trip away from my family, the first thing my spouse said to me after a kiss hello was “We’re out of bread.” With a grocery store within walking distance of our…

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Continue reading → New meaning to the word “Homecoming”

“There’s a bird in the house,” I say to my husband over the phone while the bird tweets above me in panic trying to get out our skylights. “A what?” “A bird!” (Which frankly, I am a little worried about…

Continue reading → A Bird In the House

Gunplay is such a hot topic. Should we let our kids play with guns? Should we ban them altogether? Are moms who let their kids play with toy guns ‘bad’ moms? Will I raise an overly aggressive child if I…

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Continue reading → A Boy and his Toy