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When Someone Asks Your Advice And You're Unqualified AF

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My 10-year-old has been fawning all over a girl in his class for the last month or so, and last week he told me he was going to ask her to be his valentine, which - ohmygod - could that be any cuter?

He’s very different than my older son, who never shared this kind of stuff with me, and even to this very day he only hits me with the very vaguest of information, making me wonder if one day I’ll be sporting an “I ♥ My Grandcat” bumper sticker, which you might think I just made up, but I saw one on a car last week and couldn’t grab my phone fast enough to snap a picture to prove it to you.  

My youngest asks me relationship advice all the time, because I guess he thinks I’m qualified to give counsel to fourth graders seeking matchmaking tips.

5 Things I Would Tell My New-Mom Self

You know how you look back on your life as a, say middle schooler or high schooler, and you think about how serious you thought things were, and you shake your head a little at how absurd those “serious” things were?  

Like standing in a bikini in front of a full-length mirror, turned to the side, and squishing your face up at the sight of the soft pooch in the belly area?

Or throwing yourself across your gingham bedspread-covered bed, in a fit of tears because the boy you liked found out you liked him, but didn’t like you back, because he liked your best friend, and the three of you lived in the same neighborhood and rode the same school bus, so you’d have to look them both in the eye the next day, and you just wanted to disappear?

Don’t you ever want to sneak back to those days and whisper a little something to that person?

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Why Today You Will Put On Your Sensible Panties

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Hey, momma.

Yes, you.  You with the crispy hair from too many days of dry shampoo.  

You with the stack of mail you’ve promised to sort through for at least two weeks.  

You over there saying a little prayer that your kid doesn’t get salmonella from the slightly expired eggs you fed him this morning (cooked in the microwave, of course, and eaten on the way to school, as if that needed to be said).  

You with the screaming toddler in the checkout line at Target, beads of sweat dripping down the back of your neck, while people give you their judgy side-glances for not controlling your child better.

You with the soft bags under your eyes from staying up too late last night, just so you could savor a few delicious minutes of alone time.

The truth about my 504 article

A few years ago I wrote a post titled, “Back to School: How the 504 Is Keeping Your Kid From Adulting.”  

In case you don’t know what the 504 is, it's part of a civil rights law that prevents discrimination based on a disability.  

In layman’s terms, it’s a list of accommodations that level the playing field for students with disabilities or health issues that put them at risk of not having the same opportunities at learning as all the other students.

I knew it was a provocative title I’d chosen for my post.  That was the point.  I wanted it to catch your attention so you’d read it.  

It worked.  It got lots of comments.

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Book Club: Jen Hatmaker's Of Mess & Moxie

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We put quotes around "book club" around here because my family insists that calling it that is just a cover for what it really is:  gossiping and drinking. 

Like the clever owners of a bar near the University of Texas, who named their bar The Library, helping students tell the truth to their parents when they say they went to The Library six days a week all semester.

Yes, we drink when we have our book club meetings.  But we never gossip, not ever.

We do discuss the book of the month, but it always somehow turns into a discussion about lady parts or dogs' anal glands.

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I'm Afraid This Was Caused By Old Eggs

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Have I ever told you how we decided to have another kid?  

The truth is, I always wanted a house full of children until my youngest was born and I realized I could barely manage keeping two children alive, much less a throng of them.

Mark was perfectly fine just having one kid.  

I tried for years to get him on board, but our first-born wasn’t an easy infant.  He had colic, but not the kind that people claim to have when their baby is just an asshole and cries a lot. 

The Real Reason I'm Writing Today

Last week my old friends, Ami and Jackie, who started out as work colleagues nearly 18 years ago, but became so much more than that over time, came down to Austin from Dallas for a work visit and squeezed me in for dinner.  

They asked me why I don’t email anymore, and I told them it’s because I don’t want to bug people, to which Jackie responded, “Would you rather be forgotten?  If people don’t want to read your emails, they can hit the delete button.”

The thought of being forgotten is what got me.  

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A Few Ways To Save Your Marriage During The Trump Administration

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It’s a bad time to be non-political, y’all (wait - apolitical? Pan-political? Anti-political?  Non-politics-specific?  I’m not sure which term is accurate, and with all the labels we throw out nowadays, I can’t keep up with all their meanings.  I just know that I’m not interested in any of it and I know that sounds naive and immature, but this isn’t about maturity.  It’s about politics.  And divorce.)

Here's What Makes This Tree-That-Only-A-Mother-Could-Love Beautiful

Our Christmas tree has been up for over a week, but we only just put the ornaments on it yesterday.  It’s hard to get in the Christmas spirit when we’re walking around in shorts and flip-flops (to be clear, we are also wearing shirts).

This was the first time we decorated with only three of us, since the oldest moved off to college this fall.

That’s such a lie.  

I Wondered Who It Would Be Today

Ok, I just canNOT with all this sexual misconduct, y’all.  I mean - Matt Lauer?  Are you freakin’ kidding me right now?  I can’t even believe it.  

I’ve grown up watching Matt.  But not just watching him, knowing him.  Matt and I shared some laughs - albeit unbeknownst to him - over his Halloween costumes throughout the years.  

We shared tears through the unbearable sadness of the events of 9/11.

We traveled the world together through his annual Where In The World Is Matt Lauer series.

We shared the same disdain for Tom Cruise when Tom used that gorgeous mouth of his to blast Matt with an embarrassing misuse of his vocabulary by calling him “glib.”

Why You Should Say The Nice Thing You're Thinking

A few weeks ago I was sitting on the train heading into Austin for the Texas Conference for Women.  I spent the hour ride visiting with my new friends, the veteran train riders, and also reflecting on last year’s conference.

Last year, I was honored to interview Carla Birnberg, a local author and blogger.  She and I had a 15 minute time slot, but she gave me nearly an hour of her time, and she’s so easy to connect with, that hour flew by.  

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My Birthday Wish

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The story is that your birthday wish won’t come true if you share it.  But I’m feeling frisky, so I’m throwing caution to the wind.

Hopefully, by sharing, I’m not changing the course of my life’s direction, which is something I’ve worried about before:  when I got my driver's license renewed one year and checked the box labeled “Organ Donor,” and I stepped outside the DMV, I was suddenly paralyzed with fear, worried that I’d just set in motion a new purpose for my life - to be the body parts for someone else’s.  

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What Do Joanna Gaines & A Members Only Jacket Have In Common? Nothing. Absolutely Nothing.

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Remember I told you we moved to a new house recently?  We moved over the summer to a town about 10 minutes from where we lived before, and I'm just starting to feel settled. 

I'm like a cat when it comes to change. 

The style of this house is a little more modern than our old house, but I don’t really “do” modern.  I love rustic - not country - but distressed, modern-farmhousey, industrial-ish, old-world European-esque.  

Like if Joanna Gaines and Michelangelo’s David had a baby and pushed it around in a steampunk buggy.

The 4 Things I Learned From Taking a Break

You know how I recently took a hiatus from writing, right?

It wasn’t planned, and I mentally flogged myself daily during the nine months I was away from the keyboard, telling myself I was throwing away the following I’d worked so hard to build, and then mentally arguing back that, “yah, but what’s the point?”, and then mentally consoling myself, saying, “hey, there are always people who tell me how meaningful my posts are to them, so just keep on keepin' on, gurl!”, but then mentally belittling myself with, “I could poop out a basket full of Japanese howler monkeys before anyone would pay attention.”

Conservative Christianism, Anxious Sweats, & Feeling "Less Than"

As usual when I’m heading someplace important, especially if I’m right on schedule - or more likely, late - as opposed to being early and relaxed, which hasn’t happened since before I had children and has somehow become a habit, just like writing run-on sentences, I start sweating and my freshly flat-ironed hair starts to pop into the most pubic and freakish curls around my hairline.

Back By Popular Demand

Oh heeeyyy!  I realize it’s been a little longer than a minute since you last heard from me.  

I’ve been on a nine-month, unplanned hiatus during which I pretty much gave up my entire life in service of others (I’m disgustingly selfless), got my oldest son graduated and moved off to college, moved our family to a new home in a new town, planned a once-in-a-lifetime family vacation in celebration of The Graduate, and find myself now pale with dark under-eye circles, greasy meth hair, dressed like I lost a bet, and almost completely unraveled.  

Toodling The Mediterranean For 10 Days Aboard The Disney Magic

Hopefully I don’t come across as self-absorbed as a Kardashian by assuming you’ve read about our Disney Cruise through the Mediterranean over the summer.  

We chose a Disney Cruise because we wanted a trip where we could see beautiful and historic treasures for us and for our then 18-year-old, but would also appeal to our 10-year-old.

If you’ve ever experienced anything Disney, you know that the up-side to the price tag is their reputation for providing high quality service, cleanliness, safety, and - of course - fun for all ages.

And let’s be honest: despite my housekeeping skills, I’m a bit of a germophobe, so cleanliness is important, especially if it’s a place I’ll be laying my head. I have been known to abandon hotels and drive in the middle of the night to another town if even one little thing makes me feel gaggy.

First Stop On Our Mediterranean Tour: Monaco & Monte Carlo

The first port stop of our 10-day Mediterranean cruise on the Disney Magic was at Villefranche-sur-Mer, which means “free town on the sea,” per my French minor in college, which has gotten me exactly nothing in life, aside from a seat at the ass-end of jokes from my family for remembering how to only say “jar of mustard” and “shut your mouth.”

Villefranche is a tiny beach-side village in the heart of the French Riviera, with Monaco on one side and Nice on the other.

There are worse places in the world.

Austin to Barcelona

As usual, I've put the cart before the horse.

I told you all about all about the shippy parts of the cruise, and even told you about our first port, Villefranche, but I didn't even tell you about the first leg of our trip and how we even got there, yet. 

Isn’t life just the craziest thing sometimes?

We got to the Austin airport and ran into my son’s friend from high school, who also happens to be his college roommate! We had some fun chit chat about the odds of running into them there, and got to even have lunch with him and his mom before we boarded our flights.

How freakin’ random is it that they then headed to the same gate as us?

Y’all! We were on the same flight!

Kristan Braziel LeBaron.jpg

Kristan (Braziel) LeBaron is an author, writer, marketing professional, and the voice of the blog, Bring Mommy A Martini. Mom to two hilarious boys: one in college and the other in middle school, she writes “real mom” stories on life with anxiety & depression, and choosing happiness as a daily practice. She lives outside of Austin with her two sons and two lavishly kept dogs.

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