my days are marked by endless shortcuts, tricks and concessions that are driven by creativity, necessity, and most of all, convenience.

for example, the monkey and bird receive morning doses of PBS and afternoon boosters of dora. they also take baths in the middle of the day, not because i am following the advice of the latest parenting guru but because i simply want to contain the kids while i fold laundry.

there are countless parenting philosophies calling out to us from every corner of pop culture, and many of them are wildly attractive. this is why, as a popular book title states it, “i was a really good mom before i had kids.” but things are different now that my life includes internet searches such as, “are holly berries poisonous?” it is not that i am parenting without convictions. i would describe my particular version of motherhood as a tapestry that includes the latest wisdom delivered by scientific and personal research. but this tapestry really is held together by what blogger Julie of a little pregnant calls “a series of reflexes, instincts, and minute-by-minute adjustments.”

my natural tendency is to apologize for the huge gap between today’s tidy expert parenting schemes and my own comedy of errors, which is often held together by love and duct tape. but the people i’ve encountered through this blog are proof that women’s greatest triumphs are rarely the result of textbook decisions made according to published plans.

mothers of invention from the blog's first month

the mothers who dazzle me with their love of life are always those who raise their children with a sort of makeshift flexibility, and who reinvent themselves in each season using this same, treasured skill.