Hello – 2

I am a stay-at-home mom.

Since I became a mother, I’ve worked part-time, full-time, and not at all. I’m still looking for the right balance, but these days I’m busy with art projects, snacks, play dates, hugs, diapers, tears, and all the logistics of raising my four-year-old daughter and one-year-old son. I never expected to be a stay-at-home mom, but here I am, sometimes overwhelmed and overwhelmingly happy.

I am married to my college sweetheart.

My husband and I have been together since we were 17 – long enough to change cities, careers, and life goals several times. He’s gone from super-smart super-slacker to successful writer and entrepreneur. I’ve gone from type-A overachiever to at-home mom, directing my obsessive organizational tendencies toward homemaking and child rearing.

I am a writer.

Most of my recent writing is here, at Mamas Always Write. Each week, I write a little about my life – from choosing a preschool to watching the inauguration – and distill from that a broader writing prompt.  I then respond to my own prompt with an essay, a poem, or a collection of photos, and I ask others to respond as well.  Besides giving myself a deadline and an audience, Mamas Always Write has helped me create a community of mother-writers.

Before I became a mother, my career provided many opportunities for writing.

At the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, I contributed to the Education and Technology: Future Visions Congressional Report.  (http://www.fas.org/ota/reports/9522.pdf)

At the Institutes of Medicine, I prepared the international section of the background report on tobacco control (http://www.iom.edu/?id=13977) and several case studies in the National Cancer Policy Board’s report Taking Action to Reduce Tobacco Use (http://www.iom.edu/CMS/3798/5686.aspx)

As a fifth grade teacher in Massachusetts and a K-2 teacher in Maine, I wrote curriculum material, parent newsletters, and professional development articles.

As an educator at the Children’s Museum of Maine, I taught children and teachers, wrote exhibit text, and prepared curriculum guides for the Museum’s collection. I left the Museum in June 2006, but the “For Educators” section of the current website provides a sense of the work I did there: http://www.kitetails.com.

I am an educator.

Before my children were born, I taught kindergarten through fifth grade in public and independent schools, including a Quaker day school and a parent-run cooperative. My professional background – including my Masters in Elementary Education and my B.A. in English and Science Education – and my experience working with children and their parents influences my parenting in many ways. It’s given me deeper understanding of child development and a broader perspective about how parents, children, and teachers can best work together.

I am part of a diverse community of mothers.

My friends include at-home mothers dedicated to home-birthing and home-schooling and working mothers who scheduled C-sections and day care; women who are married, in lesbian relationships, divorced, and single; mothers who faced unplanned pregnancies, relied on fertility treatments, and adopted from near or far. What we have in common – what all mothers have in common – is an unwavering love for our children and a nagging desire to figure it all out.