From the Courtroom to the Playroom

We put our Christmas decorations up in the sweltering sun last weekend. Before the Halloween candy could even be properly sorted, we'd hauled down the boxes of lights and decor and quibbled over how many trees one person could possibly need.  We needed some happy. Don't we all need some happy from 2020? Covid, division, fear, uncertainty, anxiety, death. Weird junk. 2020 hasn't met anyone's expectations.  I like to theme out the Christmas decor in different areas of my house. Some brightly colored pastels here, a grouping of buffalo check wintry items there. But my tree is a constant reminder of the hodge-podge. The tree is covered with mismatched random ornaments collected over the years.  The ones my great aunt gave me to help me "set up" my own tree as an adult.  The ones my grandmother made for me, brought me back from Europe, and bought me based on whatever I was interested in at the time as a child.  The ornaments bought as souvenirs from all of the trip...

I started this blog when I decided to stay home from regular lawyering to be with my two kids. I wanted to chronicle my experience from working full time as a lawyer to being a stay at home mom. Life has certainly got in the way of regular blogging, but times are a changin' at our house. The oldest was just 2 1/2 back then, and I am getting ready to send him off to kindergarten in three days. The baby is now in a big girl room and just about out of diapers (hello, extra $50 a month!). So, I have been reflecting lately on how eventful this staying home journey has been. Full of ups and downs, moments of shame and victory, and containing the longest consecutive streak of "gym shorts days" of my life. So here are a few of the most memorable moments of taking on the daily task of full-time home management - the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. THE GOOD Two words: Beach and Pool. Enough said. Snuggling in the bed in the morning. Getting to come up with crafts and son...

Has it really been SIX MONTHS since I last blogged?!?! I know that someone out there has just been dying with suspense for another good read. And that person is most likely my mother. Anywho, the subject of my blog post today is about baking. Now you may think, "Gee, Jamie lots of people put their recipes on the blog and post great pictorial how-to's - why should we read yours?" Well, in the hopes that there is some flustered mom out there like me who makes stuff that never looks quite right or turns out quite right, I am going to detail my latest baking blunder from this morning. I set out to make a strawberry yogurt cake for a neighbor of mine. Simple enough - hop on Pinterest, print the recipe and follow the directions. Therein lies my problem. I am really bad about following directions when it comes to baking. I read the recipe, think to myself, "yeah, yeah, that's easy, you got this." Then, I somehow manage to seriously botch it up. See, I simply can...

When I was a senior in high school, my class, like most high schoolers, voted for what are called senior superlatives, or for the less fancy-schmancy, the "most likelys." I was voted Most Likely to Succeed. I am still not completely sure why. I thought I might be a more likely candidate for the Most Horrifyingly Insecure in a Totally Crippling Way award. High school was sort of a middle ground for me - I certainly would never (ever, ever, ever) want to go back, but it was still a very good experience in many ways. My husband, on the other hand, was voted by his classmates as Best All Around, Most Popular, and Class Favorite. I mean, come on! Did I mention he was also voted most likely to marry someone who likes to tease him about his senior superlatives? For some reason he just can't seem to understand why my high school experience wasn't as totally and completely blissful as his. Really? Anyway, I was looking at some old yearbook...

Recently a very dear childhood friend of mine posted a list of 32 things she had learned about life and herself in honor of her 32nd birthday. It was an incredible list of things, and being inspired by said list and friend, I decided that I would blog about life lessons from the lyrics of song in honor of my 32nd birthday. Which was 3 weeks ago. But who cares really. My life lessons will be limited to five, however, since (1) I am an underachiever and (2) I seem to dribble on about whatever it is I am writing about and nobody (except maybe my mom) would read 32 of these things. So, here goes: 1. "If you hold the nails, I'll take the hammer. I'll hold it still, if you'll climb the ladder. If you will, then I will, build." From We Build, Nichole Nordeman. This is a song about a love relationship and the idea is that you gotta work at it. My husband and I have been married for 5 years, so that clearly makes me an expert on relationships. Clearly. Anywho, my lesson...

From the movie Rob Roy : Son: Father, will the MacGregors ever be kings again? Rob Roy: All men with honor are kings, but not all kings have honor. Son : What is honor? Rob Roy: Honor is....what no man can give you, and what no man can take away. Honor is a man's gift to himself. Son: Do women have it? Rob Roy : Women are the heart of honor, and we cherish and protect it in them. You must never mistreat a women or malign a man. Or stand by and see another do so. Son : How do you know you have it? Rob Roy : Never worry on the getting of it. It grows in you and speaks to you. All you need to do is listen. I read this movie quote recently in a book for mothers about how to raise men of character. One aspect of doing this is raising a son who knows how to treat women right and is (dare I say it) chivalrous. Let's face it - chivalry is pretty much dead among the younger male set in this country. I'll spare you my personal opinion on why. Not long ago, my husband a...

I think I have pinpointed one of the more difficult things for me to deal with in the transition to staying at home. It's noise. When I was working, although I had a lot of interaction with co-workers and clients, there was a significant portion of my day that was spent in my office, often with door shut, just researching and writing. In silence. In dear, sweet, wonderful silence. I am learning that silence is a rarity around my house being a stay at home mom. The first thing I hear every morning is the sweet voice of my now 3 year old Deacon saying, "Mama, what are we doing today?" Yes, he ultimately ends up sleeping in our bed every night. Sigh. Don't judge. Anywho, from that first question of the day, we launch into countless hours of conversation punctuated by frequent "whys" and extraordinarily loud renditions of the ABC song. It clearly takes a special person to work with preschoolers and very young elementary kids day in and day out. I am certainl...

If I were taking my usual maternity leave, this week would have marked my return to the office. Miller has come alive in the last few days, and I am so excited to be here to experience it. When I was working and things were exceptionally busy, sometimes I would feel like I was living in a hotel. With the rush of the morning and the hurricane that characterized every evening, I felt at times like my house wasn't really my house, but just a hotel that we were sleeping in when the rest of life wasn't going on. We have a wonderful playroom for Deacon and he wasn't using it because we were never here. Weekends we were usually out and about trying to do the things we didn't have time for during the week. You know that feeling you get when you walk out in your backyard and you realize that you haven't seen it in months? That's what was happening, and we don't live in either of the Dakotas. Now that I am spending much more time at home, I have begun to think mor...

Ok, I shouldn't say horrors. Really, it's just a few adjustments. Yesterday I ventured out with Miller for my first post-partum and post-work clothes shopping trip. There were a couple big differences in the before and after of shopping since leaving my day job. Usually, when I go out to buy clothes, I am looking for work clothes - suits, pants, sweater sets, dress shirts, you get the picture. I probably haven't purchased a pair of jeans in about 4 years. Casual Friday was eliminated at work, and I am lucky if I make it out of a pair of gym shorts on Saturdays, so there was really no need to purchase any. Plus, I am one of those people who live in closet denial. I leave clothes that I can no longer fit into in the closet anyway as inspiration for my weight loss. Usually it only serves to provide inspiration for an argument between Matthew and I about the fact that I have too much crap in the closet. Anywho, I'd rather have 4 non-fitting pairs of jeans in my closet and n...

Being a mom is not for sissys. It takes a lot of work. And it means giving up a chunk of your identity. I have to say that I was a little taken aback when I was first referred to as "Deacon's Mom." I mean, I'm Jamie, right? I wasn't used to being identified by who I am in relation to my child. Becoming a mom helped me realize that my mom wasn't just that either - Jamie's Mom. She's a wife, daughter, colleague, and friend. And once I could fully appreciate that, I could understand better how very awesome she was in her role as Jamie's Mom. In honor of Mother's Day, I have created a top five list of reasons that I love my dear mother. Read on. 5. She tells me the truth.....sort of. One awesome thing about my mom is that she will tell me like it is. This quality has saved me from much trouble and countless opportunities for reputation ruin. Never one to mince words, her two cents may have caused me some heartburn, but ultimately, they saved my re...

Yes, that would be the one and only Miss Martha Stewart, my friends. I've always secretly wanted to be like her. Um, not the unlawful activity and jail part. I have about decided that staying home will provide me with the opportunity to hone my skills (or at lease scrape together one cognizable skill) related to domestic divahood, but recent events at the Avery household lead me to believe I've got one long road to walk. I've never claimed to be crafty. DIY is one dirty acronym in my book. Occasionally, I try my hand at something remotely crafty, but the craftiest of the crafty people I know would probably laugh at my projects being called crafty. And with that, I will make every effort to not use the word "crafty" again in this post. So, as I began to prepare for Mother's Day recently, I decided that I needed to get something cool for my kids to give their grandmothers, Gran and Granny. I decided that we would make stepping stones with their footprints an...

In our marriage, we've decided that there are several words and topics that are off the table for discussion. For example, no one is allowed to talk divorce or bring up negative things from the past before we even knew each other. So, as I am now entering into my third month as a stay-at-home mom, I have added a question to that no-no list, and that question is....So, what all did you do today? (Gasp!) This question is generally asked while shaking one's head as one looks confusedly around a messy house with messy kids yelling wildly and demanding things like gummy bears, or "yummies" as my son says. Never in my wildest imagination could I have anticipated such a seemingly benign question would ignite some serious fireworks for yours truly. Used to be that when I got home from work, I could answer that question with precision and tangible evidence of all the things I had done that day. Took a depostion. Settled a case. Prepared for a mediation. Drafted a ...