I am the mother of two wonderfully exhausting children– Jacob (age 4) and Emma (age 1).  Before I became a mother, I imagined myself gazing at my children, as they sat quietly coloring or reading a book, and seeing glimmers of myself in them.  Dark brown eyes.  A face outlined by curly brown hair.  Little flashes of my personality here and there.  The reality: two tall, blue-eyed, children in constant motion.  Seriously, are ALL of my genes recessive??  (My husband, Dan, says we really should get a maternity test.)

My (other) day job is as a research psychologist.  Given this background, you’d think I would have some of this “raising kids” stuff figured out.  Yeah, not so much.    One of the amazing things about having a second child is discovering that siblings can have incredibly different personalities . . .  and yet their parents still make the exact same idiotic mistakes.   (It’s like we learned nothing from our first attempt at this.)   Anyway, let me just take this opportunity to say to my children, in case you ever read this: we’re sorry.  We may be fumbling around, getting it wrong half the time (or more) and counting the minutes until naptime, but we’re trying our best.  And we love you like crazy.