Hiring that special someone to help out with the little ones or even around the house? Mary Poppins sets the bar high in the nanny universe, but hopefully with some of these helpful tips, you, too, can find your very own Mary! The definition of a nanny often varies from parent to parent, and there […]
Shirley Fiano is a Florida native, born and raised in Jacksonville. She graduated from Sandalwood High School and married her husband, Tony, a Marine Corps veteran originally from Massachusetts. Together, they had three children: Cassy, TJ, and Frankie. Cassy is 34 and has a family of her own now, and Frankie is 10. TJ sadly […]
I’m 49, married 12 years to a wonderful man, Kent, and we have a 5-year-old daughter, Lucy. I have Stage IV, Metastatic Triple Negative Breast Cancer, for which there is no cure. I’m currently in a clinical trial. Treatments are tolerable, but more importantly, they are working. It has extended my time with Kent, Lucy, […]
“You didn’t come, Mom,” she wailed. “You were the ONLY MOM who wasn’t there!” I had no idea what my 6-year-old was talking about when I picked her up that day from school, but her distress was enough to make me start crying. Apparently I had missed her school scout troop’s picnic in the park, […]
With the rise of the long overdue #MeToo movement, women all over the globe are finally — and fearlessly — breaking their silence on sexual assault and abuse. While their stories of survival continue to be heard and headlines on harassment and rape run rampant, dedicated sexual assault advocates like Teresa Miles are needed now […]
If you haven’t already met Jennifer Chapman in person, you’ve probably seen her name. Maybe you’ve worked with her on a board at Leadership Jacksonville, sat with her on a committee for the Junior League of Jacksonville, or volunteered with her at Junior Achievement of Florida. Maybe you’ve purchased something from one of her startups, […]
I’ve learned in my four years of either being pregnant or being a mom, that we, in the mother hood, feel that our mom-onality gives us an unspoken right to disperse nuggets of mom-wisdom to one another freely. There is one such nugget I’ve heard so often recently, that I had to ask myself, when […]
You know how this goes: You park, check your email and texts one last time, respond to something that’s happened in the 15 minutes since you left your desk, and calendar something else. Then you put the phone down. You shake off the day, the office — including frustrations and setbacks, any lingering bad feeling […]
This mama wants to thank Winn-Dixie for these easy mealtime hacks and recipes! Motherhood opens a whole new horizon of challenges when it comes to mealtime. We can all remember the quiet moments of preparing meals prior to little ones running around the kitchen. But one does not simply prepare a meal when she enters […]
When I was a new mom, I had been warned about so much — let’s face it, that’s everyone’s favorite pastime with expecting mothers, right? To tell them all about how terrible having a new baby is? I had heard about the crying, the lack of sleep, the spit-up, the diaper blowouts. There was really […]
During most of the time I’ve had children, I have worked in an office. Depending on our lives through the years, sometimes this even has been necessary for our family, and I was really thankful I had my job. But if I’m being really honest, I know I’m a better mom because I work. I […]
Recently, I was talking to my sister, and we had a familiar conversation about juggling jobs, kids, and commitments. She said, “I’m starting to think that all seasons are busy.” She’s right, every season is busy. Although I do wish I could cut and paste a few fall festivals and cookie swaps into a month […]
