Welcome to the Blog

I recently saw this great Pinterest quote:

In Our Home...
We do second chances.
We do grace.
We do mistakes.
We do real.
We do I'm sorrys.
We do funny.
We do loud really well.
We do hugs.
We do family.
We do love.

Yeah, it's sappy, I guess. True? I hope so.

I want my home to be a place where mistakes are okay, where messing up just means finding a better way to do it the next time. I struggle as a parent. Sure, I've read all the parenting books out there. Taken parenting classes. Interviewed dozens of parenting experts, researchers, and everything in between. After all, I write about parenting and education. And in some ways, I feel so fortunate that I've been able to learn about parenting from others.

But what's most important, I think, is to learn about parenting from myself.

I make mistakes. I make them every day. And it's easy to tumble into the pit of frustration and decide that it was "just a mistake" and "I can't believe I messed up," and leave it at that. But if I do that, I'm shortchanging myself.

If I yell at my son for making roaring noises at his brother, I've made a mistake. But if I ignore the anger that I felt and view myself as a "mean mommy," I've ignored a great opportunity for growth too.

I hope to use this blog to catch those mistakes as they come up, learn from them, and help other moms out there learn from them as well.

Welcome to my Parenting By Mistake journey. Do you feel like you also view yourself as a "mean mommy" instead of learning from your mistakes? Let's create a community of moms who are willing to flip the meaning of "mistake" into something we're willing to learn from.