A Day in the Life

Do you have any idea what the term FPIES means? I sure didn’t, until my daughter was diagnosed with it. And despite weeks of nonstop research, I’ve still not found any situation that’s similar to ours, so I’m writing – for the first time ever – a “Day in the Life” blog post that ISN’T humorous, in the hopes that […]

We went to the local farm the other day. No, not the one where I almost died, but a different one that’s a lot emptier but still has some animals to keep B entertained. And everything was going just fine until we got… our first splinter. I knew it was coming, because B wouldn’t stop running her hands back and

You know how you can yell at your kids for two hours straight and they won’t hear a word you’re saying, but you can accidentally drop an F-bomb and they’ll repeat that for the rest of their lives? Well, that’s what’s happening in our household right now, but with a different set of words. As you know, B’s first language

You may remember Part I of our COVID Chronicles, where I encountered a woman walking through my backyard wearing a face mask and holding a saw. I truly thought Lady with a Saw had escaped from the mental ward at a nearby hospital and that she would have been picked up by now, but apparently I was mistaken. Last night,

Allow me to start this post by saying that I do not like camping. I’ve tried very hard to find some redeeming qualities about it, but the “fresh air” brings bugs, the “family bonding time” results in fighting over whether that sound was the wind or a grizzly bear, and the “saving money” part ultimately ends up costing a fortune

There’s a saying that “so I stepped away for just a second…” is the beginning of every parenting horror story, and today it proved completely true. ** Disclaimer: article may include affiliate links, which do not affect the price you pay. ** We had just finished eating dinner. It was time to switch my laundry from the washing machine to

Remember when you became a parent for the first time? That overwhelming feeling of cluelessness that engulfed you both day and night? That fog you lived in for, I don’t know, two years or so? From those days, are there certain memories that stuck with you? Maybe the first time your child laughed, the first time they slept through the

We live near protected wetlands, which has its positives and negatives. On the positive side, we’re surrounded by nature. On the negative side, well, we’re surrounded by nature. And specifically, apparently, by a coyote breeding ground. I was never properly educated on how to deal with wild animals – I grew up in Northern New Jersey, where the closest thing

My daughter was never one for sleeping. Up until she was 20 months old, it was standard protocol for her to be awake every three hours, and the notion of “sleeping through the night” was a completely laughable theoretical concept to me. She finally started to get the hang of it around 24 months, and I think she’s been making

Everyone jokes about how the quarantine due to COVID-19 is making them crazy, but today, I actually saw hard evidence of this – in my backyard. We live in an apartment complex that shares a common front lawn. Most days, it’s filled with people playing ball, riding bikes, or walking dogs. But COVID-19 has obviously stopped all of this, and

Even before we all went into quarantine thanks to COVID-19, my mother was dying her own hair. She did this due to being both extremely cheap and extremely cautious, only using semi-permanent hair color that she believed would do her less harm than whatever a beauty salon would do. That all changed a few days ago. Let’s back up for

My daughter is pretty observant – a trait that she most definitely gets from her father and not me. And even though she’s not in school yet, COVID-19 has impacted her world in ways I never imagined. Take toilet paper, for instance. From the moment she started potty-training, B had a fascination with toilet paper. At first, we let her

I can count the number of times we’ve left our house in the past month on one hand, and it’s starting to show. As you may recall from a previous post, we do all of our shopping for groceries online. And since my last post, it has become increasingly difficult to actually accomplish that goal. So when I manage to

Since my last article on grocery delivery options during COVID-19, the situation has gotten a lot worse. Time slots on Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods have become next-to-impossible to find, and if you’re the fortunate soul who actually DID see one become available, there’s still a good chance you’ll lose it during the checkout process. ** Disclaimer: article may include

As you know, we’re currently in the middle of COVID-19. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’re well-aware that we’ve all been given strict social distancing orders and aren’t supposed to leave our house. So naturally, if there’s ever going to be a flood fiasco in our apartment, it would absolutely happen now. Let me walk you through this.

Today, we reached Day 39,830,968 of quarantine thanks to COVID-19. OK, so maybe it hasn’t been quite that long, but it’s certainly felt that way and we’re all pretty much losing our minds over here. In an effort to hold onto the tiny shred of sanity we had left, we decided to actually LEAVE THE HOUSE on Saturday to go

Besides the obvious stir-crazy aspect of being stuck at home 24/7, the worst part of COVID-19 for us has (thankfully) been combating internal anxiety of not running out of food. While I’d like to say that running Mindless Mom is my full-time job (outside of being an ACTUAL mom), the reality is that I really spend far more time looking

Today, the crazy came out. I’d say I wasn’t proud of it, but the sad truth is that this is just who I am and maybe it takes experiences like this one for me to finally come to terms with it. ** Disclaimer: article may include affiliate links, which do not affect the price you pay. ** In an effort

Once a week, my daughter goes to Italian school. But lately, it’s been an uphill battle even getting her into the car. It wasn’t always like this. We once went to class with a smile on our face, jabbering the whole car ride about all the fun things we would do with our new friends. ** Disclaimer: article may include

My daughter’s first language is Italian. You read that correctly. While that might not initially surprise you, let me explain why it should: I was born in New York (not Italy). My husband was born in New Jersey (also not Italy). Both of us exclusively spoke English for most of our lives. So what exactly happened here, and what drugs