Fifty years ago my grandfather was given a present: a square bridge table. You could tell how much he loved it by the wear and tear written on its surface.  Fast-forward 25 years from when he got his beloved table, and he gave it to my mother. She put it in the closet. It stayed there for 20 years until I bought a condo and needed some extra seating. I used it once and put it in my closet. It stayed there for years until we moved into our house in 2007. Suddenly we had no kitchen table and no idea what kind of table we wanted. So it made sense as a temporary solution. Throw a few nice …

Years ago I was working as a group creative director at a healthcare marketing agency. I knew the instant I started there it wasn’t the right place for me. But they seemed like good people just trying to do good work, so I held tight.  I’m sure everyone has had a job like this. The kind where you know you just don’t fit. It makes you homesick for your last job—and rightfully so. No one asks you to go to lunch—ever. Your comments are never well received. And as time goes on, it just doesn’t seem to get better. This was that job for me. Had I been a less confident person, it probably would have…

The other day I achieved a status I never even knew existed: Elite Dominick’s Customer. Some people make a list and go grocery shopping once a week. Me…not so much. I wander in that same revolving door at Dominick’s every day. No time for Target, but we’re down to two pull-ups. Nothing for the kids to eat for breakfast. No milk, which really only matters for coffee purposes (the kids can eat cheese or something, right?). No soap. No “lunch stuff.” There’s always something that can’t wait another day or sometimes even another hour. At this point, they should put a reserved sign on my parking …

Have you ever made a terrible social blunder? The kind that just makes you want to press rewind and erase the moment? The kind that you wince about every time you think back on that moment, even a month later? Have you ever then gone on to make the same blunder to the same person, all over again? Well, I have. Here’s how it went down. Two years ago I accosted this lovely woman named Charley at Wolfy’s (now Josh’s). She was wearing the signal for “working mom,” which is of course flip-flops and a silk shirt at the end of the day. She was gracious about my obvious stalking and eventually we …

My commute into work every day is bittersweet. I have one hour all to myself—but I’m usually stuck in traffic. Nonetheless, I get to actually talk on the phone without having someone screaming in my ear, “Mommy, look at this” 100 times. Last Monday I looked out into the horizon as I drove toward the city. The sun was punching through the clouds and illuminating the skyline. The sky was a perfect shade of blue and the clouds were perfectly shaped like little pillows of cotton. It made me think to myself, “Wow, I’m not the disaster I feel like inside. Life is amazing.” To my left a man was …

Once upon a time I had a brain in my head. Then I had kids. And now it’s gone. Last week I called my cousin to see when my daughter Sami’s dance class started. Her little girl is in the same class. She called me back immediately and said, “Melissa, the class started three weeks ago.” I dropped my head in shame, but quickly picked it back up with the thought of “this is not what’s going to bring you down.” I decided to hit the reset button on the day.  Since I’d screwed that one up, I was going to make sure I didn’t miss my son Max’s first soccer practice, too. So I dialed the YMCA. I’m so …

Last Saturday morning I woke up and looked around my house. It was a total disaster. The kids’ clothes were in their respective laundry baskets, which were so packed they were falling over. My sheets were begging to be changed after a long week of dirty kids sneaking in and out of them every day. My bathrooms telegraphed the fact that my family was in “potty training” mode. My floors, well, let’s just say you shouldn’t eat off of them. And then there were the kids’ toys, which had migrated from the basement to living room and were slowly taking over the house. Normally I wouldn’t care that …

Before the bunny, it was your typical weekday morning in my house. Everyone got up slowly and savored the minutes they had before the hustle and bustle of the day began. The TV was on to help with the groggy transition from unconscious to responsible-for-your-actions. While brushing his teeth, my husband wandered over to our bedroom window to admire his beloved garden. He’d planted the garden and built the fence with my 4-year-old son, and it had quickly became an endearing part of our home.  Until that morning.  As Scott admired his perking carrot tops and sprouting beans, the pride he was …

Last night I found myself wondering, “at what point does DCFS show up unannounced?” It was one of those nights. My husband was traveling, so at 5:30 pm I headed to my friend’s house for dinner with the kids. I was innocently thinking that I had a sweet little girl with me. Yet within 30 seconds of pulling out of the driveway, my two-year-old daughter Sami untangled herself from her car seat (I still can’t figure out how) and began taking swings at her 4-year-old brother, Max, with a plastic toy train. My friend’s house was only a few minutes away, and no stoplights were cooperating with me. …