Just beyond the bright red door of our cozy little home, a giant pile of shoes tells the story of our days. On Sundays, after an early morning cleanup, the pile is a tidy row of velcro Nikes and ballet flats. By Thursday night, it is a undulating heap of rain boots, broken flip flops, an errant sock, random baseballs, someone’s crusty wet tennis shoe, and swim goggles.
Each week, we start with the best of intentions and, each week, the shoe pile reflects what our lives are really like: colorful, scattered, adventurous, and nonstop.
Our house is now exactly one month into summer break. We’ve adjusted our schedules, rooted for our Cavs, given up on the one-popsicle-a-day rule, and shivered our way through early morning swim team practice. We have picked berries, hunted for sea glass, played a lot of baseball, and happily accepted Rice Krispies as dinner at least twice. Okay, maybe three times.
Part of me is frustrated – this summer was to be about continuing the momentum of my year, when the kids were in school eight hours a day when I could work and launch MotherBoard, and still be home for the bus every day.
But the truth is that this summer has already become something different.
n expense. But those articles didn’t apply to me – I have always worked in some capacity, though my availability may have been dependent on night-time feedings and preschool schedules. So once kindergarten registration was complete for my youngest, I reached out to my professional contacts and started asking about full-time jobs. Seems easy enough, right? Except that nothing in life is as simple as we’d like it to be and working motherhood is no exception.
I want the same summers for my kids – lazy, sunny, barefoot days. But managing to be low-key and ready for whatever the day brings can be tricky as a working mom. A client calls and suddenly the front yard tag game feels like impossible background noise. Swim lessons starting at the same time as a downtown meeting? Yikes. Sitter cancelled? Holy cow. 
than a decade. If my son was my true north, where did my trusty old true north – the one that wore pinstriped pant suits – where did she go?
MotherBoard was an idea rattling in our brains for a long time. But it came to the bright lights of a big stage for the first time on February 24, 2016 at the 
MotherBoard Blog 