How to make the holidays more stressful? Just add long car rides, cross-country flights, and a few underslept kids! Our sleep expert Mahaley tells us how to navigate the mess with your sanity (relatively) intact.

By the time my daughter was two, we had taken 21 flights with her. (Yes, you read that right.) With the holidays in full swing, I get asked how to survive all the travel and festivities with a young child - so here are my best tips and strategies:

1. When possible, give your child their own sleeping space. My husband and I will often opt for a more affordable hotel or an Airbnb so that we can get a suite or a two-bedroom apartment when we travel. Many kids do better with a little privacy (and quiet).

2. Make the sleep environment as familiar as possible. Whatever your child typically sleeps with, bring it. Make the room as dark and quiet as possible, and pack your white noise machine. Having a solid bedtime routine also simplifies traveling, because you'll be able to use established cues to signal to your child that it’s time to sleep even though they're not in their typical environment.

DIARY

In Which I Am A Character In An Actual, For-Real Horror Movie

November 25, 2019

Last night was not the first night that I have appeared in my own personal horror movie. No no - that night happened several months back, on one of my very first nights alone in this house without the kids.

I had installed a very fancy security system that had alerts on virtually every door and window and crack in the wall, and so when I awoke in the middle of the night to what sounded like a moan in my backyard, screamed at the top of my lungs, and then heard my very fancy security system announce "GLASS SHATTER...MASTER BEDROOM WINDOW" you better believe I was up and out and hiding behind the china cabinet in my dining room in .02 seconds. Did I grab a butcher knife on my streak through the kitchen? Yes, yes I did.

The next thing that happened was that a very nice lady's voice came over the very fancy alarm system's very fancy control panel, and told me that she'd alerted the police. She asked me how I was; whether I had a weapon; whether I still heard any noises. Half an hour later, police still decidedly MIA, she and I had become old friends. I knew where she'd grown up, and how many kids she had. I was by then sitting cross-legged on the floor next to the china cabinet with the knife in my lap, explaining to her that I was a newly single mother and that I was alone in my house, not to mention the fact that I was blonde and wearing nothing but underwear, which means that if this had been a horror movie and someone had actually broken into my house, I would be oh my god, so extremely dead. Like, many times over.

Lifestyle

The Work At Home Mom Gift Guide (AnyMom-Approved)

November 24, 2019

Hi all, RG Editorial Director Olivia here! I've been running my own business from my kitchen table for the better part of a decade now, so I've grown quite accustomed to the work-from-home lifestyle. I love working from home, but often find myself wearing the same black leggings and Old Navy sweatshirts day in and out, so I've rounded up some of my personal fave work at home outfits, plus a few accessories that make working from the kitchen table a little more...elevated? Sure.

Little caveat: These products also make great gifts for any mom in your life - because for real, is there anything better than rocking some cute slug-life clothing to school pick up? There is not. (Jordan can attest to this.)

Lifestyle

On Those “Just Can’t” Nights

November 22, 2019

This post is sponsored by Red Baron Pizza, but all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Some nights a mama just can’t.

Like the other day, here is a sampling of the things I had on my to-do list:

DIARY

My Sweet Girl, Goodbye.

November 21, 2019

This is the first picture of Lucy I ever posted here.

Lucy’s first name was Rosie; I don’t know if I ever told you that. She came to me as a surprise: A girl who my back-then boyfriend and I were friends with had bought a teacup shih tzu with one blue eye and one brown eye for some unconscionable amount of money at a Malibu pet shop. And then that girl decided to go to London and maybe not ever come back, and so she gave the dog - Rosie - to us. I didn’t know this; what happened was that my boyfriend decided to surprise me, so one day in the fall of 2005 I was sitting at my kitchen table doing whatever, and the door opened, and I saw my boyfriend's nine-year-old daughter standing there. She kneeled down on the floor and parted her curled hands, and this fist-sized ball of white fluff came speeding towards me. And that was it, I was in love. I liked the name Rosie but I wanted her to be my own, and so I named her Lucy. I don't remember why I picked that name, but from then on that's who she was.

My dad happened to be staying at my house that day, and when I ran to tell him about Lucy he'd barely even look at her, so annoyed was he that I’d gotten a dog (too much responsibility, why would you do that, et cetera). But later that afternoon I had to go out for some appointment or another, and so against his protests I left her with him - literally just dumped her on his lap, said “I’ll be back in a bit,” and left. When I returned a few hours later, I walked in to find my father and my new puppy snuggled up on the couch, gazing into each others' eyes.

DIARY

This Is How It Always Is

November 20, 2019

If we're being honest, I don't think it was my marriage that broke me. It was all the marriages.

I just finished reading this book, Fleishman Is In Trouble. It's about divorce - and specifically about a woman who, one day, simply disappears - abandons her marriage and her job and her children while her husband holds up the fort, so to speak. It involves major twists that I won't spoil for you because you really should read it - but I don't think it's a spoiler to tell you what I took away from it. Which is that this book explained my own story to me in a way I hadn't fully comprehended before.

At the crux of the issue is the plight of the working mother. I shy away from this topic because in our present culture there is such (completely valid) sensitivity to the different ways women approach parenting. There is a danger, when you identify yourself as a "working mother," of creating distance between yourself and the other kind of mother - the one who "doesn't work." But who does! Of course she does! She does the hardest job!

How To Survive Holiday Travel With Children

How to make the holidays more stressful? Just add long car rides, cross-country flights, and a few underslept kids! Our sleep expert Mahaley tells us how to navigate the mess with your sanity (relatively) intact.

The Ramshackle Glam Gift Guide For Kids (That Parents Won’t Hate)

#Micdrop (a.k.a. My Move To Malibu)

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This Holiday Season, Make Space For Solitude

Tarot contributor Jessica explains why the holiday season is the perfect time to go deep - even to the places that you fear the most.

In Which I Am A Character In An Actual, For-Real Horror Movie

The Work At Home Mom Gift Guide (AnyMom-Approved)

On Those “Just Can’t” Nights

My Sweet Girl, Goodbye.

This Is How It Always Is