Every season comes with its own challenges, especially when parenting is involved, and this one feels particularly messy: A barbie doll is thrown in with baseball cleats and sheet music, we have several different careers pulling us in opposite directions, and there are socks and snack crumbs everywhere. In so many ways this feels more like the life I envisioned when Jackson was a baby than any life I’ve imagined since. Is it possible that after a decade of detours we’re back on that once familiar life path?

This is an ode to the parent who bears the weight of the mental load. Who plans the meals, registers for the activities, and updates the family calendar. Who reads (most of) the school emails, and the class WhatsApp, and the extracurricular activity app(s). Who coordinates the afterschool care, the babysitters, and the social calendar.

I want you to always remember who you are. It is so easy to forget, to feel the need to be like someone else. We mold and contort to socially survive and then one day we wake up an adult and try to remember who we were before the world colored inside our lines. I hope that someday these words may help you find your way back to your five-year-old self when you need her most.

It is officially no-school season at the Cervantes house, and we kicked it off with a splash. Last weekend we surprised Jackson and Anessa and took them with us to a Kalahari resort where Miguel and I had been hired to perform and speak at a conference.

Life in the Cervantes house has been, well, emotional. Tween emotions and all their collateral damage have taken over. And just when I thought I’d gotten the hang of this parenting thing too. Ha, jk, I’ve never felt confident in my parenting two days in a row. Bring on the uncomfortable feelings and awkward conversations!