I used to write Mommy Tracks using the short-sighted moniker 3under5. 3under5 ditched the partnership track at a law firm to stay home with her 3 young babes, only to jump back on the tenure track teaching law to college students.
Cutesy handles are so 2006. This is me. My friends call me Leo. I write about things that matter, and I write about things that don't.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012 at 03:59PM Many bloggers are in the business of posting photos of proofreading and grammatical errors they stumble upon in the world (see e.g., Grammar Cops). Today, I add my contribution to the genre:
(Photograph courtesy of Karen Nelson.)
word nerd Tuesday, February 28, 2012 at 11:20AM 
Building on yesterday's list:
Baby Girl Lullabies: (On Spotify, as available: Girl Lullabies):
music in Job of Mom, Mom's Mixtapes Monday, February 27, 2012 at 06:01PM 
My favorite gift to throw into a gift basket or bag for expecting parents is a mixed CD of popular music lullabies and kid songs.
Because the sister formerly known on this blog as "HLS" is expecting a Baby Boy in a few weeks, I put this together for the little guy. Starts out as pre-nap fun, ends up putting everyone to sleep.
Tomorrow, the list, tweaked for baby girl.
I always start with the list of parenting songs we created at this blog a couple years ago that we continually update: Songs of Parenting (DON'T Rewind Barney for the 16th Time!) Check it out and leave anything we missed in the comments.
Baby Boy Lullabies (On Spotify, as available: Boy Lullabies)
music in Mom's Mixtapes Monday, December 21, 2009 at 06:05AM 
As I hunched over my steering wheel last week, watching the car thermometer slowly tick down to a negative 9 degrees, I decided that Minnesota winters are the weather equivalent of childbirth.
Eight years ago, giving birth to the first of my three children, about 4 hours after the doctor started the Pitocin drip and about an hour before I finally gave in and demanded the anesthesiologist, caught up in a painful contraction, I screamed at my husband.
"I can't take this Any More!!"
I don't remember what he said, something soothing and dismissive. I didn't care. "NO! I'm serious," I growled. "I am NEVER doing this AGAIN."
In Minnesota, every winter brings snow, cold, and, for the fifteen years I have lived here, the same conversation. I complain. I whine. I chronicle the struggle in Facebook. Winter finds me tracking the temperature, lamenting lost mittens and icy roads, shoveling, scraping, shivering, climbing into cars with frozen doors and foggy windows, hunching into coats, and scurrying between heated places. And every year I say to my husband, "I'm not doing this any more. I CAN'T HANDLE another winter. I'm serious. We're moving south."
This week, though, the mercury has risen just enough to strap on the snowpants and steer the kids outside. They sled in the backyard, and when they stomp back in the door, cold but sweaty, rosy-cheeked, and giggling, I'm glad they get winter. Coats and gear transform into a mountain of work in my entryway as they hunch over their hot chocolate, ignoring the mess. And, sure, I grumble my way through putting it all away, but my heart smiles knowing how much they enjoyed the snow.
Of course, I didn't stop having kids, and sometimes the day-to-day work of parenting drives me crazy. I'll complain about bad attitudes, bad trips to the dentist, and exhausting bedtime routines. But the sun always rises on a smile, an I-love-you, handmade artwork, first accomplishments, and the fun of family time. The winter will end and find us still here, tired of shoveling but blessed to have good friends, good schools, good jobs and good lives - no matter what the weather brings.
Once again the calendar will turn to a January full of Minnesota weather events, and my whining will reveal that I'm still here, still suffering, still begging the question from friends and relations in warmer places: "Why don't you just move? You don't have to stay there?"
I probably won't ever move. For all its faults, Minnesota is Home. When I complain about my kids, you wouldn't tell me to give them away.
But, seriously, get the anesthesiologist in here STAT, if it's going to dip to the subzeros again next week, I might need an epidural.
weather Friday, October 23, 2009 at 09:10AM If my husband had to tell you the one thing about me and my family that drives him the craziest, it would be that we are prone to over-analysis. Indeed, my sister and I can contemplate and discuss a simple, straightforward issue until only the smelly mane and tail of the dead horse's carcass remain.
This morning over breakfast, as we practiced his spelling words, I said to 8. "Did you ever mention to your teacher about that typo on the list?"
"No," he said.
"We should probably let her know," I suggested. "Should I e-mail her, or do you want to tell her at school?"
"I can e-mail her," he offered simply, without looking up from his cereal. Now there was a simple solution to the whole dilemma that hadn't occurred to me. I pulled up the teacher's e-mail address, and using his own account, my son typed this message:
Dear Mrs. c There is a mix up in the word shepherd. From "8"
He clicked send. A few minutes later, there was this reply.
Thank You!
And there you have it.
Although, right after he clicked send, I heard him gasp a little.
"What?" I asked.
"I forgot to capitalize the -C-," he lamented.
That's my boy.
(If you're interested in the poll results, voters were equally split between e-mailing the teacher and having him tell the teacher, with 'Nerd Alert' getting only one vote.)
humor, word nerd in Job of Mom, Kid Speak