Author: Catherine Duncan
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I’m just a Mom, sitting in front of my Christmas tree, asking it to glow a little longer…
Christmas Night, Quiet at Last This post is dedicated to Aunt Phyl. My #1 fan <3. The house is finally quiet. The lights on the Christmas tree are still glowing—soft, twinkling, almost humming in the silence. A few ornaments are slightly crooked, evidence of small hands that insisted on helping. Wrapping paper has been mostly…
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The Baby of the Family Turns 3
A Big Birthday for Our Littlest One There’s something uniquely emotional about the baby of the family turning 3. It’s an age that feels like a bridge — one foot still toddling through babyhood, soft and chubby and wonderfully dependent, and the other foot boldly stepping into the world of “I do it myself,” independence,…
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Thirty-Nine and Thriving (Mostly):
Reflections on My Birthday Today’s my birthday. The big 3-9. The last year of my thirties — which feels both impossible and completely believable at the same time. As I sit here, coffee in hand, trying to soak in a quiet moment before the chaos of mom life and teacher life collides again, I can’t…
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Getting Middle Schoolers to Understand That ChatGPT Isn’t Their Golden Ticket to School Success
Getting Middle Schoolers to Understand That ChatGPT Isn’t Their One-Way Ticket to Success in School We live in a world where middle schoolers can ask a question, type it into ChatGPT, and receive an answer in seconds. For a generation growing up surrounded by technology, it feels almost magical. No flipping through textbooks, no staring…
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Moving Your Last Baby from a Crib to a Toddler Bed
A Milestone Full of Emotions There are so many milestones in parenting that sneak up on us. The first tooth, the first steps, the first day of preschool. But few tug at the heartstrings quite like the day you realize it’s time to move your last baby out of the crib and into a toddler…
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Life on the Sidelines: A Mom’s Playbook for Surviving Sports Season
There’s a special kind of chaos that comes with being a sports mom. It’s not just the cheering on the sidelines, the orange slices, or the team group texts that never end—it’s the full-blown juggling act of keeping multiple kids in multiple sports, all on different days, with practices and games that somehow overlap more…
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In the Middle of the Mess:
Soaking Up the Moments Some days, motherhood feels like a marathon you didn’t train for. The kind where the water stations are filled with cold coffee, the spectators are screaming for snacks instead of cheering you on, and no one’s handing out medals at the end. You wake up tired because someone had a bad…
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Back To School…
We Survived the First Week: Mom + Teacher Edition The first week of school always feels like stepping onto a speeding treadmill—you know you have to run, but you’re not quite sure your legs are ready. As both a teacher and a mom, I’ve learned that surviving these first five days is basically an Olympic…
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One Foot in Summer, One Foot in School…and some arms ready for Fall Sports
The juggling act of a mom-teacher gearing up for fall August is a strange place to live when you’re both a mom and a teacher. It’s this limbo where you’re clinging to summer but also knee-deep in lesson plans, supply lists, and wondering if the kids’ sneakers will make it one more season (spoiler: they…
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When Lightning Strikes and So Does the Chaos: Mom Life in a Nighttime Thunderstorm
The house is dark. The clock reads 12:13 a.m. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbles low like the opening notes of a horror movie soundtrack. I know exactly what’s about to happen. Did I wake up to this rumbling of what I knew was about to be an all-nighter of reassuring my children that the…
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Coffee ☕️ Crayons 🖍️ and Curriculum 📝 