My name is Nicole and I find blogging about being an awesome parent a great way to avoid playing with my children.

I work full-time, have three kids, one husband and one dog (who always seems to come last on the totem pole, poor guy). My life is a constant interruption and I never feel like I’m doing anything as well as I should be. But, I have discovered a lot of survival skills in the last few years that make the craziness a little more curated and less out of control.

If you are reading this it must mean 1) you are pregnant, 2) you have little ones and are adjusting to the life or 3) you are related to me, you promised me you’d check this out and you’d feel terrible at our next get together not referencing some random fact that makes me know you read it. (At this point, it wouldn’t hurt to shoot me a text letting me know how awesome this is. Thank you! You’ve always been my favorite.)

But just in case you are not my mom and are looking for some guidance, I’m glad you are here. Let me start by saying I have absolutely no business imparting my advice to you. I have very few professional life coach-type qualifications, but my demanding life has imparted many learning experiences. For example, did you know that children, nearly 110% of the time, throw up in the middle of the night, in their bed? And it will almost always happen when you don’t have an extra set of clean sheets, so you have to do some MacGyver-type sh!t to make a bed out of that one spare blanket you have. The lesson here: Be prepared to never really be prepared. This applies to any stage of life, from your birth plan that flies out the window the second you have your first contraction, to the first time you break one of your “I will never do that when I have kids” rules, to when you ignore that call from daycare because they know they’ll call your partner next. Just go with it. Feed them, expect more from them, bite their little toes and love them to pieces. But most of all, just go with the flow. That’s all you really need to know. Just kidding! If that were true, then I wouldn’t be writing this. But stay with me here and hopefully there will be some bit of truth that will speak to you, change your life or make you feel less alone on this crazy path.

And remember: Relax. Nothing is under control.