Selena Mills

To some, we’ve done everything backwards. Drifters. And yet, making such assumptions can get tricky, when one doesn’t have the facts. Infertility played a major factor in how and when I eventually did get pregnant (both miraculous times!) and to me, our little family has grown in all the right ways, exactly as it was meant to be. Which is why our kids were very much seen and heard during our wedding ceremony. They were involved in many of the planning details and included as a part of our wed...

Historically, fathers have gotten a bad rap. The evolution of equality in parenting and the workplace (and we’re not quite there yet) aside, there are always two sides to every story. As a mother who was once a child with less-than-desirable stepfathers and no knowledge of my biological father, one might wager that my views on fathers and how men have typically filled this role in general aren’t all that positive.
Years ago, I was that jaded young woman. Through the healing hands of time and ...

Motherhood is a celebration they say. An honor. It is (sometimes) acknowledged that the struggle to balance the perils and joys of motherhood against that of our professions and innermost desires is completely justifiable. It is often proposed that if we carve out time for self-care, rest, and rejuvenation, that perhaps we would be making the best of our motherhood journey.
There are experts, tip-givers, and list-makers telling us how we can achieve such stress-free ideals … so much so that t...

When I think about the pressure of raising kids, my head kind of implodes. So I try not to think about it too often. HA! That’s totally a joke. Those who know me, or are familiar with some of the articles I write, wherein I delve deep into analyzing how I parent, how I discipline … then you know that I’m a thinker; an analyzer. I consider these to be good, honest traits. They’re traits that humble me and keep me centered in one of the most challenging and rewarding roles I’ll ever have the ho...

A few weeks ago I encountered one of my most difficult parenting moments to date: my son point-blank asked me why I don’t have a dad. Or rather, he said to me, “Where’s your daddy? Why don’t you have one?”
He asked in such a way that I knew he’d been thinking about it. He asked me carefully, while snuggled up next to me as we watched some random YouTube video. There was no correlation between what we were doing at that exact moment, or anything happening in general in our family, to warrant s...

I’ve lost count of how many times one of my toddlers has lost it in public. It’s of no surprise really — and it doesn’t just happen during the toddler years. Childhood tantrums seem to diminish in frequency over time but they do indeed still happen. So to all of those people who told me that meltdowns were a part of the toddler stage? LIES. ALL LIES.
I have a 4-year-old son (who is now nearly 5). He is old enough to declare that Autumn is his birthday season yet still toddler(ish) enough to w...

When I examine the cultural and social impact of blogging, I wish I could say that the safety of my children is something that I have the ultimate power in monitoring and controlling. The sad truth of the matter is that I do not have control of that, just as I don’t at the park, in a church (were we church-goers), at school, with a neighbor or a babysitter or … right now in the present or as my kids get older and begin to go out on their own. The concept of “the virtual” and clearly examining...

No matter how prepared you think you are before you have a baby, it’s a known fact that things WILL get turned upside down afterwards. And often, we are all faced with similar issues. Savor these points as the dark tides beckoning to the sense of humor, bravado, love, and kindness you’ll have to dig deep and reach out for. Do this for your partner, husband, wife … whomever you’ve entered into this journey with. But mostly, for yourself.
And remember, all these common issues can only be potent...

The holidays can be a difficult time of year for many. As I slip down from the love-filled high of Christmas, with all of it’s hustle, prep, lists, cleaning, cooking, baking and visiting, I am left with little desire to step into 2015 with yet another list of resolutions or wishes and wants. It all feels like the unmet expectations of each year past. Both the ones that I put on myself and the ones that I think I need to attain in order to be an ideal version of myself as a woman.
I break most...

A little under a year ago I was extolling the virtues of having a two year old. I thought perhaps it was my destiny to be blessed with a toddler, my daughter, who didn’t attempt to destroy me at every turn during the infamous, “Terrible Two” stage. I figured out real quick that the terrible twos were a myth; a conspiracy to fool would-be-parents that the most challenging of stages only lasts a little while. I don’t know about you, but I went into parenting thinking that the toddler and teenag...

In all likelihood, if you’re a woman with a husband, you do this. If you don’t, congrats. You’re a more evolved human than I am. It’s no one’s fault, I daresay. I would even go so far as to purport that it is in our genetic make-up, this annoying little thing that we do as women, to our men … which is to annoy the ever-loving-crap out of them.
Sometimes we realize when we’re doing it. Sometimes we don’t. What I do know is that we often do it when we’re annoyed with them too. Whether they’ve d...

Innocence. Such a revered, magical state of being that exists within our young children. It’s something we clasp onto as parents, not wanting to (unnecessarily) burst their bubbles. So we question ourselves. We raise them in this world fraught with affliction and cling to the promise of something better that their innocence represents.
Until one day of course, when you realize that perhaps what you’re holding onto isn’t all that realistic. That perhaps you aren’t doing your child(ren) any fav...

This post is dedicated to my favorite kids, one of whom resides in the wormhole that is being an old and seasoned toddler, yet not quite a kid. The other whom I have recently started admitting to actually being a kid, toddler no more.
The two of you are my favorite humans of the toddler and kid variety. I wish and hope for you many things, many of which have nothing to do with academic or financial success and all to do with the quality of life you have, emotionally. All of this stuff we’re d...

As someone who spends at least half of my workday in front of a computer, specifically on parenting blogs, it’s hard to avoid articles telling parents what not to say or do. Or parents telling other people what not to say or do to them. So I’m not going to do that here, because as much as I try to tune out what rubs me the wrong way, I also believe that considering other people’s opinions, even the ones that challenge my own, is a good thing. This is how I broaden my horizons, this is how I c...

I love design, and I love finding beauty and inspiration in everyday things. The biggest source, for me, is found in nature: greenery, growth, the abundant radiance in every single thing that can be grown in the earth, the changing of the seasons, the constellations, the stars, the sun and the moon. All if it. Nature can inspire every medium and every style, from rustic to modern, sleek, clean, and graphic, to adorned, eclectic, and kitsch. I love how in nature, all of these various styles me...