Introduction

The countdown to the bus had already begun. How much time was left to get out the door? Fifteen minutes? Ten? Five? Meanwhile, my daughter was in an absolute meltdown over getting dressed. I don’t know what exact dress code she thought was in place for that day of school, but the outfit laid out in her room, the one she picked out the night before—the clean, weather-appropriate one—was not it. There was a lot of yelling and crying, and not a lot of clothes-wearing.

We were all ready, at baseline, in more than the usual amount of chaos. I was still pretty new at the single mom thing, and we had recently moved into a new apartment. We were all adjusting. And on that day in particular, we were in that transition period, after the kids return to my place, where everything was just a bit extra.

Just as I was trying to simultaneously extricate myself from my daughter’s room and will suitable clothes onto her body, my younger one, my son, came in the room grinning and asking me to come to see his “snowfield.” The (empty) box of crackers he was toting perhaps should have given me a clue, but I was completely unprepared for what awaited in the living room.

The white-ish coating on the furniture and floors and windowsills did, in fact, create the aforementioned snowfield effect. Or, through grown-up eyes: there were crunched-up crackers sprinkled absolutely everywhere.

“What on earth did you do?!?”

I am not sure I managed a great tone here, but I’m proud to say that at least my daughter was still the only one yelling and crying.

“I wanted to see what it would look like!” my son happily exclaimed. “I thought it might look like winter.”

It was not yet 8:30 a.m.

There are days like this. Every mom knows them. I don’t care how much you had life figured out before; everything changes once you have children.

You are just so busy. And stressed. You have no time to sleep. Some days no time to even shower. How are you going to keep everyone happy when you feel like you’re running on empty? When are you going to get through a whole day without yelling at the kids?

Never mind getting everything done—how do you even know what to do? How do you know you are doing it right? And how do you take care of everything kid-related without neglecting yourself or your relationships with other adults?

So many moms are overwhelmed, stressed out, and sleep-deprived, often appearing as moody, irritable, and impatient—on top of “mom brain” and plenty of mom guilt. That’s before factoring in poor eating and exercise habits, no matter how fit you were in the “before” times.

There’s no time to yourself. You feel somehow not up to the job. You might begin to second-guess your parenting decisions or shift from following one source of advice to another and another, depending on who you talked to last.

I’ve been there…those times when you sit back and close your eyes for a minute and think, OMG, how in the world am I supposed to manage all this? Can I possibly keep it together? What am I even doing?

The times when someone is having a tantrum because there is no more of the milk they like for breakfast and they have to use the one in the wrong color carton.

Those times when you go to the grocery store for milk for breakfast cereal and bread for school lunch and arrive home with bags and bags of groceries…but no milk. (At least you got the bread!)

Those mornings when you know you won’t make it to the bus stop on time and there’s no time to get the kids to school yourself because you’ve got a work meeting starting at 8 a.m…and that’s when your kid announces she peed in the corner instead of the potty.

Then of course, everyday “emergencies” like these are layered over top of the regular assortment of life issues, failing relationships, untenable work demands, and challenging health issues. The croup and the learning disabilities and doctor’s warnings about obesity. I’ve been to all those places too and didn’t always feel 100 percent sure I was up to the task.

And I’m a pediatrician as well as a mom, so at least I’ve got the medical knowledge about how to keep a child healthy and growing on my side. If things can get overwhelming for me, I can see how much more intense it could be for other moms.

Just imagine, though, what it would be like to parent feeling calm and confident. Even when things are chaotic. Especially then.

It is possible.

I know because I’ve been there too.

The truth is, motherhood is many things. It is the best job ever and incredibly rewarding. One thing it is not, though, is easy. Finding things that can make it easier is important for anyone who wants to minimize that pulling-my-hair-out feeling. That’s what this book is all about—whatever makes mom life easier, less overwhelming, and more joyful.

I’m here to give my best (science-backed) tips and tricks, drawn from my life as a mom and my expertise as a pediatrician. That expertise makes me a magnet for questions from parents about everything, spanning from: Do I need to call the doctor? to What should I serve for dinner? or What can I do about whining? I can’t promise you stress-free parenting—you don’t even really want everything to be stressless all the time—but I can promise you that you can handle even the most challenging moments of parenting with aplomb. (Or what looks like it, anyway.) I want you to make the most of your time, leave mom guilt behind you, and enjoy mom life to the fullest.

I want you to know—really know—that you can handle this.

So much about being a mom is learning as you go. You don’t always know exactly what you are doing, but you learn from experience. That’s especially true of the most difficult experiences. I’ve had plenty to learn from! A challenging pregnancy, a series of injuries and surgeries, and a difficult marriage and divorce have taught me so much that I would never have known otherwise. All of this has made such a huge impact on who I am as a person—my emotional state, my physical well-being, and how I manage as a busy mom—and, therefore, has had a huge impact on my kids and the people they are growing into.

I’m sharing what I’ve learned in the hope that it’ll give you a shortcut to being a calm and confident parent. I wouldn’t want anyone to have to go through what I’ve been through to learn the things I’ve learned. To keep yourself and your family healthy and happy. To experience wellness and find balance, even when life is nuts.

To take care of yourself as a way of taking care of your kids—even when one is hollering about the wrong socks, the other is covered in cracker dust, and you’re not even out of your pajamas yet.

Standing in the middle of the “snowfield,” for a moment I felt like I would lose it. The time crunch! The noise! The incredible mess!

But then, wiser me spoke up. Okay, I need to take a breath. No one’s hurt. She’s okay. He’s definitely okay. I’m even okay. In my mind, I quickly ticked through all I’d learned over the years, breathed deeply before doing anything else, and then just kind of clicked into the humorous part of the situation. I looked at my son, and we started laughing and laughing.

I still had too much to do and not enough time to do it, but really, what’s better than a kid convinced he can make it snow inside? This is one of the deep joys of parenting, accessing some of what’s going on in their awesome little minds as they discover the world.

If I had gone ballistic, what would it even have helped? I’d still have needed to haul out the vacuum, my daughter’s clothes would still be wrong, and we’d still be late for the bus. But I also would have missed a “moment” that became a great family memory. And I would have shaped my kids’ reactions, too—not for the calmer, that’s for sure.

I wrote this book so you, too, can laugh rather than snap when things are definitely not going according to plan. (And when is family life ever consistently going according to plan?) You can find calm in the chaos and confidently choose your path.

I’m a single mom of two school-aged kids. I’ve been in private practice as a pediatrician and served as an attending pediatrician at several of New York City’s best teaching hospitals. I’ve since moved on to a position in the pharmaceutical industry. I have faced my own medical and personal issues, and so it really hit home for me how, even with all my professional knowledge, I didn’t...