According to a recent study, the most stressful number of kids to have is three.

We’ve heard it time and time again, exercise is good for your health.  Trust me, being a former personal trainer and aerobic instructor I know how important it is to get in regular exercise.  But, when I became a mom, I also understood the challenge of trying to fit it in.  And, like most busy mothers, I allowed work, family and life to get in the way of consistent exercise, but not today.

My son is starting middle school in the fall, my good friend’s youngest child leaves for college in August, my colleague’s husband just quit his job to join his wife’s firm, my 46 year-old childhood friend just learned he’s going to be a new father and my professional path (not so much what I do, but “how” I do it) is up for review.

My family and I just got back from a road trip.  We made the nearly 5-hour trek from Los Angeles to the San Francisco Bay Area, where I was a bridesmaid in my cousin’s wedding.  Prior to the trip, I gathered all the necessities I needed to keep my 2 ½ year-old and 4-year-old from having a meltdown mid-ride.  DVD Player, check.

My husband brought home dinner last night, and to my utter amazement, I opened his dessert pan and found a burnt cookie staring me in the face.  My chocolate chip cookie was perfect, but his peanut butter cookie, which wasn’t a tad overcooked or a little charred on the edges, was scorched, incinerated, burnt almost to a crisp.  If you don’t believe me, just look at the cookie, commonly known as a Pizookie, in the photo above.

You know how everyone is the perfect parent—before they have kids? They always know EXACTLY how they would parent saying, “When I have kids, I’ll NEVER cut the crusts off their sandwiches,” and, “My kids will know how to read before starting kindergarten.”

Well, I’ve become that mom —except with my puppy. Our latest little blessing arrives in four weeks, and of these facts I am sure:

Sheevon would hate to hear that I call her a miracle worker. And yet, after meeting her last week in Uganda, I could not help but conjure up the image of Anne Sullivan working diligently with Helen Keller, who was both blind and deaf. Instead of working with one student, Sheevon opens her home twice a week to many. On a sunny day, she has the capacity to teach 60 in the outdoor space she and her husband built for the purpose of teaching. When it rains, she can only accommodate 10-20 inside her home.

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We have been hearing quite a bit about “forty and fabulous” this year. Fifteen minutes of cosmetic application can transform our nearly forty or forty-something faces into more like twenty-seven year old ones. Last August I was amazed that the lip-gloss and eye makeup I had applied with great fervor to mimic the USA’s 2012 Women’s Olympic Gymnastics team palate was still on after I ran over six miles in ninety degree weather.

Yesterday afternoon my nine year old ran away from home.