Author Archives: szwirnermeyer

Wednesday night, I took Maeve and her cousin to dance and, at 8:00, after twenty minutes of being home, I took my pillow into the guest room, ignored everyone, and cried myself to sleep. I had had enough that day. Enough begging children to listen to me. Enough emails about what more needs to beContinue reading “The Third Trimester Game Plan”

I attended Tenniswood Elementary School in the late 80’s and early 90’s. The school smelled like those soft cafeteria chocolate chip cookies and musty yellow sponges that we used to clean the chalkboard at the end of the day. We took field trips to the Macomb Center for the Performing Arts to see fairy taleContinue reading “80’s Elementary Schools and Burnout”

I’m writing this as a full-time working mom of a four year old and two year old. I currently teach elementary school in a nearby district and will be responsible for a preschool drop off and then a daycare drop off prior to arriving at school each day. I think it’s important to acknowledge thatContinue reading “This Is How We’re Going To Do This School Year”

I told my life partner, Sarah, today that I feel like I think like a writer. Sometimes when I’m thinking, I actually can see how I would write about and format the feelings I’m experiencing on the page. I was referencing how I’d communicate something that had happened at work, and, by the end ofContinue reading “We’re Almost To The Finish Line”

Today’s post is an homage to moms. Because, for crying out loud. As if motherhood itself isn’t enough, this generation of gals is going to experience it amidst a global pandemic. While we work from home. With no childcare. And make organic meals with cauliflower crusts and refinance our homes and throw socially distant birthdayContinue reading “I’m Writing This Because I Need To Hear It Myself Today”

A few weeks ago, I was listening to the audiobook “On the Bright Side,” by Melanie Shankle, while I made a stuffed cabbage casserole like all good suburban moms in the midst of a pandemic should. She was referring to the death of her husband’s father when he was a young boy and said somethingContinue reading “The Thing About Dads”

Seventeen years ago, when I started teaching, I truly believed that I was different from the rest. I sincerely and naively believed that there had never been someone before me who loved teaching and children as much as I did. I told myself I would change them. I would fix them. I would save them.Continue reading “Teachers—Consider This Your Permission Slip to Self-Care”

I was my parents’ first child, born in 1981. My mom didn’t have her eyebrows tinted for our first hospital photos together. In the photos of my birth, my mom is wearing the provided hospital gown and I am wearing the provided hospital blanket. This was pre-Etsy, pre-mama/daughter-matching-floral mama-kimono, baby-turban days. I’m pretty sure myContinue reading “Am I Keeping Up? Am I Good Enough?”

I attended a Mother Honestly event at The Dailey Method—Birmingham awhile back which featured a motivational speaker named Toni Jones. I remember walking in to the event the same way I walked in to the end of the year dance at Middle School South when I was 11—-hovering near the perimeter, half-wanting to know whatContinue reading “It Takes A Village —And The Villagers May Not Be Who You Think They Are”