My mornings involve far more yelling than I'd like to admit ("PUT. ON. YOUR. SHOES"). So I asked our sleep expert Mahaley to tell me how to have the calm, lovely pre-dropoff hour of my dreams.

Q. Mahaley, please help me yell less?

A. If I may be honest here, I don’t have all the answers. My daughter is three, and she still wakes up in a horrible mood some mornings. I guess we all wake up on the wrong side of the bed sometimes, right? But here are some strategies I've found to be helpful for creating a (relatively) stress-free and happy morning. 

1.    Make sure that your child is going to bed at an appropriate time. I cannot stress this enough. If your child is not getting enough sleep, there’s virtually no saving their mood in the morning. For babies and young toddlers, an appropriate bedtime is usually somewhere between 6-7 PM, depending on when their nap ends. For older toddlers and young kids, I recommend somewhere between 7-7:30 PM.

My tiny Ewok

It's been two months since we lost our girl, and it's getting close to the time when I feel ready to bring another dog into our family. I needed a minute to recuperate after Lucy died - emotionally, of course, but I also needed a second to breathe, because the last few months of her life were...a lot. Besides the logistical work - vet appointments, messes to be cleaned - I worried about her all the time. I'd wake up in the middle of the night to check her breathing, or terrify myself imagining the worst when she didn't run up to greet me at the door when I came home (which, towards the end, she never did).

I was exhausted from the sheer volume of care she required - that on top of the care required by the other living things in my household - and honestly? I wanted to rest. But now my kids are starting to mention wanting another dog, and not just that: They've taken on a bunch of pet-related responsibilities (scooping the litterbox is one of them, thank Jesus) to try to convince me that they'll help out with the walking and training and such, and I want to reward their efforts.

Case of the Tuesdays over here

The way our custody schedule works, I mostly have the kids on weekdays - so when I found out I had the kids all three days this weekend, I got super excited and did the obvious thing: I overscheduled us up the wazoo. (I do this on the nights that I'm solo, too: I think, MUST DO ALL THE FUN THINGS! and end up watching half of sixteen different shows and staying up too late and feeling wildly unsatisfied about the whole event.) We had sleepovers. Korean BBQ lunches. Beach trips. Hot tub soaks. ALL THE FUN THINGS.

So: I'm exhausted. But all this activity also resulted in a bunch of interesting discoveries. Here, in no particular order, are a few of them.

Ignore the mess; focus on the handsomeness

The entire Art Class kids' clothing line at Target. My son just grew at least two inches (and gained several years, #whydoeshelooksoold), and suddenly found himself in need of an entirely new wardrobe. I've been pretty lazy about his clothing these past couple of years because he really wasn't the kind of kid who cared about what he wore, beyond being comfortable. Sweatpants and t-shirt, check. But now, for the first time in his life, he kind of...does care. (My heart.) So I wanted to get him stuff that would be comfortable, yes, but would also be in line with his style, and this collection just killed it.

Here's what I picked up: