You know what’s not in the parenting handbook?The fact that no parent is ever actually ready for the Tooth Fairy. Or at least I never was. Not once. Not ever. No matter how many teeth your child has in their mouth, no matter how wobbly they’ve been for weeks, that first “MOM! MY TOOTH FELL… Read more: Coffee Break Chronicles: The Tooth Fairy Emergency Fund (a.k.a. Your Kid’s Piggy Bank)

We were not going to get a dog. Ever. It wasn’t a casual, “Hmm, maybe someday” situation. No, my husband and I were adamant. This was a full-blown, decades-in-the-making, mutual parenting pact. We were the kind of people who appreciated dogs…sometimes…from a distance. Preferably clean, quiet, and somewhere else. But then came COVID. You know,… Read more: Coffee Break Chronicles:  How a Puppy Bowl and PowerPoint Broke Us