Nichelle Dacunha

In an attempt to become more present in my life and to bring consciousness to my daily cell phone use, I limited my use to only the times that my children were sleeping or out of house. For an entire week my phone remained out of sight during family time. The results of my experiment served as a much needed reality check.

Your efforts, while more scarce, were thwarted by my excuses and busy schedule. Now, six months into being a mom to two, my hindsight has allowed me to realize that I unknowingly became my own worst enemy in the fight to maintain my friendships. I’ve grown to be the “flakey” friend and while you might not yet be able to relate or fully understand, I owe you an explanation.

I'm going to be very real with you all for a second: I am a preservative craving, junk food eating, non organic-using, toxin wearing kind of girl. And I do it all without an ounce of guilt... The way in which I willingly abuse my temple reeks of hypocrisy when it comes to making decisions for my children. Everything from cloth diapering and reusable wipes to organic home-made baby foods....you name it, if it's better for my kids, I've done it. They depend on me to do what I can to keep them safe and healthy. Even with my efforts, we have battled our fair share of sickness. And in keeping with the "only the best for my babies" theme, choosing which medicines to give them was an easy decision.

I went into the final days of my 42 week pregnancy armed with hopes and plans of what my experience as a new mom would be like. I arrived at the hospital on my induction date with a nervous smile and the naive expectations only first-time moms possess. The construction of my carefully laid out birth plan took hours of classes and research to complete and it likely wound up covered in coffee rings as a coaster at the nurses’ station.

When you are preparing to become a mother for the first time, it’s difficult to comprehend just how steep the learning curve in raising a human actually is. No amount of research can do...

Weaving through the produce section, shopping list in hand, I'm hastily looking over vegetables as I throw them into bags and carefully place them in the small spaces unoccupied by my daughter's car seat....