In the last two weeks, I have been in the Netherlands with the two youngest. We’ll stay for six weeks in total. The original reason for this trip was to spend time with my mom and help my dad with her care. But my mom passed away in April. I decided to go. I thought my dad might feel lonely. I was wrong.

My 11-year-old has lost his lunchbox. Now this is nothing new. In his 11.5 years on this planet, he has lost more things than I can remember. But a few stand out.

On the morning of Good Friday, my family and I take a gondola to ski our last weekend of the season. Things look bleak. It is foggy and drizzling, and the snow on the lower slopes is largely gone. But that does not bother my 11-year-old in any way. He is asking my husband a million questions about Purple Haze.

When I moved to Philadelphia in 2011 for a visiting postdoc, it did not take long to feel like an alien who had landed on a new planet. This planet had rules I did not know and unwritten behavioral codes I did not master. It escalated on the second day, when I biked to IKEA to pick up a table leg to replace the faulty one I'd bought the day prior.

On the day I flew to the Netherlands to visit family, I dropped my daughter off at daycare. I gave her an extra tight hug and said “see you in ten days. I love you.” I saw the two instructors exchange looks. Those looks said something like “what did she say? Is she really leaving her kids for ten days?” I sure was. It was glorious.

My mom’s birthday is coming up. That, in combination with my parents’ upcoming move to a newly built house, was reason for my sisters and me to coordinate a trip to the Netherlands. I haven’t seen my two-year older sister in two years and there is lots to catch up on. We do this in a local beer bar in Venray.

After school, my son often reads on his bed while I work. He asks: “do you know what grit is?” My interest is piqued. I know what grit is, but what does he know about it? So I ask him: “What do you think it is?” “Grit is building self-toughness. It is about persistence and sticking with a long-term goal.”

When I teach Organizational Behavior, MBA students with a background in finance or accounting usually groan. Too soft. No numbers. It couldn’t be further from the truth. The basic assumptions of finance often apply to OB as well. When you manage others, you should make strategic decisions on where to invest your time and energy based on Return on Investment (ROI).

My son’s report cards often come back with the advice to practice listening. I think what the teacher probably means is that my son should go beyond selective listening. Because in my experience, my son actually listens too well to whatever serves him. You just don’t know it until a few weeks later, when he uses your lesson against you to point out your own shortcomings. Here is how that works.

I wake up to a light ploink ploink sound on Saturday morning. When I walk down the stairs to the basement, I see my daughter throwing medium size screws, one by one, into an empty laundry basket. My husband is measuring wood for his latest project - building a shoe rack. Guilt is dripping from his face.

My little one turns two on Friday. For each kid’s birthday, the daycare teachers typically share pictures of impressive cupcake towers, with extra accolades if the cupcakes are home-made. I feel the pressure. I hear a little voice in my head say that if I want my little girl to have a good birthday, she needs home-baked cupcakes.

Five minutes after my husband left to the airport for a three-day conference, I discovered red spot under my little one’s chin. The day prior, she’d had a fever that seemingly came out of nowhere and disappeared equally sudden. Hand, foot, and mouth disease. Perfect. We could rule out daycare for the rest of the week

Two things happened in the six weeks after New Years. The first is that my two MBA courses started. The second is that I finished the first draft of my book. Between teaching preps, being in class, my admin role, and about seven research projects, there really wasn’t a lot of time to write up the final two interviews.

On New Year’s Eve I got even more self-time. I was going to pick up my son on January 1st and drive him up to the cabin for our second week of vacation. A full evening and morning to myself!

My husband convinced me that normal families take a two-week vacation around Christmas and New Year’s. It would be fun. I tried to ignore the red flag waving vigorously in a corner of my brain. Let’s try to be a normal family then.

Every November I wonder why BC has not gotten the balls yet to get rid of daylights savings time. They seem to be waiting for Washington to make the move. Daylight savings sucks. It sucks even more if you have little ones who don’t change their bedtime and wake up time flexibly.

After my husband had been away most of the week for a teambuilding event for his work, I packed my bag (laundry basket, if I’m honest) and drove off to our cabin on Friday night. A full weekend of boundaryless working lay ahead of me, topped off with an outdoor day on Monday.

This morning, I walked to the petting farm in our neighborhood with my 1.5yo. It was a beautiful fall day, 9 degrees and sunny. When we got there at 9:30am it turned out that the Fall opening hours had started. The farm wouldn’t open until 10am. I maneuvered the stroller to the playground adjacent to the farm and my little one roamed around happily.

I sometimes feel like I’m in some odd contest of getting daily tasks done within a limited timeframe, but with extra obstacles. Daily tasks can be as simple as taking a shower or making dinner. The time frame is dictated by the start of school, a work meeting, or bedtime. The obstacles are generously provided by my kids.

On Sunday night, my phone started acting up. It seemed to automatically open apps and press buttons beyond my control. By Monday morning, I had figured out that the swipe-up function on my iPhone was not working anymore, and by noon, I had narrowed the issue down to a desensitized lowest strip on the touch screen