Category: My Life

4 Great Books for New Parents

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Profile of newborn lying in bed, looking at parent off to the side and holding parent’s hand

There is no shortage of pregnancy and parenting advice out there. With numerous books, blogs, podcasts, classes, and tips from friends, family members, and experts, all offering often conflicting advice, sifting through it all can be overwhelming. I wanted to be well-informed as I prepared to welcome my son into the world, but I also understood that no amount of reading would prepare me for what I was about to experience.

Nevertheless, I did my best to educate myself on pregnancy and caring for a baby. Here are a few books I read that were informative and helpful. They are all available in audiobook format, and I believe I’ve listened to each of them at least twice. If you are an expecting or new parent and aren’t sure where to begin, I’d recommend starting with these.

Pregnancy: Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom is Wrong and What You Really Need to Know by Emily Oster

Parenting: Brain Rules for Baby: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five by John Medina

Parenthood and Commiseration: All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood by Jennifer Senior

Productivity and Motivation: I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time by Laura Vanderkam

What books helped you in your transition into parenthood? Tell us in the comments.

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Career Pathways and Trusting the Journey

- Alexis Leave a comment
Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge, Northern Ireland. Photo of people walking along a narrow path on a coast toward a tiny rocky island

This Friday, I’ll be speaking at an undergraduate career conference. In preparation for my panel on Advocating for Justice (legal careers), the organizers sent me some questions to consider. The first was how my educational experience sparked my interest in being an attorney or working in the judiciary and making a difference in this sphere.

I laughed a little when I read the question because, as some of you know, I didn’t even consider going to law school until after I had graduated from college. I started trying to think of experiences I’d had in college that may have led me in this direction, but then I realized that pointing to any particular undergraduate experience would be a contrived answer. I decided it was best to just be honest with these students, because the truth is that many of us don’t have some early moment of clarity or grand plan that leads us to our dream careers. For me and many others I’ve met, we got to where we are largely by chance. More accurately, we made a bunch of small decisions without a big vision. We put one foot in front of the other, unable to see the full path but hoping and trusting we’d eventually end up somewhere good.

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Why I Live in Rural America

- Alexis Leave a comment
View from atop Roan Mountain, Tennessee

I read this opinion piece a few days ago called “Something Special is Happening in Rural America.” It gave me a little added optimism about my chosen home and reminded me of some of the reasons I live here. I’m part of a trend in America away from living in big cities and toward living in smaller towns.

I grew up in a town of about 20,000 people in south central Pennsylvania. Although the town itself was small, it was about 30 minutes from the state capital and in a metropolitan area with a population of more than 500,000. I lived about two hours from Baltimore and Philadelphia and less than four hours from New York City.

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A New Season, Another Capsule Wardrobe!

- Alexis Leave a comment
Clothes hanging in a closet - a selection from the author’s fall 2019 capsule wardrobe

After about a six-month break, I’m ready to return to a capsule wardrobe for this fall. I’ve enjoyed some added variety in my outfits, but I feel like I’m spending too much time thinking about my clothes again, and I’ve also bought more things than I’d like over the past several months. So I’m returning to the Project 333 concept, but I’m modifying it a little this time.

When I did this last fall, I found that my wardrobe didn’t fully account for extremes in temperatures, which ranged from the low 20s to the high 80s here during my September-to-December capsule wardrobe challenge. At the beginning, I wished I’d had shorts and a pair of sandals, and by the end, I could have used some gloves and a coat that was more substantial than a trench coat or wool blazer. I also missed having a few items available to me, like a necklace.

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What Messages Do You Need to Hear Right Now?

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A cliff along the ocean in Northern Ireland

“You are never alone or helpless. The force that guides the the stars guides you too.”  –Shrii Shrii Anandamurt, quoted in You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero

I had a small epiphany recently. For months, my son had been saying something that sounded like “dapadee.” I had no idea what it meant. I felt certain he wasn’t just babbling nonsense syllables, though, because he would say it over and over again. Dapadee! Dapadee! Dapadee dapadeeeeee… What the heck is dapadee? I thought. My husband speculated that maybe he was trying to say “patootie,” which we sometimes call him. We went with that theory for a while because we had no other ideas. For probably three months or so, along with the many other words he was learning, he kept repeating, Dapadee!

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