Introduction

Hi! I’m Kerriann. I’m a writer, a therapist, and a lover of all things books + reading. Just over a month ago, I became a mom of three (!!!), and as I type this post, I am days away from my return to work after six weeks of family leave. (Cue groan + sad face about returning to work and about the state of paid family leave in the U.S. – extremely grateful to have been in a position to take ANY paid time off at all, but boy, do I sure wish it could be more!)

Ever since becoming a mom of three, my heart and my brain have been bursting – with love and with creativity, respectively. I have so much I want to say – about being a mom, about being a working mom, about being a writing mom, about navigating family life after transitioning from human-to-human parenting to a zone defense. SO much to say – and so little time for actual writing.

The idea to launch this new site came to me as I’ve been contemplating how to organize my writing and the rest of my life.

We’re an adoptive family – all three little ones adopted via the same adoption agency in Maryland. All adoption stories are different, but for us, we didn’t really experience a “nesting” phase in the months leading up to any of our children’s births. We didn’t know when the babies would come home, so we didn’t decorate a nursery and stock up on baby blankets and set up organizational systems. For us, it was more like, “Buy a car seat and put it someplace you can’t see it every day. When the adoption agency tells you your baby is coming home, stop at Target en route for diapers and wipes. Everything else, you will figure out on-the-job once baby is home.” It’s all worked out.

Yet in the six weeks since our third baby came home, I’ve noticed myself organizing and nesting . I am keenly aware of the simple facts of our life: full-time working mom (me), mom about to start a two-year graduate school program (my wife), and three boys, ages 5, 3, and nine weeks. There are a lot of moving parts to our life, and anything I can do to simplify things will definitely be a high five to my future self.

So – what does this have to do with my writing life and launching a new blog?

I have been blogging for years – I started in March 2015. When I originally started that blog (still in existence here!), it was a therapeutic outlet for me during the seemingly endless wait for our first baby to come home. I’m proud of a lot of the writing I accomplished there, but much of that early content is more online journal entry than nonfiction essay. I have a few goals for my writing life and I’m feeling the need to produce a blog and content that are more polished and focused. As I’ve been nesting and organizing and decluttering, I realized that what I wanted was to launch a new site – a blank space where I can start fresh without deleting any content from my former blog. (Those raw, emotional posts about the adoption wait? I want my kids to be able to read them someday, if they want. More on that later.)

That’s why this space exists – it’s the clear, uncluttered space of a mom who’s trying to keep her thoughts, her work, and her kids’ clothes organized. I am so happy to be here – just Kerriann, writing. And I’m glad you’re here, too!