Dear boys...

Everyone says that turning 40 is the game changer in life. Suddenly, your eyes are open, and your perspective on life changes.

What's truly important takes center stage, and all of the little stuff that you used to worry about hides back stage, behind the curtain.  

What's strange to me is that I think that this year -- my year as a 39-year-old -- has been the game changer for me. Maybe the anticipation of turning 40 in December has forced me into reflection mode. Maybe the premature wrinkles around my eyes have ever so discreetly reminded me that time has passed. I'm not really sure.

What I do know is that I have opened myself to love more deeply, whether it is loving myself for who I am or loving those around me. For the first time in my life, I am valuing myself and standing up for myself, knowing that all that I am and the person I have become is worth protecting.

As I turn the manual focus lens on life, I have decided that it's important that I also give a very specific focus to my blog. 

While my posts over the past eight years have mostly been centered around my children and being a mommy, some of my posts have strayed as I have conducted interviews with celebrities and have blogged about hot spots to visit with kids. 

I write because it is a way to vent and a way to help others feel that they are not so alone in this difficult, but rewarding job, called motherhood.

In addition, I write because I am hoping that my writing is in some way helping someone else. I definitely don't believe that I have all the answers; however, I would be lying if I didn't say that my greatest reward is when I receive a text message, an email, or a Facebook PM from a reader - telling me that my last post helped him or her with a certain situation in their lives, or that they would love to chat on the phone or over coffee after reading a specific post. 

So what is my focus and what is my content for sound of little feet moving forward? 

I have realized that every single day, whether we are around the dinner table or we are driving in the car, I am discussing something very important with our boys - trying to teach them a life lesson. At the end of every day, when I’m saying my prayers, I pray that our boys will remember what I taught them that day (hopefully, it's good advice) and that they will grow up remembering my messages to them, even long after I am gone.

I am going to post blogs that are short and sweet letters to my boys so that when I am gone from this earthly life one day, they will never forget the life lessons that I shared with them. 

I hope that you, too, will find a takeaway from my posts. Maybe you will find a way to discuss a different thought or topic with your own kids by reading my letters. And for my Pearl Jam fan followers, don’t you worry - as always, there will be subliminal Pearl Jam lyrics streamed throughout my posts.

Thank you all for following my writing all these years. I am humbled by your kindness and devotion to reading my posts. Hold tight - the best is yet to come.