Meet The Parents

Stephanie

Stephanie Precourt, 5 Minutes For Parenting's managing editor, is a stay at home Mom and freelance writer. Growing up she had great plans to be on Broadway, in the movies, or directing children's theatre. Now she finds herself managing every type of drama, tragedy, and comedy within her little home in the Chicago suburbs. She has three small sons and a baby girl due this September, so life is quite exciting and unpredictable- just without her name in lights.

You can find Stephanie blogging about daily Mommy life at Adventures In Babywearing where journaling honest thoughts and words have helped guide her to being the best parent she can be. To appreciate the simple things, be open-minded yet passionate about what really matters, and be thankful for the many blessings that continue to pour into her life through children, friends, and the amazing journey of finding out just who she is becoming.

Stephanie also writes the Real Reviews column for NWIparent Magazine and the NWIparent blog Close To Home. You can find her contributing to the review blog for Mamas by Mamas at Mama Speaks and the "cooler by the lake" Chicago Moms Blog.

Megan

Megan is a Southern girl transplanted to the Chicago suburbs, loving her new life on the prairie. A stay-at-home Mom to her 3 year old daughter, Bean, and plump as a ripe summer melon with child number two, a boy, due in August 2008, Megan currently parents somewhere at the intersection of Ohmygranny, what on earth do I do now? and Well, desperate times call for desperate measures, where she spends a great deal of time laughing at the many, many things she once swore she'd never let any child of hers do that have since become vital components of Bean's daily routine.

Megan plans to return to her previous impossible standards of motherhood just as soon as the new baby turns two, but until then she invites you to laugh along with her as she bumbles and stumbles sleepily through her transition from Mama of one to Mama of two, which she has heard will likely look something like what happens when you tie four cats together by the tails and set a mouse free in the room. Megan makes her bloggy home at Fried Okra, and she's a regular writer at Chic Critique and Blissfully Domestic.

Veronica

Veronica Mitchell is a midwestern mother of three daughters with one more on the way. She has a couple of master's degrees, a love of grammar, and a temperament verging on curmudgeonly.

Veronica regularly blogs at Toddled Dredge where she writes about her kids, her faith, her cantankerous opinions, and whatever else catches her fancy on any given day. She posts under a pseudonym in the hope that people will find her mysterious.

Kelly

Kelly grew up in the midwest, but dreamed of moving to California, learning to surf, and throwing herself into a high-profile journalism career. She managed to live in San Diego for almost 10 years, earn an Emmy-nomination while working as a producer for NBC, and boogie board three times. But seeing as she’s easily pleased, two out of three works for her.

These days, Kelly can be found in the suburbs of Minneapolis, raising her three children with her husband and playing the part of a stay-at-home Mom. She’s discovered being a Mom is tougher than producing a newscast during sweeps month and inexpressibly more rewarding. A perfect day for Kelly is one that involves cooking, laughter, donuts, blogging, sunshine, Trader Joe’s, kisses from her kids, nature, the lake, a backrub from her husband, Jamba Juice and Alton Brown’s “Good Eats.” Nearly perfect days are also acceptable. Kelly writes about her family, her faith and her daily foibles at her blog, Love Well.

Beck

Beck used to think that she would be writing novels in a garret in Paris and instead she's the mother of three young kids in an old house in Northern Ontario. Other than that, things are going exactly as planned. Her kids - The Girl, The Boy and The Baby - are a going concern shared with her astonishingly patient husband.

In between reading Goodnight Moon AGAIN and making supper, she manages to write daily on her blog, Frog and Toad Are Still Friends, and on Mondays at The Kitchen Party.

(photo credit: Belle Photography)

Gretchen

Gretchen White grew up dreaming of being a jet-setting orthodontist/fashion designer/Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Instead, a better life unfolded. She's the mother of six young children (and one on the way) living in beautiful Colorado and is married to her best friend and chess coach.

Gretchen owns a blog called Lifenut and writes for The Denver Post's Mile High Mamas blog.

Melodee

Melodee had no idea that motherhood would involve so much noise and laundry. Her three sons and one daughter wear their socks outside (without shoes), leave empty milk cartons in the fridge and bicker while playing Nintendo games. The days are sometimes long, but the years are short. Her blog, Actual Unretouched Photo, attempts to capture the fleeting moments.

Melodee and her husband of twenty-one years live in the Pacific Northwest with their four children and three mutant cats. Melodee cannot live without Diet Coke with Lime, a feather pillow or high-speed Internet. She loathes raw tomatoes, humidity and stepping into mysterious puddles in her stocking-feet.

Mary

Mary is the mom to ten rambunctious kids, at least a couple of whom are trying to drive her crazy on any given day. Despite the distraction– or maybe because of it– she's managed to streamline her parenting, frugal living, and household organization strategies.

Most evenings Mary stays up ridiculously late blogging all about it at Owlhaven.

DeeDee

DeeDee is the bedraggled mother of three. She balks at the word “older” and opts for the friendlier term, “well seasoned.” Her friends call her “a late bloomer.”

For sport, she homeschools her children, ages 8,6, and 3. That will continue as long as she can stay one day smarter than they are. And keep visits to the therapist to a minimum. So far, so good.

As a freelance writer, she embraces the blogging world with all ten typing fingers. Her blog, Fiddledeedee (formerly known as "It Coulda' Been Worse") has enabled her to find a large supportive group of blogging mommies. And it gives her great comfort to know that she is not sailing on a sinking ship all alone.

Tina

Tina is a post mid-40’s mom to her only child, four-year-old Sean, who she says can easily outwit, outsmart and outplay her on any given day. Three years after being dismissed from a prestigious infertility program as beyond hopeless she enrolled in graduate school and scheduled a hysterectomy in an effort to get on with a child-free life. Shortly thereafter, she discovered she was seven weeks pregnant. She was nearly 44-years-old.

Tina started blogging three years ago when her son was a year old as a way to record the sweet and funny and exasperating moments of motherhood that seemed to evaporate and disappear by days end. Since then she has written for Christian Women On Line, DotMoms and Good Housekeeping.

She has a B.A. in studio arts and theater, but currently enjoys a career as a laundress, chef, chauffeur and sex goddess. “I find life to be an intoxicating combination of funny and scary,” she says, “and I just try to write it all down.” You can read about her adventures as an antique mommy at www.antiquemommy.com.