Amanda Rotondo

After growing up in Connecticut and roaming the Northeast as an academic nomad for 100 years and 100 apartments, Amanda is now happily settled north of Boston. Her handsome gentleman caller (aka husband) and she were enjoying life as unbearable DINKs, then somehow ended up having three children in the span of four years (currently 4, 2, and 10 months.) Go big or go home, right? Amanda works as a user experience research and design consultant and also has a side hustle making artisanal garlic salt (for real! etsy.com/shop/AnnasGarlicSalt) She has a PhD in human-computer interaction and uses it for two things: 1) Work, and 2) referencing when she does something idiotic (example: “Officer can you help me? I have lost my car in the mall parking lot and have been searching for it for almost 2 hours. And by the way, I have a PhD.”) Amanda loves bargains, gardening, thunderstorms, and a solid 25%-30% of people. She is terrified of lobsters, the word “slacks,” and of the remaining 70%-75% of people. 
entertaining - Boston Moms

I Lowered My Entertaining Standards, And It Was Awesome

And as it turns out, I still am an entertainer — maybe even more so now. Because being a good host isn’t always about putting on a good show. Sometimes, in a stage of life where everyone is running around with their hair on fire and often feeling overwhelmingly lonely, entertaining is about simply providing a time and place for a gathering, and giving permission for everyone to be a little bit of a mess by being a little bit of a mess yourself.

it's fine - Boston Moms Blog

It’s Fine! We’re Fine! Everything’s Fine!

Me? Oh, ya know — same old, same old. I’m working a little more than I’d like — probably around a hundred or so hours a week. I mean, they want me to work more but I’m like, “No.” I draw the line at 110 hours. Like, that’s it. I’m on this project where I have to push this giant rock up a hill, and every time I get close to the top it rolls back down. Like, by design. I don’t know who scoped this thing. It’s fine, but whenever I ask the project manager what the end date is she bellows, “This is your eternity,” in this really low, spooky voice, which is totally not helpful.

Pinterest Mom - Boston Moms Blog

I’m Cool With You, Pinterest Mom

So you wave that hand-stitched, hand-dyed, quilted, embroidered, bedazzled flag, my Pinterest Mom friend. And when you see that look on my face as I survey your bounty of homemade gloriousness, know that’s not judgment or criticism. That’s wonderment and pride in you for what you’ve made, as well as a big helping of gratitude for you sharing what you’ve made with me. Because you know damn well I’m taking a slice of that cake.

woman waking up too early, sleep deprived mom

The 7 Ways I Woke Up This Week

When they’re babies, it’s just plain old sleep deprivation. Nothing fancy, just a basic form of torture outlawed by the Geneva Convention yet somehow totally cool when perpetrated by a tiny human that looks marginally like you. Then as they get older, their torturing skills mature. It becomes less about brute force denial of sleep and more about finding psychological mechanisms for draining the joy out of the act of sleep.

tinder online dating - Boston Moms Blog

Dear Husband, Please Don’t Die (I’m Afraid of Tinder)

The more I learn about app dating, though, the more I’m considering forcing you to go vegan, wear a helmet when you drive, and sleep in a hyperbaric chamber. If you recall, you were pretty solidly stuck with me already back when online dating was still for weirdos. Ours is an analog love story. Please, please, for the love of God, don’t make me go out there. I won’t survive.

I’m sorry - Boston Moms Blog

An Apology to My 1998 Sorority Semiformal Pint Glass

I’m sorry that you have to sit on a counter with a baby bottle and a sippy cup that somehow has a wad of silly putty adhered to the side of it. You will likely meet your eventual demise at the greasy hands of a child. One of them will bumble across the kitchen holding you — full of milk — then trip on their own feet and send you flying to the tile floor. You will shatter and die, and they will not understand why their otherwise iron-souled mother will burst into tears.

little kids - Boston Moms Blog

In the Trenches with Little Kids? Silence Is NOT Golden…

But I want it. I want the little sayings. I want the comfort. I want them and I want them to make sense for MY world. So, I’d like to propose some rewrites to those old adages to make them more relevant to us, the ones in the sticky, smelly trenches. Us — the parents of young kids.