Allison Cooper

Yes, I said it. I’ll sing it from the rooftops and admit the one thing that many moms might feel ashamed to say out loud: I live for nap time.

I know these kids need both parents in their lives to learn to grow to be successful human adults, but some days, I’d like to be remembered as the fun parent.

These are the things I anticipate most when my kids finally go the eff to sleep. I deserve it after a day of being in what feels like survival mode.

When I brought my son into the world, I thought that he would be an awful lot like me. He had to be, right? He grew inside me; I nourished him; I was the one home with him day in and day out during those very impressionable years, while my husband worked a grueling military schedule — yet there are few similarities to be found.

Let’s face it — as much as the holidays are merry and bright, they can be stressful, too. We have so much planning to do (and even more if you have kids), traveling to arrange, cleaning — and on top of all that there is the financial stress.

I think that before I actually became a mom, I dreamt of sick days to be filled with breakfasts in bed, handwritten notes with all the words spelled wrong, and misshapen pancakes — but the reality is far from that dream. I'm flustered just thinking about it.

Family travel helped me see what I'd been missing out on.