How MOMories Began…
Why I Started Writing These Stories, And Why You Might Too
What if you could time-travel?
Not the sci-fi kind, with flashing lights and complicated physics, but the everyday kind—back to the sticky hands and tiny voices, the curious questions and unexpected wisdom of childhood. What if you could visit a Tuesday afternoon from ten years ago, hear the exact way your daughter said “aminal” instead of animal, or remember the look on your son’s face when he thought the moon was following him home? One minute you are tying their shoes and they are asking why dogs don’t meow; the next, they are surfing the internet and asking for the keys to the car.
That’s what writing these stories has become for me: time travel.
Motherhood gave me a one-time-only backstage pass to watch my children become themselves; messy, magical, and full of marvel. But I realized something early on: if I didn’t write it down, I’d forget. Not everything. But the little things. The funny phrases, the quiet triumphs, the wild logic, the tiny details that made them who they were then—before they grew into who they are now.
And those moments? They don’t come back. Not in the same form. Childhood is made of firsts that vanish quickly, of questions that get replaced by new ones, of phases that fly by before you even realize they were a phase. It’s beautiful. And it’s fleeting.
Their stories matter.
We often meet our parents only after they’ve already become adults. We meet our grandparents once they’ve gone a bit vintage. And great-grandparents, if we’re lucky, through stories, scraps of memory, or a smile frozen in a photograph. But what if we could do better? What if we could give them more?
I began writing these stories as a gift for my daughters—a way to hold on to the magic of their childhood before it faded, to preserve the things that made me laugh, made me pause, made me feel.
And now I’m inviting you to do the same.
Because your stories matter too.
Whether your child turned a grocery store meltdown into interpretive dance or declared that “fly fishing” must mean dropping fish out of airplanes, that moment deserves a place. Not just in your memory, but on paper—where it can live, breathe, and be found again. Like a pressed flower between the pages of time.
A place where Moms can learn to capture their own MOMories™
To preserve, reflect, laugh, and share. It’s part greatest hits, part blooper reel, part cultural time capsule, all woven into the fabric of your family’s story. And it’s entirely yours to create.
You don’t need to be a writer. You just need to remember what it felt like to be someone’s mom in that moment, and be willing to write it down before it gets swept away in the current of to-do lists and time.
So, whether you’re here to read, to remember, or to try your hand at telling your own stories, welcome. I hope you’ll laugh. I hope you’ll cry a little (the good kind). And I hope you’ll be inspired to save the little things—for your kids, for their kids, and for the version of you who will one day be cheering from the front row of a retirement home spin class, shouting, “I told you I was hilarious.”
Let’s write down the stories in the sand—before they wash away with the tide of time.
Meet Dakota, Creator of MOMories
I’ve spent over thirty years chronicling the chaos, comedy, and heart of raising three daughters. Known back then as “the mom with the laptop,” I typed through bedtime, carpool, and the precious quiet moments that you sometimes find yourself in. Now, with my daughters grown, I’m grateful I captured those fleeting moments – they became my MOMories, snippets dispatched from the frontlines of my family’s life.
By day, I’m an attorney. By night, a storyteller whose work has appeared in Happy Times (a local publication with over 200,000 readers) and Log Home Design Magazine, where I was the first-place winner of their national essay contest. I also created and taught the MOMoires writing workshop series, now evolveing into an online platform to help other moms capture their own unforgettable stories.
I may not be a household name, yet (except maybe under my own roof), but once MOMories is published, I’ll gladly accept my “Mom of the Year” award with appropriate humility and matching sash.
“Still faster than a speeding ticket, more powerful than an SUV, and able to leap one hundred Legos in a single bound—it’s Supermom!”
Share Your MOMories…
MOMories is your new home for writing the messy, magical, hilarious, and heartfelt stories only a mom could tell.
Not sure where to start? Try writing about:
- A bedtime moment you’ll never forget
- The weirdest thing you’ve said out loud this week
- The exact second you knew you were a “real” mom
