Melissa Wardell

My name is Melissa Wardell, and I am many things. I am a wife and mother, a daughter and sister, a teacher and nurse, a chauffeur and cheerleader, a seamstress and chef, partially mainstream and partially crunchy, and even a little bit crazy. This is my story.

Once upon a time, I was a naïve college junior in love with a skinny band geek named Dan Wardell, my head full of dreams of 2.5 kids, a white picket fence, and a storybook romance. I had grown up in Illinois but moved to Iowa to attend Wartburg College. Fifteen years later, I'm still in Iowa, married for 13 years to a man who wears a cape for a living, with three small kids (I guess I rounded up from 2.5), no white picket fence (it's brown, actually), and a romance that is less like a storybook and more like a drama/sitcom. As my husband likes to say after some of his or the kids' shenanigans, "It's good for ratings!"

I gave up working full time to become a stay-at-home mom to my three hooligans: Max, 5; Charlotte, 3; and Alexander, 1. Before having children, I did my hair, wore make-up, and put in my contacts on a daily basis. After having children, I don't remember the last time my hair wasn't in a ponytail. I wear make-up once a week, if I'm lucky. And the last time I wore contacts was more than three years ago. I have changed a lot since becoming a mother for the first time, and I am fairly certain I have not finished my metamorphosis. Sometimes I think my standards have lowered. But usually, I think they've simply changed. For the better.

American author J.D. Salinger once said, "Mothers are all slightly insane." I completely agree! In order to be the type of adventurous wife and mother I want to be, I need a lot of love.and a little bit of crazy!