Welcome to Clickery, a regular feature where we share things we like because maybe you’ll like them too.

Breanne’s Links

I love this idea: “Forget reducing stress, just add more joy.”

Speaking of added joy, I made this Irish soda bread with the girls this week and it was delicious. It’s such an easy recipe that they were able to help with all of the steps including adorably patting down their own loaves at the end (we split the dough into three).

This is a brilliant idea for meal planning that strikes a balance between my usual laissez-faire and Jen’s monthly binder.

I’m reading Anna Quindlen’s Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake and it’s like a big warm hug from a mother/grandmother who has been there and done that and has only love, sympathy, and encouragement for you. Mwah.

Beatrice turned four! Her birthday was dive-bombed by stomach flu + strep, but she recovered and we celebrated throughout the next couple of weeks, culminating with a reschedule of her first friend birthday party at a gymnastics gym. And can I say it? Four is SO MUCH EASIER than 3.5. We are loving it. We caught her in bed reading by flashlight the other night, trying to figure out sounds and words — my heart just broke.

Blythe is so two right now — so very two. She’s liable to lay down on the floor wailing if offered the wrong eating utensil (always the fork, people. FORK). But she is suddenly, 100%, no-reminders-needed potty trained! That forgives a lot. That and the way she sings “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.”

And finally, a PSA: if you find yourself with a six-week-long cold and decide to get uppity about fake sugars and eschew the sugar-free cough drops, you might just wind up with four (four!) cavities at your next check-up. Filling the first two hurt like crazy and I tried to distract myself thinking of all of the things I could buy with the $68 I had saved by not using the (non-insurance-covered) nitrous oxide. The second time I gladly spent it and enjoyed every minute of it.

 Jen’s Links

Breanne and I had a great email conversation (really the only kind we get these days) about this thought-provoker: Don’t want a promotion? You’re not the only one. It’s not that we don’t want to #leanin, it’s just that we’re so damn tired.

One of my favorite passages:

Lara (an example working mom) couldn’t give a monkey’s because, like most of us, she’s exhausted. She no longer reads articles bemoaning the lack of women in the boardroom, because she has to slip out of such boardrooms to field calls from school about her six-year-old’s new tendency to wet his pants. She could no longer care less about the gender pay gap (female bosses still earn 35 per cent less, on average, than their male counterparts) because she’s too busy grappling with the fact that working was easy when her children could be deposited in a nursery or with a nanny, but when they’re eight and heartbroken because their friend has left them out of a secret club, only their mother will do. When she hears that Apple and Facebook are attempting to woo female employees by promising to freeze their eggs, she gives a hollow laugh at the prospect of these same superstars, aged 70, dealing with their young children’s nits.

An empowering take on what our lives really are like is the Hello Ladies Mogul, Mom & Maid Manifesto. Read it here. A few of my favorites:

• We define our own success.
• We accept good enough. Perfection is overrated.
• We pace ourselves. Having it all does not mean having it all at once.

I was really busy in January and February with several Go Red for Women events. The Minnesota’s Red Dress Collection show was the most fun of all of them — I wore a custom Thom Navarro dress, walked the runway, and got the chance to speak about women and heart disease to hundreds of people who, judging by the gasps in the audience, really needed to hear about it. I wrote about it on my heart blog and shared a ton of photos.