Your kid moved out. His stuff, apparently, did not. This fall's decluttering project doubles as an archaeological dig through your parenting history. Bob the Builder pillows, participation trophies, and a mysterious "IMPORTANT" box of Pokémon cards included. Spoiler alert: the yoga room isn't happening.

From giant candy cones in Germany to chalk sidewalks and cheer tunnels here at home, Monica ranks America's back-to-school traditions. She even suggests a few tweaks to this ever-growing list of traditions to tip the scales back in Mom's favor.

Cursive is dead in schools and Monica has decided that's the best thing to happen to moms in years. Turns out an entire generation raised on Snapchat and secret slang can't read a single word of it, which means moms have quietly inherited an unbreakable code: grocery lists, meatloaf warnings, and brutally honest notes to the babysitter, all hiding in plain sight on the fridge. A love letter to loopy G's, dramatic signatures, and the joy of finally being one step ahead of your kids again.

Monica's trip to Capri went a little differently than the postcard version. Fresh off a concussion and battling relentless vertigo, she spent more time hunting for a pharmacy than the gelato. Laugh with Monica about trying to enjoy somewhere breathtaking while your sense of balance completely betrays you.

Every mom has passed down a "fact" she never actually questioned, and Monica is here to lovingly dismantle a few of them. In this one, she takes on the greatest hits of motherhood mythology: the thirty-minute swim rule (invented, she suspects, by a mother who just wanted to finish her lunch in peace), whether chocolate really causes acne, if you can catch a cold from the rain, and the fate of swallowed gum.

Monica went to the World Cup Final expecting a soccer game and found something closer to a global street festival, complete with costumes, drums, and coordinated chanting from tens of thousands of strangers. She has thoughts about the spectacle, the halftime show she barely saw, and the ugly turn things took at the end. But what stuck with her was recognizing something oddly familiar in it all, a brand of intensity she'd spent years surrounded by long before she set foot in MetLife Stadium.

After watching Toy Story 5, Monica found herself thinking less about the movie and more about how childhood itself has changed. In this one, she makes the case for boredom, bicycles, and toys that don't require a password, with a few stories along the way.

When Monica's son moved to Chicago, he took his hundred-pound emotional support dog, Max, along with him, which got Monica thinking about one of motherhood's greatest mysteries: how every family pet, no matter who begged for it, eventually becomes Mom's pet. Full of Max's greatest hits and hard-won truths about pet parenthood, it's a love letter to every mom who never once applied for the job of Director of Dogs.

We've all got that one bag. The heavy one. The one we keep meaning to clean out. For Monica, it's her beach bag, and this week she finally stopped apologizing for it.