Red Stick Mom

Disclosure :: This post is sponsored by Ochsner and written by Truc Dinh, MD.  5 Reasons To Schedule Annual Visits for Children As we enter a new year, it is time to get back to your normal routines, and that includes appointments with your child’s doctor. To start off strong with your child’s health in the new year, we recommend scheduling your child’s annual visits as soon as possible. Here are five reasons it is important to keep your child’s health on track through annual visits with their pediatrician. Immunizations. While we are still waiting on a COVID-19 vaccine to be approved for the pediatric population, it is important we don’t allow our children to become vulnerable to diseases that also...

Motherhood is hard ...  … and while we have Google and endless advice from Aunt Karen, everyone ultimately has to figure things out on their own. The opinions of others are so accessible to the modern-day mama, that I genuinely believe our mental health suffers any time we pick up our phones throughout early motherhood.  It’s a new kind of struggle and one I’m having a difficult time navigating. I generally use my manners online, but that doesn’t mean I’m not affected when someone I respect chooses to parent differently and raves about it. It doesn’t mean I’m not affected when a stranger blatantly blasts the way I’ve chosen to go about teaching my child to sleep. It doesn’t mean I’m...

Maybe you've had a hard day and decide to indulge in some self-care, or maybe you’re on a mission to revive yourself for 2021 by doing some things to make yourself look and feel a little better. I finally get that self-care alone time and find myself scrolling through tutorials & IG stories from self-proclaimed beauty gurus and wondering, "Wait, do I need these products their slanging at me?" I know I'm not alone in wanting to keep things simple, or not having the time to do a 15 step routine every day. I mean who honestly does? Instead of wasting time or our hard-earned money, I have turned to some of the greatest beauty gurus and asked them what...

It has begun. The annoyed sighs and eye-rolling. The huffing and puffing (Big Bad Wolf style!). The “Ugh, Mom, I know” and “Fine, Mom.” I really thought I had a few years before the sassiness would rear its ugly head. I thought that would be teenage behavior. WRONG! My formerly respectful and sweet ten-year-old daughter has entered the back-talking phase – and it is driving me crazy! Alien abduction I feel like I put my well-mannered daughter to bed one night, and she must’ve been abducted by aliens that taught her to be sassy. Almost overnight, she started interrupting us to tell us what she did or didn’t do. The eye-rolling started when asked to do simple chores. For the most...

Oh gosh. I guess you opened this piece thinking that there would be some pithy antidote here. Like a poorly patched thesis statement about tough conversations. About America the beautiful. E Pluribus Unum and all that. Well, this is awkward. I got nothing. Right now. Welcome to the drawing board. My kids are 2 and 4. I did have to explain today why we can’t grab ant piles by the fistful to bring home. I’ll probably have to go over correct usage of a toothbrush (hint guys … the body part it cleans is in the name). I’m safe for tonight while so many who are reading this are not. I have no idea what I’ll tell my children. Not tonight but...