Red Stick Mom

1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5 I don't know about you, but it seems that once April and May hit, our weekends slowly fill up with trips to bouncy houses, pools, parks, and houses.  Birthday party season has officially begun!  And I love it!  There is just something about celebrating another year, which at Judah's and his friends' ages means that so much has happened in the last 12 months, and their abilities and interests are skyrocketing.  So this party season, I rounded up a few of my favorite gifts that hopefully won't break the bank, but will leave the birthday boy or girl excited at the possibilities! 1. Library Tote Bag and Shelf Placeholder.  Buy or make...

May is "Better Speech & Hearing Month," and as moms we know how valuable the gift of speech and hearing are.  For the next few weeks, I will be sharing methods and tools to help foster good speech and language development in your child as they develop from baby to early childhood years. As a Speech and Language Pathologist, I will provide you with a series of posts that address developmental milestones, activities to enhance your child's speech and what to expect if you feel like your child might not be reaching their milestones. Speech and language milestones are a set of skills that are achieved within a specific time frame. These skills are divided into receptive and expressive language skills. Receptive skills refer to...

If you’ve spent much time in thrift stores (or sorting through donations for nonprofits or following a disaster), you know that our society is absolutely overrun with clothes. It’s a burden. It’s kind of jarring when you think about it that clothes are mass-produced, worn for a short time, then sent to languish on thrift store racks while they are still in good condition. It’s the definition of excess. Thanks to Macklemore, thrifting is becoming more popular but it’s still kind of stigmatized and there are still more clothes than we could ever need getting donated to thrift stores every day. At my favorite thrift store I regularly walk out with Banana Republic, J. Crew, Calvin Klein, and the...

   My birth story begins at my 12 week ultrasound for my second pregnancy. We brought our 15-month-old with us to see her brother or sister for the first time. Imagine our UTTER surprise when the ultrasound tech said, “Looks like you’ve got two in there!” In a few short months, we would be welcoming our sweet TWINS into the world! We were in shock and pretty freaked out, to be honest. The following months included lots of planning, purchasing, and ultrasounds. We learned that we were expecting a boy and a girl and discussed delivery options with my OB. He was very open to attempting a vaginal delivery if baby A (the baby closest to the birth canal)...

Our birth stories don’t all begin the moment we bring our children into the world. For me, it began in high school with a moment imprinted on my heart forever: staring at my doctor’s face as she said, “You have endometriosis. Having children will be very, very difficult for you.” From that moment on, I had resolved in my heart that I would never be the one thing I always wanted to be...a mother. Fast-forward five years later after only two months of marriage and seeing those two pink lines, it was instant amazement, awe, wonder, and excitement. With my first pregnancy, I suffered from hyperemesis gravidarum, sporadic bleeding, gestational diabetes, preterm labor at 28 weeks, and prodromal labor that...