Red Stick Mom

I anticipated that Jack would be a late walker. I don't know what it was, but from the time he was a tiny newborn I was determined not to rush his gross motor development. He took what seemed like forever to roll over, but I was unfazed. I didn't worry a bit when he waited until 8 months to sit unassisted. And as the months continued to pass, I breezily reassured relatives that "some babies never crawl, they just skip straight to walking." He eventually did start crawling and, later, pulling up and cruising, but at 18 months that's still all he does. Sometime around 15 months my confidence started to waver. I found myself avoiding the park and any other situation where strangers...

These cold and rainy days are seemingly endless. If your little one is like mine, then you have untamable energy resulting in broken Christmas presents and an aggravated mommy. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a lazy-to-the-core person who calls a cold or rainy day paired with a hot bowl of soupy goodness and a good book a win. However, this is not what my two year old deems fun or entertaining.  In an effort to either kick your lazy butts off the couch or get your rambunctious littles on it, here are six couch adventures that will have the whole family laughing, playing, and making memories on those cooped up winter days. 1. Couch Fort – Build a fort out...

I think most moms can relate to the pain that comes with buying box after box of diapers.  Not only do you go through an insane amount of diapers each month, but after a while, you are left with piles and piles of empty boxes. I don't know about you, but it honestly pains me to throw away good-sized boxes.  First I used them to organize all of Judah's clothes as he outgrew them.  Then I saved some to wrap presents during the holidays.  And then I put a couple in my car to organize Judah's toys and overflow. But even after that, we still had more! So in an attempt to make use out of the many boxes we're left...

I don’t know what it is about becoming a mom that suddenly makes you feel like every.thing.you.do. is being judged by every other mom that you ever come in contact with, from mother-in-laws to close friends to strangers on the street. You just know they are watching your every move and asking judge-y questions about you in their heads: “Isn’t she too young to be a mom?” “Are ALL those kids hers?” “She feeds her kids fast food and red dye?!” “Doesn’t she know breast is best?” You begin to feel defensive against a random elderly lady who wiped your toddler’s nose in the dairy section at Wal-Mart. (Yes, that happened to me. I was going to wipe it in a minute, I swear!...

I am now 38 weeks pregnant. Hard to believe, and yet of course I knew (or at least hoped) that I would eventually get here. I knew that, God willing, everything would progress, my belly would grow, and this being inside me would grow into a tiny person. But even though I’ve been pregnant now for the better part of the last year, I still find myself surprised sometimes that there’s going to be another person living in our house! My husband and I belong to a local Methodist church and we celebrate the season of Advent every year: counting down the Sundays between Thanksgiving and Christmas. There were moments when I thought about Mary, the mother of Jesus, in a...