Toddlers

In 2022, we’re all aware of the need for self-care. Whether it be a corporate office pretending to give a crap by extending lunch breaks or a spouse that feels they exemplified selflessness by “letting” a mom shower in peace, there’s a lot of pretending out there when it comes to self-care. Self-care in Motherhood It shouldn’t even be such a buzzword in motherhood because the idea around self-care when you’re a mom is to simply take tiny bits of time to “recharge,” just to go back to motherhood. When will society accept moms are people, too? The thing is, while there’s a ton of support around taking care of yourself, even as a mom *gasp*, there’s a lot of judgment in the...

Happy, Angry, Sad, Afraid: basic emotions that set the foundation for all of the emotions we experience. It seems so simple, yet so many struggle to process and experience emotions. Somewhere along the way, we were told that boys don’t cry (The Cure had a song about it) and that girls don’t get angry, “sugar and spice and everything nice” right? What we were really hearing, and internalizing, was that our feelings didn’t matter if they weren’t the “right” feelings.  As a mental health professional, I’ve worked with countless people who struggle with identifying and therefore expressing basic emotions. The ability to understand emotions, and then process them for yourself also makes it difficult to display empathy. Both can be...

I swore I would never be that parent who gave their child a phone or a tablet in a restaurant, but here we are. Here we are also getting stares dragging my twins through a restaurant barefoot because they keep throwing their shoes. No one tells you just how tough the 2- to 4-year-old stage is, especially when you have three toddlers under four. Yes, I got told about the ‘terrible twos’, but I had no clue what it meant. Whether I would be a stay-at-home mom or doing what I am doing now, which is working multiple jobs, this current stage is hard… period. I have 2-year-old twin boys and an almost-four-year-old boy. A typical day for me is getting woken...

Kids are awesome and draining and fun and tiring, but so are vacations and parties and a million other things. The recent hurricane reinforced a lot of things for me and provided some enlightenment, too. I know daycare/work are right for our family and I know that I sometimes envy that toddler mentality. Toddlers have it made. They get to go to bed early and have someone else do all of their cooking and cleaning. They can spend hours reading books and playing, but what I've really grown to notice and appreciate is the toddler's view of the world and their place in it. During our recent extended time at home, and without power, I witnessed so much joy and imagination....

Witching hour(s) should start with a B, I mean really, can I get an AMEN?!? At what age will there not be a witching hour(s)? When the clock strikes 5:00pm, our whole house vibe changes. It’s like the earth tilts off its axis. There is yelling, hair pulling, and crying and the kids are even worse! There is more energy in our house than a damn Red Bull! It is all I can do to get everyone fed, bathed and put to bed every night. So here’s what our house looks like… We do homework as soon as everyone gets in from the bus, with three school age kids, we have no choice. They have a snack while we tackle...