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If ever you find yourself in a situation where your small child is not-so-patiently waiting for dinner, and you need just a few more minutes of them out of the kitchen and away from the hot stove, there is a solution you may not have thought of. And that solution—now hear me out—is condiment bottles.Read more...

When you see a vacuum cleaner, you see a chore: one more thing you have to do that it feels like you just did and yet will have to do again in mere days. When a young child sees a vacuum cleaner, however, they see nothing but possibility: the noise, the effort required to push and pull an awkwardly shaped machine, the…Read more...

If you have interior doors that lock, and if you have small children, at some point, someone in your family will be either locked in a room or locked out of one. This is an inevitability and is, therefore, something you should prepare for ahead of time.Read more...

Let’s be real, everything about 2020 is getting old, fast. It was cute when we were all home for a couple weeks, taking in what Tuesday afternoon actually looks like in our home. But after four months of this, my eyes cross at the thought of yet another stroll in the neighborhood.Read more...

For the first time, the United States government is adding infants and toddlers from birth to age two to its official advice on diet and nutrition. Because, you know, infants and toddlers are also humans who can benefit from healthy nutrition habits. Especially given that, as the new advisory report states,…Read more...

With the exception of one (very) long weekend as a foster parent, I’ve never parented a toddler and a newborn at the same time. But that very long weekend did give me a (relatively) brief glimpse into how utterly crazy and exhausting it would be. We put so much emphasis, as a society, on preparing for the first baby.…Read more...

It seems like it should be a fairly easy thing, kids’ shoe sizes. And yet their feet grown so damn rapidly, it’s like first they’re a four and then they’re an 8 (how is a toddler a size 8 when I’m a size 8??) and then a 12 and now, wait, a 1.5? What just happened there?Read more...

Recently, my son turned one year old, and with this milestone, he was due for his 12-month wellness visit. Or—wait—was he? I thought navigating appropriate finger foods for my son was tricky, then the world threw me a pandemic curveball. I wondered if the stay-at-home order in my state of Indiana, and the necessary…Read more...

Staying active is important for your health and mental wellbeing. We all know it, and yet in the mad scramble to juggle working from home and child care—not to mention all of the existential worries of living through a pandemic—fitness is one of those habits that is all too easy easy to let slide. This is doubly true…Read more...

Sometimes, occasionally, every once in a while, a kid just doesn’t feel like being compliant. They need to go get their shoes? Nah. It’s bath time? Thanks but no thanks. You want them to put their toys away? Not interested. That’s when you use the “when/then” trick.Read more...

Our toddlers are cute! We love our toddlers! We might even like other people’s toddlers on occasion. But even so, they can be exhausting little creatures, with their need to literally hang off of you and ask detailed questions you couldn’t possibly know the answers to. Sometimes, you need a break. Sometimes, you just…Read more...

This time of year can be a bit of a bummer. The holidays are over, the kids are back in daycare or school, the weather is cold and grey (but still largely snow-free, depending on where you are). It can be hard to come up with fresh new ways to switch up the day-to-day, to create a little mid-winter spark of joy. My…Read more...

There are a lot of logistics involved in breastfeeding and pumping. You need time, you need space, you need equipment. Sometimes, after a pumping session, you just don’t feel like cleaning all those parts again. And sometimes, you don’t have the time because you’ve got a meeting that’s starting in three minutes or…Read more...

Mealtime with a toddler is crazy enough as it is. There’s the hunger meltdown, there’s the mess, there might even be an overall dissatisfaction with being confined to the high chair while they eat. And where the hell are all the bibs? Read more...

The pacifier is a wonderful thing. It helps our littlest ones soothe themselves to sleep when nothing else will quite do the trick. Eventually, though, you want them to be able to self-soothe. They grow from babies into toddlers and you pine for one picture without the binky in the mouth. And as tooth after tooth…Read more...

You decided not to go overboard on gifts with your toddler this year. You asked (begged? demanded!) that your family members follow suit. They are still so young, you reasoned. They don’t even really *get* the whole Santa thing, you figured. They’re perfectly happy playing with a soup pot and a wooden spoon, you…Read more...

We wrote a lot about toddler tantrums this year. And chances are, we’ll write a lot about tantrums next year, too. There’s a lot to dissect when it comes to why our little kids get so irrationally pissed off, how we can avoid the epic meltdowns in the first place, and then what to do when they throw a fit anyway,…Read more...

When you have little kids, it can be tempting to go all-out for the holidays, stuffing as many gifts as you can under the tree, under the guise of creating family memories (that they’re unlikely to remember). But money is also finite; in fact, you may still be trying to pull yourself out of credit card debt from last y…Read more...