We made the decision last spring to enroll our child in forest school. It has been a little bit of a learning curve, but it has been well worth it. Our kiddo has absolutely bloomed playing outdoors three days a week with children his own age. When we first started, he was only going two days a week, and we had kept up with his gym classes at the same time. But the benefits of forest school trumped the benefits of gym class by miles. Part of this is very much our child’s temperament. We […]
Historic Sites with Littles
I have been on a professional break from my work with museums since my little was about 5 months old. This does not include the freelancing for my spouse or the museum conferences I have been to (mostly on behalf of my spouse). But I have been a museum visitor during that time. And bringing a toddler to museums has become a point of interest for me. Most parents choose to actively avoid the museums where their toddler might cause havoc. If they are going to go to a historic house museum, they will choose […]
Upcoming Book Releases
There are a lot of good books coming out this year, and I always find myself needing to take a minute and write them all down in my planner so that I don’t forget about them. So here, as always, is my list from my Bookshop.org store front so that you can mark them on your calendar too. Now, because I know that I tend to limit myself to romance and mystery (not because I mean to, but because those are the ones I am personally drawn to and will likely finish), I have also […]
2023: My Year in Books
This year I read 82 books (unless something gets finished in the next 48 hours… which I doubt). Of those, 76 were romance novels. On some level, I have been coming to grips with the fact that romance has just become my go-to genre. But I also feel like a lot of the romance novels I’ve read recently have tried to be more diverse. They’ve tried tackling topics that you don’t necessarily expect to find in romance. There’s been discussion of neurodiversity, deafness, loss of mobility, gender inequality, and so much more. My goal this […]
Traveling to Iceland with Your Little
We just came home from a nine day trip to Iceland with our toddler and learned some very important lessons while we were there. So I thought I’d share. Do not forgo the stroller! Top of our list was regretting not having a stroller. After reading somewhere that having one in Iceland was kind of silly and a waste of good carry-on space (we have a Babyzen Yoyo²), we just decided that we would make due without. Instead, I packed my TushBaby “hip seat” thinking that would fill some of the gap. What we severely […]
2023 Mid-Point Reading Checkpoint
I managed to hit my mid-point goal of 36 books over the long weekend, so while it isn’t exactly the mid-point of the year, I figure it’s close enough. That being said, having hit the 36 book mark a full month ahead of schedule, I’m pretty pleased with my progress this year. My reading total took a bit of a hit when I only finished 1 book in the month of February. So far, romance novels have absolutely dominated my reading list. (I have only finished 3 books that were not romance novels.) The books […]
The Stroller Saga
I have been struggling hard with the stroller issue ever since the first one. There’s just not one stroller that can do everything! And worse, living in the city means that you need something compact. We were living in downtown Salem, Massachusetts when we chose our first stroller. It was a travel system – the Maxi-Cosi Zelia 5-in-1 Travel System. It was mostly okay for what we needed it for, but not amazing. To be fair, it is one of the cheapest well-rated systems on the market. It didn’t like off-roading or gravel. It hated […]
Actually Helpful Books for Parenting
Parenting is hard. There’s no way to explain that. I love my little one. But it is harder than you think it will be, even if you know it will be hard in advance. Which is part of the reason that having some good solid books behind you – especially ones that will actually tell you that you are still a good parent even when it feels like you’ve lost every battle that day – is so very important. Top of my list for go-to parenting advice is Dr. Becky. If you are not already […]
Scaffolding Toddler Learning
I came out of my child’s pediatric well check feeling like an incompetent mom earlier this week. It was the first time I’d really felt like I wasn’t on the same page as the pediatrician. It was a little disconcerting. And also completely ruined my Valentine’s Day. My mood completely nose-dived. My spouse took our little for a walk while I tried to get my head back on straight, which is when I realized a couple of things. The biggest of those was that we hadn’t truly had a conversation about what we were doing, […]
Happy New Year!
Welcome to January 2023! I’m hoping I’ll be able to do more this year, both with the blog and with my research. But as the last year, so this year too, as far as needing to balance these goals with being a stay-at-home mom. I was able to read 68 books by the end of 2022, so I am hoping to do more by 4 books this year, averaging about 6 books per month. So far, for mid-January, I have already read 4, so this is definitely achievable. I just hope I can do more […]