In the first article of the series, Welcome to the World Little One, we explored your baby’s basic survival needs during the newborn phase. 

Today we tackle self-soothing. 

Google it and you get a lot about babies, kids, and the ability to fall asleep and calm down by themselves....

We come into the world as brand new, tiny humans with three basic survival needs: food, shelter and sleep. Shelter represents safety. Food represents nourishment and growth. Sleep is the foundation of it all. 

Your newly born baby isn’t able to control any of these things. 

Do I have everything? A glance at the clock told me to pick up the pace. Apron, pens, wine key, oh- “I’ll be right back. I forgot something in the car” I said, and moved briskly past them to the front door of our house. Pop “Damn” I muttered, knowing this meant the...

My daughter loves to sing and she’s blessed with a voice that, if she was willing to share it with the world, everyone would want to hear. 

Seriously, one day I yelled up the stairs and down the hall (as only the mother of a teenager can) Turn that radio down! 

It wasn’t the...

Toddlers dump buckets. It’s in their DNA. Well, if not their DNA it is in their healthy development milestone checklist.

Buckets of toys.

Buckets of sand.

Buckets of dad’s nuts and bolt’s stash that he mistakenly left out the night before when fixing … a toy.

It’s a...

Dear Reader, I wrote this on September 4th, 2018. Reading through it nearly three years to the day, I take it as a much needed reminder that every season of our life is just that - and then there is another. Today, I still work really hard but I’m not strung out, and I control my time. To...

I just finished listening to Brene Brown's book, Daring Greatly, and promptly burst into tears.

I nearly made it too. But the last four minutes did me in.

You know when, back in the day, you went to a movie theatre and it was a tear jerker but you kept it together, so as not to blubber cry...

During the infancy of this blog I’m turning the vulnerability spotlight on myself so that you can really get to know me at the deepest level that a blog connection can create. To that end, I’ve been attic diving into old papers, photos, and VHS tapes (yes, you read that right) and...

All I’ve ever wanted to do was be a parent. If you follow me anywhere on line, you already know that. If not, I mean… well the pics say it all. (Yes, my Cabbage Patch Kid had a first and middle name.)

Blood may be thicker than water, but that’s science and this is spirit. ...

To Mother (v) to love and learn in equal measure.

I am an only child.

This is relevant because I really didn’t want to be. In fact, I made it clear with unnecessary repetition to my mother that the lack of a sibling was unacceptable!

My mother, however, was not an only child. ...

“Well that’s it” I said to my husband the day we sent our oldest to Kindergarten, my eyes moist with transitional tears. “What?” he said. “We’ve put in everything we could these last 5 years and now it’s time for her to try them on in the real...

Me, circa 1986, doing what I love best.

A conversation with me as a child:

Any Grownup: “Cara, what do you want to do when you grow up?” 

Me, holding at least one baby doll and instinctually rocking back and forth: “Be a mommy”.

“Aww”, the grown ups said,...