Sifting through a year’s worth of posts to find a favorite one is hard. We covered a ton of topics this year, all of which I am rather proud of, as they’ve had a positive effect on me and how I parent as well. But for 2023, my favorite post is Coffee Chat: Dogs are like kids, right?
Continue readingAuthor: Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L
Holiday Mom Magic
Moms don’t en-joy, they give joy. That’s how being a mom works. – A Bad Moms Christmas
Thanksgiving starts a mad rush all the way through December. While we can’t speak for other religions and their traditions, Christmas has a chokehold on an entire month; bringing festivities, expectations, and Mariah Carey.
This onslaught includes: hours making and checking shopping lists, wrapping the gifts, sending out cards, decking the halls, baking the cookies, making the travel plans, and keeping the spirit of Christmas alive. And year after year, the person behind all of this isn’t Santa. It’s mom.
Why do we do this? Is it a rite of passage to level up as a mom? Is the expectation the same for dads? With a few weeks left before December 25th, let’s get to the bottom of this quandary and how we can alleviate this self-inflicted stress.
Continue readingHoliday Gift Guide 2023: Elementary School
As kids enter their elementary school years, they have achieved many (if not all) of their developmental milestones. They feel confident enough in their skills to test their limits, try new things, make new friends, and seek more independence.
This must be the largest list we’ve made to date since there are so many good toys, games, and activities out there that our kids can benefit from.
Here’s our top picks for 2023 for elementary kids, 4 years and up:
Holiday Gift Guide 2023: Toddlers & Preschoolers
Toddlers are experimenting with and refining their newfound developmental skills, from walking to using words to get what they want. They are also using pretend play to understand the world around them. This means more self-awareness, imagination, independence, autonomy, and tantrums (sorry, there’s no way around this).
Here are our gift picks for toddlers ages 1-3:
Holiday Gift Guide 2023: Newborns & Infants
It’s November and that means you are either shifting to the holiday season, or you are in denial. Gift guides and catalogs will be coming out ad nauseam from your fave influencers to big box stores (if they haven’t hit your inboxes already). But to be honest, a lot of those gift recommendations tend to overlap. Enough with the Stanley cups and sneaker erasers already….
So what then is included in a Child(ish) Advice Gift Guide?
Here’s what we use:
- Is it cool and new?
- Does it support child development?
- What makes it stand out from all the rest?
- What do the reviews say, specifically about durability and longevity?
For babies, their first year is all about firsts. They are learning about their environment, their bodies, and how to interact with everyone and everything, one cry and crawl at a time.
So, here’s our top toys for babies 0-12 months:
Child(ish) Advice 