Allison Cooper

... there is no joy in the season when mom is locking herself in the bathroom to pull her hair out — don’t let that be you!

Finding yourself doing extra loads of laundry because your toddler’s favorite T-shirt is dirty and you know there will be the mother of all meltdowns tomorrow if it’s not clean?

When I brought my son into the world, I thought that he would be an awful lot like me. He had to be, right? He grew inside me; I nourished him; I was the one home with him day in and day out during those very impressionable years, while my husband worked a grueling military schedule — yet there are few similarities to be found.

I’m not going to lie or sugarcoat my feelings right now — I’m nervous about going from a mom of one to a mom of two. My son is seven, so he, my husband, and I have had seven years of time as “just the three of us.”

So you have made it all the way up to the end of the finish line? Congratulations!

Pregnancy changes more than just your body and your emotions: it changes the “stuff” that you need on a daily basis, too. I didn’t realize just how much I needed — or how the packing game had changed — until I needed to place it all neatly into my (now) overflowing suitcase.

There is nothing in the world that quite compares to the joyous feeling of bringing a new baby home.

Why the hell didn’t anyone remind me how hard the toddler years are? I’m taking all the mental notes on how to survive the toddler years.

Yes, I said it. I’ll sing it from the rooftops and admit the one thing that many moms might feel ashamed to say out loud: I live for nap time.

Family travel helped me see what I'd been missing out on.