Before and After Baby

Great local training to Merced area!

Attention parents! Don't miss the Conscious Discipline Training on May 9 🪁

Learn how to handle tantrums and challenging behavior, help your child calm down faster and build a stronger, more connected relationship!

📆: Saturday, May 9
⏰: 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
📍: Hilton Garden Inn
1001 S. Coffee St., Merced, CA

View flyer for more information and register online here 👉
https://app.informedk12.com/link_campaigns/registration-conscious-discpline?token=Y11aamXXmFJo3tJPAWF2vnzD

Coparenting is hard but making agreements about screen time should not be.

This.

Christmas looks different when you’re a mom who has to share her kids.

It’s waking up on Christmas morning without little feet running into your room because this year, they’re not here yet.
Or packing up their favorite pajamas and a few presents so they can open them somewhere else first.
It’s celebrating on a different day, telling yourself “the date doesn’t matter,” while your heart quietly disagrees.

It’s the constant emotional math..
How much magic do I create when I only have half the time?
Do I overdo it to make up for what I’m missing?
Do they feel torn between two homes?

It’s smiling through drop offs while your chest feels heavy.
It’s pretending the silence doesn’t sting when the house feels too quiet.
It’s missing the parts of motherhood no one warns you about, the moments you don’t get simply because a relationship didn’t work out.

Christmas as a divorced or separated mom is learning how to grieve what you thought holidays would look like… while still showing up strong for your kids.

It’s learning that love doesn’t shrink just because time is divided.
That traditions can move dates and still mean everything.
That your kids can feel safe, loved, and celebrated in more than one place.

Some years you’ll get Christmas Eve.
Some years you’ll get Christmas morning.
Some years you’ll get December 27th and call it Christmas anyway because motherhood isn’t about the calendar, it’s about the love.

And if you’re that mom this season..
The one holding back tears while wrapping gifts alone,
The one counting down hours until it’s “your turn,”
The one missing your babies while pretending to be okay..You’re not bitter.You’re not weak.You’re not failing.

You’re a mother doing the hardest version of the holidays with grace most people will never see.

And one day, your kids will remember this, not the schedule, not the hand offs but the love you never stopped giving, no matter what day Christmas fell on.

Cel phones, tablets, computers/chromebooks. Develop family rules and hold them. They are the child, you are the adult. You may find benefit for yourself as well following suit!

Social media and AI are affecting how kids’ brains develop, warns UNC professor of psychology Dr. Mitch Prinstein. He says kids are “growing less white matter over adolescence than they should.” His advice: Don’t let your kids use their devices after 9 p.m. on school nights, and make sure they get the eight hours of sleep, as recommended by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

You don’t need AI when you have a coparenting facilitator like me 🤷‍♀️

Validate. Be you.

If you’ve ever cried after a drop-off… I see you.

Role model humility….parent effectively