Allison was a beautiful ray of sunshine in my life. The life of an Army wife can get lonely at times – moving around so much, searching for new friends, and trying to make a strange house and new town feel like home. A mil-spouse herself, Allison knew the struggle, and reached out to my husband the very first weekend we moved a few houses down from her in Montgomery, Alabama. She invited us on a blind friend date with her and her husband, Justin. It wasn’t long into our first dinner together that I knew we hit the friend and neighbor jackpot. It was easy to be drawn to…

United Airlines wouldn’t let a mother and her infant disembark a plane waiting on the tarmac for two hours A Colorado mother had a terrifying experience on a United flight bound for Texas that was delayed on a Denver tarmac for nearly two hours. Emily France’s 4-month-old son Owen had to be hospitalized after overheating while temperatures in the cabin spiked. France told the Denver Post that her child became overheated when the temperature in the cabin became unbearable. She said it was already hot when they boarded the plane, and the temperature spiked as they waited. “I really thought my son was going to die in my arms,” she told…

When we become mothers, everyone expects us to be over-the-moon with happiness. They assume that we must wake up every day and beam when we look at our baby, and that we must be head-over-heels in love with our new roles and new responsibilities and new, added identity as “mom.” While, yes, the arrival of a little one is absolutely a joyous occasion, it doesn’t necessarily always feel that way for women who are suffering, often silently, from postpartum depression (PPD). So often, new moms are afraid to talk about postpartum depression, but why? Postpartum depression is shockingly common, as 1 in 7 mothers will experience PPD, so why aren’t…

In an especially chaotic rush out the door to go on a family vacation, I sat in the passenger seat fuming. Mad because I didn’t have time to put the dishes in the dishwasher. Mad because we were late getting on the road. Mad because the garage door was acting up. I’m talking trivial, insignificant, minor inconveniences here, but that was the state of a distracted woman who could no longer see the blessings, only the inconveniences, of her life. Before we were about to pull out of the driveway, my husband looked at me as if someone he loved very much had died. In a barely audible whisper he…

Every child is special All parents want to believe their children are special and unique, and they are! But some children are destined to be the next great thinkers. How can you tell if your little one is more than just smart and in the leagues of Einstein, Mozart, or Marie Curie? How do you know if you’re raising a child genius? The National Association for Gifted Children estimates that 3 million children in the U.S. are gifted. (They define “gifted” as “those who demonstrate outstanding levels of aptitude or competence in one or more domains.”) Assessing whether a child meets this criteria is far more complicated than simply relying…