Allison Cooper

[CN: mention of suicide] It’s not all real. We don’t live curated lives that are built around purposeful omissions of reality...

I know these kids need both parents in their lives to learn to grow to be successful human adults, but some days, I’d like to be remembered as the fun parent.

** If you haven’t yet watched this series, the below article includes some spoilers. **

For so long, I’ve defined myself as nothing other than a mom, and I think that was beginning to be a toxic thing for me. I’m so much more than “just a mom,” even though that’s one of my favorite titles.

Faux freckles. Come on. You know that you have always wanted to strategically place a little freckle and mimic what Cindy Crawford has naturally.

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.

In theory, the concept of a new mom not being able to answer your phone calls and/or texts right away should be self-explanatory...

With bottle feeding, you are able to fill the bottle with a very specific amount of formula or breast milk and are able to physically see how much Baby is taking at each feeding. With breastfeeding, that isn’t quite as easy. We know that they are eating, but we aren’t able to tell exactly how much — until now.

Body-shaming exists, but we shouldn't accept it as just another sad and simple fact of life. Model Ashley Graham is on the front lines of this fight for body positivity.

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.