Allison Cooper

My husband left for the army and in many ways I've found myself. I had to be strong for my kids and strong for myself. I learned that I can do it.

Make sure that at least twice a year you are getting rid of unused or old makeup — even your eyeshadow as these are laden with bacteria.

There is no way around it, whenever you find yourself in a fashion rut, it’s pretty difficult to get out of. A fashion rut puts us in a place of comfort, where it’s very difficult to break free and expose ourselves to any newness that might be out there in the fashion world to explore — because we are too content with where we are.

The last thing you want to do is turn baby-making into work. At least for the first three to six months, make this a special time with you and your partner before you become obsessed with ovulation kits and the numerous gadgets and such on the market.

Dear Husband, You are putting up with an awful lot in being with me right now, and rightfully so — I’m growing a tiny human inside me. Our tiny human. You have been very patient and kind with me, but so far we are only 15 weeks along and I fear that we have an even longer road ahead of us.

I promise that 10 years from now, you won’t look back and find yourself saying “remember that amazing picture you posted of the Christmas cookies on Instagram? The one where the lighting was perfect and you had all the right red and green props in the background?” That won’t happen, ever.

While this final stage might take years to get to, you will finally come to a place where you realize that strong truly is the new sexy and you did something that took all the strength that you have inside you to bring your child into this world. This is not something to take lightly, this is heroic.

Parenthood is so chaotic that we find ourselves spewing words sometimes that we probably never, ever pictured ourselves saying. Then parenthood happened.

Then all of a sudden he stopped and muttered the words, “Nevermind mom, you don’t understand. You’re not a gamer.” That stopped me in my tracks.

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...