Carrie Saum

Not only was TV working as part of my parenting routine, we also unashamedly used it as a babysitter. Yes, you read that correctly!

Here are my favorite ways to infuse my body with energy that actually aren't hard and take almost no effort. You don't have to be pregnant to use these ideas, so don't worry. Although, you might make a baby in the process.

By 13, I clearly understood: Thinness was next to Godliness, and I could never achieve either without extraordinary means. Jesus loves skinny people.

You feel it. The change.

Awash in the postpartum anxiety, I felt glued to the couch, unable to mobilize myself to get anything done except the bare basics of being a present.

This is a recipe for pastry. It's ugly. It will make your kitchen hot in a summer's day. Hotter than the surface of West Texas. Hotter than Jesse Williams scorching the BET Awards with universal truth that we all need to heed and hear. It won't win an award or any baking competitions. But it will win your mouth's undying gratitude.

Newborn life...when that bliss wears off. Not all at once, and not in every way. But the bliss becomes less blinding. Everything returns to real life.

The fastest way to living without strings is to be up front about expectations and exchanges, even if it's uncomfortable. Like money. Like time. Like emotional sweat equity.

Friends. I have discovered something magical.

[CN: emetophobia] I wish my son's gut could handle more than a few foods. I wish there were a magic Google function that could tell me and all of Echo's doctors how to manage this jerk of an allergy.