Allison Cooper

Oh yes — you read correctly.

Having a full schedule can be a wonderful thing, but also exhausting and a time suck — sucking time away from you! Take a look at your monthly calendar and plan what is most important to you and your family.

I’m not going to lie or sugarcoat my feelings right now — I’m nervous about going from a mom of one to a mom of two. My son is seven, so he, my husband, and I have had seven years of time as “just the three of us.”

Yes, it’s a public place, but neither myself or any movie-going patron should have to worry that they might not be able to hear what’s being said on the big screen because a baby is crying. End of story.

Yes, I said it. I’ll sing it from the rooftops and admit the one thing that many moms might feel ashamed to say out loud: I live for nap time.

I can't just embrace the chaos. I wish I could follow the advice: “Stop stressing, Allison, you work full time, stop comparing yourself to mothers who don’t." But I can’t help but to play that comparing game and label myself as the inadequate mom.

I so firmly believe that everyone should have the freedom to truly be who they are, without limits, and it’s important to me to raise kids who are open and accepting of that, too. Here are five ways I’m raising a gender equal child.

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

10. 15 minutes alone in the grocery store has become your equivalent to a therapy session.

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.