Allison Cooper

Why the hell didn’t anyone remind me how hard the toddler years are? I’m taking all the mental notes on how to survive the toddler years.

Finding yourself doing extra loads of laundry because your toddler’s favorite T-shirt is dirty and you know there will be the mother of all meltdowns tomorrow if it’s not clean?

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.

This little, strong-willed, giggly baby girl is attached to me in every single way imaginable. It’s gotten so bad that any time I know I need to step out of the house, I feel myself worrying about it all day long up until the very moment I leave, because I know how bad her reaction is going to be.

“I taught my 8 year old daughter how to use our remote to turn on Netflix Kids (only my 11-year-old knows how to use it), and left out cereal bars and bananas for breakfast.” Nancy J. Horn, New York mom of three.

Every single day of our lives, since the moment that we bring home our beautiful child from the hospital — well, actually, well before that — we are faced with a multitude of decisions that will impact their lives. Some decisions are more serious than others. Yet the constant need to rip parents apart for the decisions they make is so unnerving to me that I simply can’t take it anymore.

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

In case someone comes out of the woodwork and goes extra hard with the mom-shaming for choosing to bottle feed, here are some really important reasons not to feel ashamed.

Let’s face it — as much as the holidays are merry and bright, they can be stressful, too. We have so much planning to do (and even more if you have kids), traveling to arrange, cleaning — and on top of all that there is the financial stress.

There’s so much going on with a postpartum mom, so much more than meets the eye, and we need to be aware of that. Stop talking about her body!