I knew it could take a while to get pregnant, so when we decided to start trying, my expectations were set at about 6 months before we would look at REALLY trying. We headed off to Europe for a very belated honeymoon and I wasn’t surprised when my period was late, travel can do that, I told myself. About a week after my period was due, it started in the airport bathroom as we prepared to leave Austria for southern France. Those cramps weren’t normal cramps and the clots were not normal clots. I’d navigated this monthly for 18 years and this time was clearly different. Doubled over in pain, gushing blood, I passed what I would later find out was a 5-week old fetus, in the...

Welcome to episode 142 of Voices of Your Village! I have a treat for you this week, today’s episode is a bit different than usual. For over a year y’all have been reaching out and asking for an episode on potty training, and I have been hesitant to put one out because there are multiple different approaches to potty training and so many different things to consider.

Potty training is not a one size fits all, so I interviewed a few different folks in the potty training world who have different approaches. I am sharing this as a compilation, so you can hear about different approaches to potty training to decide what works best for you and your family. I...

Hey there, villagers! Welcome to episode 140 of Voices of Your Village! Today I got to interview Dr. Neal Lester, a professor of English at Arizona State University who studies African American Literature and Culture. I wanted to dive into conversation with Dr. Lester about cultural appropriation vs appreciation. This was a topic I personally had a lot of questions about and you villagers submitted a lot of questions about as well. 

In addition to addressing this topic as we move toward Thanksgiving and Halloween, I also find it to be important for us to dive into in our day to day life. Dr. Lester brought up so many crucial ways for us to consider and be mindful of cultural...

Welcome back to another episode of Voices of Your Village, today is episode 139. I am so jazzed about this episode, because we get to share a snapshot of the S.E.E.D. Certification with you! You will get to hear snapshots of each workshop. We have 5 different instructors: myself, Lori Goodrich who is an occupational therapist, Emily Lesher who is a speech-language pathologist, Jasmine Price has a masters in Early Childhood and is a current PhD candidate, and Dr. Lynyetta Willis who is a psychologist. 

“These humans are so incredible and such beautiful teachers, I am really pumped to share these workshops with you.”

When I was a teacher I...

Welcome back to another episode of Voices of Your Village! Today is episode 138 and guys, this is a good one. I got to hangout with my new friend Erica Mackey, she is the cofounder of My Village. I continue to fall more in love with MyVillage every day, it is such an incredible program that you will hear a bit about throughout this episode. Today Erica and I talked about all things teacher burnout cus oh man, the statistics surrounding teacher burnout are alarming. 

We have a lot of work to do in the early childhood community in supporting teachers so that they aren’t living in a space where they are getting burnout so fast. I know what that’s like firsthand in...

Welcome to Voices of Your Village episode 137! Today I am hanging out with Jennifer Anderson, you may know her as the mama behind Kids Eat in Color. Her instagram is one of my favorite follows. She gives amazing support to families on how to navigate picky eating and supporting kiddos with healthy relationships to food. She often talks about boundaries and creating a schedule around eating, as well as why we don’t use things like food as a reward and why it is really damaging to comment on a child’s weight. I love getting to learn from Jennifer, and I am so jazzed to get to share this episode with y’all today. Let’s dive in!

Jennifer Anderson is a...

Hello everyone! Welcome to another episode of Voices of Your Village! Today on episode 136 I am joined by Rosalia Rivera to talk about consent parenting. What does it look like to parent from a place of consent? To teach our tiny humans from infancy what consent looks like, what it feels like, and how to advocate for it. This is a topic that is very dear to my heart and I am so jazzed that I got to hangout with Rosalia and chat about it with her. I have been following her on instagram and learning from her constantly. In this conversation we got to talk about tough things like when your kid has to get in their carseat, when we need them to do something and what that looks like when...

Happy Podcast Thursday! Welcome to episode 134 of Voices of Your Village. Today we are hanging out with Amber O’Neal Johnson, who runs the Heritage Mom Blog, and we are diving into homeschooling. When I was researching this topic to find the best guest to bring on to the pod for you villagers, I just fell in love with Amber’s content and her approach to homeschooling. I am so jazzed to bring her into your ears today! Let’s dive in!

“We had a beautiful, beautiful year of school.”

Amber has four kids and she has been homeschooling them from the beginning. She was led to homeschooling by her husband and was reluctant at first, but then quickly...

Hey, everyone! Welcome back to Voices of Your Village. Today on episode 132 I am joined by the wonderful Xavier Dagba to talk about all things boundary setting between adults. Xavier is a transformational life coach and father. He is so eager about helping others, which is what led him to his field of work and ultimately led me to connecting with him. I was so thrilled when Xavier agreed to come have an on-mic chat with me and I think you will be just as jazzed to listen as I was to record this one! Y'all this is a good one, I felt like I could talk to Xavier forever. So, without further ado, let’s dive on in!

“If you are in this community it means you want better for...

Hi, everybody! Welcome to another episode of Voices of Your Village. Today on Episode 131 we are diving into fertility and hormones and vaginas, oh my! I learned so much from Lisa Hendrickson-Jack, author of The Fifth Vital Sign: Master Your Cycles & Optimize Your Fertility. Her book is so fascinating and definitely not what I grew up learning about my body. For me it has played such a huge role in my fertility journey.  

We wound up finding out that my body was really low in progesterone and that was most likely leading to my early miscarriages. You may have seen over on social media that I am pregnant again, and this happened from one month of supporting my progesterone...