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This post may contain affiliate links, which just means that if you purchase items I recommend here I may make a small commission. I am careful only to recommend products I like and use. I would be remiss if I didn't start with this: my daughter loves being outside. Every morning, after we are dressed, we take our dogs (Birdie and Goose) for a walk around the neighborhood. We look at flowers, birds, and clouds. Freya often reaches out and takes one of the leashes, and she mun

Each morning, after a diaper change and a cup of milk, I come downstairs with my sixteen-month-old daughter. When she was an infant, I would put her in her bouncy chair while I made breakfast and tea. When she was a little older, she wanted to be in the kitchen with me, often glued to me, sometimes strapped to my chest as I made toast, or coffee, or fed her blueberries. This post contains affiliate links to toys that my daughter loves. If purchased, I may make a small commiss

When I was a kid, I used to come home and turn on the TV. We’d watch PBS shows like Arthur or Pepper Ann, and sometimes even Oprah. My mom would be finishing up her day, usually starting dinner, and after a full day of school, we just needed to not. Not think, not perform, not do one more thing—just be. Somewhere along the way, screens stopped being neutral and started feeling like an issue. Like every time we turn something on, we’re making a parenting decision that says som

Some days are just hard. To quote Grumpy Monkey, "The sun was too bright, the sky was too blue, and the bananas were too sweet." It's nothing you did, but there it is, feeling impossible. The house is a mess. You’re touched out, overstimulated, and running on very little patience. Even when your kids, whether toddlers or otherwise, are happy, it's just too much. If today feels like that, this isn’t a list of things to fix it. I have these days all the time, and I believe eve

There are toddlers who play quietly… and then there are toddlers who don’t stop moving. I remember when my mom brought over a tiny table and chairs for my daughter, and she immediately took off at a run, pushing one of the chairs up and down the hallway over, and over, and over. Yep. High energy . If you have a toddler like mine, you already know — they don’t need more toys. They need the right kind of movement, the kind that lets them climb, push, balance, and burn energy i

Pebble Bear Along the edges of the rivers in the Joy Realm, where the water moves slowly over smooth stones, there lives a small bear made for quiet places. The rivers there do not rush. They move gently, shaping each pebble over time, turning rough edges into something soft and steady. If you sit long enough beside the water, you may see him. He is Pebble Bear, and his magic is in the quiet moments. He walks slowly along the riverbanks, pausing now and then to pick up a ston

Toddlers are not meant to sit still. My daughter will pause during play for increasing amounts of time (we’re talking from 10 seconds to 30 seconds here, y’all), but for the most part, she is moving. She is talking, singing, dancing, exploring. And she wants ME to be included in all of it, which I love. Having a baby was groundbreaking for me, but this phase? This tiny, expressive, brave, curious phase? This is FUN. And exhausting. Toddlers are built for movement, curiosity,

Moss Fox Deep within the woods of the Joy Realm, where growing things quietly spin magic we miss in the waking world, there is a fallen tree covered in mushrooms and moss. You see, when trees fall in the Joy Realm, they are left alone so that other things might live within them even as they die. If we wait quietly nearby, one such creature will appear. She has two ears, a nose like a dog’s, and whiskers that twitch while she sniffs the ground. Her fur is red, but right around

“I’m bored.” Did I mention that I have a tween and a teenager in addition to a toddler? I did, but I have been so wrapped up in the small one that I haven’t yet published anything I’ve written about the older two. I’m a stepmom in a 50/50 household – one week on, one week off – which means I’ve had a front-row seat to different ages, rhythms, and needs. This article is about all three kids, ages fourteen, eleven, and one. At least one time every day, and usually multiple time

Lantern Owl There is a secret magic that lies in plain sight, but that we rarely see. Two worlds exist side by side. The one we know, the waking world, goes about its business on a daily and nightly basis, but the other world, the Joy Realm, is easily missed. In that quiet otherworld live the keepers of wonder – small creatures who steward the forests, rivers, and meadows of the realm where imagination is more important than clean dishes, tidied counters, or swept floors. Som

How Small Creative Moments Grow Into Something Big Motherhood often feels like a constant give. Between meals, schedules, and endless little questions, it’s easy to feel like your own creativity has slipped quietly into the background. But in the quiet minutes of naptime, you can reclaim just ten minutes for yourself — a small act of creativity that, over time, can blossom into something meaningful. The Power of Tiny Creative Windows Ten minutes might not seem like much, but

We have all been there — some of us often. Tired beyond lack of sleep. A mental fog that feels permanent. And my biggest personal tell: a short fuse. This type of burnout often goes unnoticed. It exists below the surface as a low thrum — a steady hum that makes you feel not quite right. There’s no collapse. You don’t necessarily break down. You just move through the day feeling slightly disconnected from yourself, unable to name exactly what would fix it. It’s no one’s fault.

(Screen-Free, Simple, and Sanity-Saving Indoor Toddler Activities) Some links in this post are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission if you purchase through them — at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting Joy Realm and the work I create here. There’s a specific time of day when it happens. Usually around 4:37pm. My toddler starts climbing the couch. Then the coffee table. Then me. I haven’t done anything wrong. She’s not “out of control.” She nee

Having kids comes with a lot of stuff — toys, gear, breast pumps, equipment. Toys. When I looked around my home a few weeks after bringing my daughter home from the hospital, I barely recognized it. But it isn’t just the baby — it’s the older kids, too. Stuff everywhere. Messes multiplying. And the pressure to keep up with it all can feel just as constant. There’s a short, slippery slope between feeling mentally clear and mentally foggy — like you aren’t doing enough — and f

In the first year of motherhood, there was no breaking point or moment when things suddenly became challenging. The challenge was constant. I was running on fumes after a steady accumulation of days during which my body and mind were stretched and rearranged. The weight of responsibility never lifts — you simply adjust. I had support, and advice was everywhere, but what actually got me through were small, quiet comforts that held me up when I was exhausted. Disclosure: This p

There was a moment when I realized that my life as I had known it was over. It was a few days after my daughter was born. We were home, and I was tired — not tired in the sense that I needed sleep, but tired in the sense that my time was no longer my own. It had slipped through my fingers without my noticing. I suspect it happened sometime in the second half of my pregnancy. Postpartum me was tired, new, obsessed with a very small girl, and making clumsy attempts to reclaim s

I am of the generation that had the pleasure of reading Harry Potter before the movies existed. We had the illustrations on the cover, and that was it. I can still see Harry, Ron, Hermione, and every other character in my mind, the way I originally imagined them. The same goes for James of James and the Giant Peach , Aslan and Lucy and Turkish delight from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe , and Nancy in the Nancy Drew series. By now, you may have gleaned that this is a

Two days ago I experienced something that happens about once a month—I had one of those days. You know the ones Mama said there would be, when you suddenly don’t feel right, nothing lines up, insult gets piled on top of injury, and you find yourself caught in a whirlpool, spiraling toward self-pity. I sat down to write and couldn’t. I tried closing my eyes and breathing for a few minutes, blocking everything out so I could start over. Then the doorbell rang. A box of thirty

I have carried a small journal with me since I was a teenager. The notes inside are sometimes practical—grocery lists, to-dos—but many of the pages are filled with abstract thoughts, poetry, song lyrics, or snippets of stories that eventually sputtered out and now hover somewhere in the upper atmosphere of my mind. That journal represents my ability to leave this plane, so to speak, and travel into the inner world of my imagination. Since giving birth, not only has it cease

No one can prepare you for it, though they will try. My pregnancy was relatively easy—if “easy” is a word that can be used for pregnancy at all. My body, which I had always used for running, cartwheeling, hiking, yoga-ing, skateboarding, and other such physical endeavors, became host to a tiny, opinionated girl sometime in early May of 2024. I wanted to take pineapple with me everywhere I went. I made snack boxes filled with cheese cubes, nuts, and fruit and carried them to w