Susie Allison is a former teacher turned stay-at-home mom of 3 and the woman behind Busy Toddler! Her mission is to bring hands-on learning back to childhood, support others in their parenting journey, and help everyone make it to nap time.

What we talked about: 

• Meeting her husband their first night of college and getting married a month after they graduated
• Wanting to start a family and walking a long road of infertility 
  • At that time people didn’t talk about infertility and it wasn’t a common thing to discuss on social media
  • Took 4 years, almost 5 rounds of IVF, countless IUIs 
  • Walking into their last round of IVF knowing that they were going to close the chapter on biological kids if not successful
  • Having success and ending up with their son Sam 9 months later 
  • Their 2nd was a complete medical miracle and a surprise pregnancy
  • After their 2nd turned one, they decided to try again and she got pregnant again right away 
• Knew that she wanted to stay home with her first child, Sam
  • After having her second, Kate, she was in survival mode and missed spending time with her son 
  • Wanting to try to do an activity each day and not finding anything that was inexpensive and easy, which led to her creating activities of her own
  • Seeing a hole on Instagram for parents looking for kids' activities 
• The guilt our parenting generation has around not playing with our kids 24/7
  • The more they can play independently, the better
  • There are a lot of other ways to connect with your child
• Her success has been a gradual work-up, now her entire life is Busy Toddler
  • Working between 40-60 hours because it doesn’t stop on the weekends 
• Sensory bins are ageless
  • Kids learn about math, science, reasoning, cause and effect and life skills from sensory bins
  • Teaches self-control, which studies have shown is a direct link to success for kids later in life 
    • No dumping, no throwing, no eating and you take it away when they break those rules
• Not having room in their house for having a ton of craft supplies
  • Live within your means and be happy with what you have
• The process of writing her book
  • A real life, moderate approach to parenting
  • Wanting to put together a book that combines parenting and activities

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Lauren Stuart is a mom of twins who lives in CA with her husband and kiddos. She had a challenging pregnancy and NICU journey after her twins were born at 32 weeks. Her husband came to her with the idea for the bökee after being frustrated by how challenging it was to prep a baby bottle one handed and knew there had to be a fix. Their invention provides parents with an easy solution to allow for one handed bottle prep. 

What we talked about: 

• Knowing that there was history in her family with struggling to get pregnant and deciding to start trying after a year of marriage 
• Reading Taking Charge of Your Fertility to learn more about her cycle 
• Getting pregnant nine months after going off of birth control 
• Thinking something is wrong with you as a woman when you don’t understand your cycles and what different types of discharge means 
• Being shocked when she found out that she was having twins
  • Feeling in her gut that it was twins, but not telling her husband
  • Feeling panicked when she found out 
• Her son having intrauterine growth restriction 
  • Being put on limited bed rest 
  • Her daughter growing normally 
• Getting diagnosed with Cholestasis 
• Getting to 32 weeks before she delivered 
• Having a c-section 
  • Not being able to hold the babies or see them after they were born 
• Being scared to see her babies once she could because of how small they were 
• Pumping around the clock trying to get her milk to come in, but missing a step because she couldn’t do any skin-to-skin 
• Her NICU nurse pushing her to hold her babies for the first time
• It taking a while for her to feel like those were her children and she was their mother 
• Being so grateful for the NICU experience because now she celebrates every accomplishment/milestone for her children 
• Her daughter coming home 3 weeks before her son 
• Her son having some complications over the past year and finding a group where she can connect and talk to about it 
• Where the idea of the bökee came from 
  • The bökee allows you to get a bottle ready with one hand so you don’t have to put baby down, but can still get the top on without losing your precious milk 
• How cool it is to see people share other uses of the bökee such as the amputee community
• How the bökee brought her back to the work force 

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Kate Torgersen is the founder and CEO of Milk Stork. She lives in Northern California with her husband and 3 kids.

• Her kids being at ages where she doesn’t have to oversee everything they do
• Not originally wanting to have kids, but changing her mind at 29 and getting her husband on board
• Getting pregnant on their first round of IVF the first time
• Her second IVF journey 
  • This round was much harder
  • Realizing they needed to get a new car and save for three college tuitions all at once after finding out they were having twins 
• Breastfeeding her twins for 18 months because she went that long with her first
  • Breastfeeding her first child was easy and great
  • Her twins were challenging - tongue ties, struggle with weight gain, etc. 
• Her first 4-day business trip when she was still nursing
  • Having to pump a half gallon for each day she was going to be gone on top of having to pump while on her trip and figuring out how to bring it home
  • Going through TSA with jugs of breastmilk, having to get more ice from the bartender
  • Being frustrated on the way home and calling her dad to tell him about the idea behind Milk Stork
• Working full-time, having three kids and breastfeeding and starting Milk Stork at the same time
• Calling her dad because she knew he could help her figure it out 
• Having to advocate for yourself at every step of the breastfeeding journey when you’re a mom 
• Milk Stork evolving to help surrogates provide the milk to the baby and also helping people transport their milk when they move 
• The lack of education and awareness around breastfeeding 
• Not bringing employees on for the first three years
• As a company, they were getting comfortable with their success, but having to pivot for 2020
  • They’ve started partnering with smaller companies in childcare, telehealth, lactation, etc. 
  • Having researchers come to them who are doing studies on COVID and breastmilk
• 2020 has forced her to feel her feelings
• Not working at night anymore and prioritizing sleep and rest and NOT feeling guilty for it
• Wanting her kids to feel safe, but to not lose a global perspective. And to be able to look at other people’s perspectives. 

Follow Kate on her personal Instagram, the Milk Stork website or Milk Stork Instagram. 

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Sarah Canney lives in New Hampshire with her husband and 3 kids. She is the founder and host of a women’s running retreat called Rise. Run. Retreat. 

What we talked about 

• What the retreats entail and how creating the retreats stemmed from running a retreat with a women’s relay that left her feeling inspired, encouraged and gave her a confidence boost
  • After the experience, she had the idea of wanting to do that again and take the magic of that weekend to recreate it for other women 
  • The retreat is a lot less about running and how fast and far you go, but rather how it fits in your life and teaches you that you are strong and helps you gain confidence 
  • Retreats are a 4-day experience for 15 people, in beautiful locations with delicious food
  • Retreat is for all levels - you don’t have to be a certain speed. She encourages everyone to think of themselves as athletes 
• Their first child was a bit of a surprise 
  • It was 2008 and their economy had just crashed, her husband was unemployed and they were upside down on their mortgage, but it turned out to be perfect timing 
  • Always knew they wanted three kids - the transition from 1-2 was difficult, but 2-3 was ok
  • Having a lot of prenatal anxiety 
• Having a pre-teen and navigating the talks of why they’re feeling sad
• The natural progression of starting the running retreats and how it came together between taking care of kids
  • It’s been a compilation of little bits of time over the past 10 years
• Her family's decision to do homeschool
• Really focus on your kids feeling encouraged and if they’re feeling encouraged they will feel curious and confident
• Being diagnosed with anorexia at 18, but dieting and restrictions had been a part of her life for years 
  • At the end of that treatment, her struggle with bulimia started. From the outside she looked better physically, but on the inside the disorder had just morphed into something else
  • Struggling with bulimia until she was 28 
  • Finding out that she was pregnant with her daughter was really the catalyst for her to change 
• Finding inspiration in entrepreneurial moms who are kicking butt in their business 
• Modern Family episode mentioned in intro

Follow Sarah on her website, Instagram, Facebook & Twitter.

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 Lindsey Avery Fitzsimons is a PhD candidate in biomedical science studying the pathogenesis of congenital heart disease. She lives in Maine with her husband and 3-year old son.

What we talked about:

• What her journey has been like as she has worked to finalize her PhD
• Growing up with a non-traditional family as the oldest and always wanting kids
• Getting pregnant right away with her first child and taking for granted how easy it was
• Not enjoying being pregnant, but knowing that she wants to have another 
• Struggling with the physical changes of being pregnant 
• Having a miscarriage this August with twins at 11 weeks
• Having to have a D&C on her son’s birthday
  • Going in for a routine ultrasound and not seeing heartbeats
  • Feeling like something was wrong and that she had miscarried 
  • Not being able to have anyone with her during the procedure because of COVID
  • Not feeling an emotionally supported during the process
  • Not being sedated for the procedure and it being physically and emotionally traumatizing 
  • Having to have multiple follow-up procedures as a result of her D&C
• Being surprised by how much she’s able to juggle as a mom 
  • Focusing on surviving, not thriving 
• Her academic background 
  • Having a background in exercise physiology 
  • Using exercise as a form of medicine 
  • Enjoyed being in the clinical environment, but it was mundane and patients often weren’t interested in making lifestyle changes
  • Found a PhD program for biokinesiology (study of human movement) at University of Southern California 
  • Struggling to find a good fit with a mentor 
• Breaking down what it means to pursue a PhD program 
• What the end goal is for once she graduates
  • A combination of research and teaching would be her ideal 
• The struggle of being a woman in science, especially those who choose to have children
  • Having people she trusted and looked up to respond negatively to her having a child

Connect with Lindsey on her Instagram 

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 Shannon is the co-founder and owner of Sobriety Cards. She lives in Phoenix with her husband Michael and 5-year old daughter named Sloan as well as a pup named Charger. She and her husband founded Sobriety Cards because they couldn’t find cards to recognize sobriety anniversaries that sounded like the way they talked. They wanted cards that were honest, blunt and raw so they created their own.

What we talked about: 

• Not knowing if kids were going to be in the picture for her 
• Being focused on her career and being single up until 35 
• Meeting her husband at 38 and discussing having kids 
• Dr told her it would take 1-1 ½ years to get pregnant and she got pregnant the next month at 40
• Deciding while she was pregnant that they just wanted one child
• Being her daughter’s mom, teacher and playmate since she doesn’t have siblings
• Having to reexamine everything about herself after she became a mom because her career had meant so much to her 
• The negative expectations that moms are supposed to be everything for everyone
• Her husband's recovery from alcohol addiction. 
• She went to go find a card for him to celebrate one of his sober birthdays and couldn’t find anything 
• Starting Sobriety Cards during the pandemic 
• The increase in relapse and addiction as a result of COVID
• She and her husband came up with card ideas and launched in August 
• Blown away by the positive reception that the cards received 
• Having friends who reached out after they launched who thanked her and shared their stories, which she never knew
• Families are all going through the recovery process together 
• Going through the process with her husband when he realized his drinking had become untenable while they had their 18-month old
• Starting therapy immediately after he started the journey
• Her husband worked on his addiction and healing while she worked on herself and they finally had tools to work through challenges
• Realizing that she can’t micromanage her husband's recovery and she can only focus on herself and taking care of herself
• Getting over the fear of saying the wrong thing vs not saying anything at all
• Using therapy, exercise, reading and meditation as self-care
• Being able to let go vs keeping her daughter in a bubble

Connect with Shannon on their site, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

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Thanks so much for listening and for supporting our podcast! Please rate the show, leave a review if you liked what you heard and make sure to subscribe on Amazon Music, iHeartRADIO,  iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts or TuneIn!

What we talked about: 

• Having two very active boys who love to push their limits and explore
• Struggling to get pregnant 
  • Getting tested and hearing that they would never be able to get pregnant
  • Doing IVF for their first child and having one additional embryo 
  • Getting surprise pregnant naturally when her first was 14 months 
  • Trying for a 3rd with their frozen embryo and it not working
• Creating a comprehensive resource about how to wean a toddler and discussing the emotional and hormonal effects on a mom 
• Seeing pregnant women when you’re going through infertility and feeling depressed, but realizing that we never know someone else’s journey 
• Feeling she wasn’t the only mom who struggled with getting their kids to eat enough
  • Made really cute lunches for her kids and starting her Instagram page to help get information out
• Never intending Kids Eat in Color to support her family and never thought she would leave her full-time job that was flexible and family-friendly
• Working full-time until 9 months ago 
• The amount of work and effort that had to be put in to maintain her job and her Kids Eat in Color work 
  • Things had to be imperfectly done in order to maintain everything 
  • Her website didn’t go live until last June and no products were created until last fall 
  • Working 7 days a week for six-months to make it happen
• Currently working on a low-income budget recipe resource 
• One of the biggest concerns she hears is that someone's kid won’t try something new and you feel guilty as a parent 
  • The most effective way to combat this cycle is simply telling your kid that they don’t need to eat it, but they do need to sit at the table with the family
    • The child needs to be in control of what they eat and what goes into their body
    • Having formal, routine eating opportunities for children is key - the child needs to know that food is coming consistently, not in front of a screen or being distracted where they are focused on the food
• We need to focus on letting our kids learn and decide when their body is full 
• She serves dessert with the meal so all the food is on the same playing field 
  • Reinforcing that they are the expert of their body

Connect with Jennifer on her website, Instagram and Facebook.

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Tiffany Fluellen lives in Columbus, Ohio with her husband and 2-year-old son. She is currently at-home due to COVID. Prior to that she was working in the non-profit industry. She was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2008. She had two miscarriages before she and her husband decided upon adoption and eventually adopted their 2-yr-old son when he was 4 days old.  

What we talked about: 

• Her newfound love for the Cricut machine and tapping into her creative side 
• Wanting to spend the first few years of their marriage getting to know one another/traveling before kids
• Not getting pregnant right away and finding out she had fibroids and that needed surgery to remove. 
  • After surgery she got pregnant and miscarried at six weeks. 
  • They waited a year to try again and she lost her second pregnancy much farther along than the first
• Giving names to the children she lost to help her grieve  
• Pressing pause on starting a family to help clear their mind and deciding on a trip that they were going to adopt
• Finding an adoption agency, getting licensed, taking classes, doing home studies and everything that came with the process including a ton of paperwork 
• Having a birth mother reach out two times and having them pull out and struggling with those feelings 
• Talking to their son’s birth mom and waiting to hear from her about her decision - having her call and congratulate them on becoming parents, bringing their son home at 4 days old
• Being a stay-at-home mom for the first 1 ½ of her son’s life
• Envying her husband because he will be able to connect with their son in a way that she can’t because they were both adopted 
• Hating that she won’t be able to protect her son from everything that could hurt him 
• Getting diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2008 
• Spent a week in the hospital getting various tests while they tried to determine what was wrong before she got her diagnosis 
• Choosing to make the most of her life with what she has 
• Partnered with the pharma company as a patient advocate 
• Telling her husband she has MS early on and having him be respond by saying it doesn’t change how he feels about her
• Learning to accept not being able do everything
• Her all encompassing love for Target and wanting to get married there but her husband saying no

Connect with Tiffany on Instagram and Facebook. 

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Brittany Dixon is a mom of two girls - ages 9 & 6. She is a former health coach turned homeschooling, work-at-home mom. On her blog, A Healthy Slice of Life, she shares healthy eating tips, a view into what homeschool looks like for them and helpful resources and advice, their family travel adventures and everyday life. 

What we talked about: 

• Being a health coach, turned stay-at-home-mom
• The development of her blog from posting info for clients to a lifestyle blog
• Having a detailed record of her kids lives archived 
• Asking her kids for permission to post things when it includes them
• Being surprised by how much she likes her kids- she knew how much she loved them, but as they got bigger she realized how much she loves spending so much time with them
• Being grateful that her kids are friends and what they do to foster that relationship 
• Deciding to homeschool her kids and the benefits of spending more time with them and having the flexibility that it provides 
• Taking homeschooling one year at a time and how she found her groove
• Importance of learning through play 
• Piecing curriculums together for her kids and pulling from lots of different places and using what fits their learning styles the best
• Using programs from The Good and the Beautiful, Beautiful Feet
• Deciding to wait a bit to have kids so they could travel and then finding out she was pregnant right away 
• Feeling like she could have had 400 kids, but knowing that two would allow them to travel and do more as a family 
• State of the Family - a thorough review of finances and discussion of long-term goals 
• Creating an online community where people can have open and honest discussions about finances through their State of the Family Facebook group 
• How she gets her kids to eat a variety of foods and try new things 
• Always making sure that there is something on their plate that they like especially if she’s trying out a new food 
• Choosing your values and priorities when the kids are young so habits are created by the time they are older 

Connect with Brittany: website, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.  

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Joelle Oliver, and Kristy Westrom are co-founders of 2 Of A Kind Earrings. In 2018, both of their sons were diagnosed with cancer. In September 2019, they made earrings to raise money in honor of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and loved it so much they decided to make things official. They strongly believe in the importance of giving back. For each pair sold, a pair will be gifted to a caregiver of a child with cancer. 

What we talked about: 

• In May of 2018, Kristy’s son who was 5 was diagnosed with T-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. She had noticed her son was bruising easily and her doctor ran some tests after noticing he was a bit pale
• Joelle’s family of six was living in Indonesia when her son developed a bump under his left eye and was diagnosed with Embryonal Rhabdomyosarcoma and decided to come back to the U.S.
• How Kristy was a huge support for Joelle after her son’s diagnosis because she had gone through it
• They put on a fundraiser in September of 2019 for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and selling earrings was a huge success
  • This led them to start 2 Of A Kind
  • Being so excited to give back to a community that has given them so much
  • Partnering with Momcology to get the earrings out to caregivers 
• Kristy’s son is still in treatment - his treatment will be 3 ½ years long
  • The first year was very intense - Liam was constantly in clinic or inpatient at the hospital. His immune system was often dangerously low, causing him to have to be medically isolated at home while missing school and not seeing family or friends. He lost weight, stopped growing, lost his hair twice, received countless chemo infusions, over 20 blood product transfusions, and had nearly 30 days of inpatient stays. 
  • Kristy and her family had to grieve relationships that were lost
  • Finding their new normal
  • Joelle’s son Patrick was treated with 3 different chemotherapies and 27 proton beam radiation treatments in a 6-month period. She is happy to report that Patrick has had no evidence of disease of cancer since his treatment ended a year and a half ago. Long term side effects will be part of his life from his treatment.  
• Feeling guilt that their other children weren’t able to see them as much or receive as much attention 
• After going through their experiences, they’ve realized looking at the big picture, some little things just don’t matter

Connect with 2 of a Kind: website, Facebook and Instagram. 

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Thanks so much for listening and for supporting our podcast! Please rate the show, leave a review if you liked what you heard and make sure to subscribe on Amazon Music, iHeartRADIO,  iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts or TuneIn!