Hi, I'm Brittany — stay-at-home mom, former early childhood educator, and the woman who just found a toad in her laundry basket and honestly wasn't that surprised.
The two little tornadoes
I'm raising two boys who exist on completely different planets and somehow share the same small house full of chaos with me every day. There's Toad, my three-year-old, who is deeply passionate about dirt, jumping off furniture, and sharing his opions on everything. Then there's Pippy, my fourteen-month-old, who is just pippin around the house at all times — which sounds cute until you realize he's covered the house in berries, and graham cracker crumbs , and climbed something he absolutely should not have climbed, all before 8am.
Together, they are a force of nature. They challege me to be better, to be more patient, and to love more than I ever thought possible. I am here to share our good, bad, and messy stories. Parenting to me is a constant journey that brings new suprises each day.
Why “Mom and Toad”?
When my oldest was a newborn, he did that perfect little scrunch — you know the one. My husband took one look at him and said, “He looks like a little toad.” And just like that, it stuck. He's been Toad ever since. The name started in those quiet, bleary, impossibly tender newborn days — and now it lives here, on this blog, because some nicknames are too good to keep to yourself.
The part where I actually know stuff
Here's what makes this blog a little different: I have an associate's degree in early childhood development. Which means when my toddler throws his entire dinner on the floor for the forty-seventh time this week, I can explain to you — calmly, with citations — exactly why that's developmentally appropriate. (It doesn't make it less annoying. But at least we can feel informed while we're cleaning up the meatballs.)
I'm not a doctor, a therapist, or a parenting guru on a podcast. I'm a mom in the thick of it, with just enough education to try to understand what's happening inside those wild little minds— and enough humility to know that the toddler always wins in the end anyway.
What you'll find around here
Every post here is going to do at least two of those things at once — because that's how my brain works, and honestly, that's how toddlers work too. Nothing is just one thing. The mud kitchen isn't just fun; it's bilateral coordination and sensory processing. The bug hunt isn't just cute; it's early science inquiry.
I'll tell you all of that, and I'll also tell you that not everything works perfectly. Here you will find the truth, honest life of a Stay-at-home-mom, just trying to figure it out.
Who this is for
This blog is for you if you're a mom (or dad, or grandparent, or anyone else in the trenches) who wants to find the fun in the chaos, let go of the feeling that you have to parent perfectly, and understand a little more about what is going on in their little minds. It's for you if you're tired of activity blogs that require making a run to the store and three hours of prep time. It's for you if you've ever googled “is it normal that my toddler licked a rock” at 11pm.
Spoiler: it's normal. I looked it up.
