Keri Schlecht
Talking With Toddlers: Building Early Language Skills
Along with my family and my dog, I love language the most. On the outside, it’s a bunch of letters shuffled together. On the warm, gooey inside it’s a high-tech vehicle for self-expression. It’s...
Communicating with Baby: My Experience with Baby Signs
Oh the milestones. They make all the sweat, tears, and other assorted bodily fluids worthwhile. Like the first time my Little One rolled over. And when she started to crawl. Then there was her first diaper...
Spring Cleaning + Organizing 101
As an organizational enthusiast, I derive great joy from having a place for everything and everything in said place. Knowing where things are saves time. Well thought-out, attractive spaces are nice to look at...
Be the Decency You Want to See in the World
On a random Tuesday not long ago, I took my daughter to the clinic for her one-year checkup. Save the lingering anxiety I bear from keeping her alive, I had nothing unusual to note as...
Happy Birthday, Dear Baby
Dear Baby,
Tonight, at just a hair past seven o’clock on this last day of the year, you completed your first full revolution around the sun. It goes without saying that a lot has happened since the...
A Girl and Her Dog
Before I was a parent, I had a dog. It’s a story you’ve probably heard before. The dog was my baby, blah, blah, blah. He went everywhere with me – work, errands, road trips....
An Apple a Day Keeps the Judgment at Bay
A few months ago, I saw an unfortunate version of a young me. I was sitting in the Apple Store, perched high above the masses on a stool at the Genius Bar. The exasperation in my...
It’s Never Too Early to Be a Badger
Recently I read an intriguing op-ed in the New York Times about babies and cognition.1 In it, the author cited two studies demonstrating how babies learn – not just by imitating others, but also...
This is Your Brain on Parenthood
To say I’m an organized person is a bit of an understatement. Meticulous is more like it. Fanatical is even better. I do not lose things – or rather, if I do, I spend...
Going for Gold
The Summer Games are once again upon us. Soon thousands of svelte sportspeople from all over the world will gather in Rio to collectively measure their biceps in one big giant flex. They’ll use those...
Music + Children: Find Your Rhythm
When Prince passed a few months ago, I was crushed. Another musical pioneer, a rhythmic genius, funky fixture of my childhood, gone. Weeks later when I asked my husband how he was coping so...