Author Archives: Sarah Conway

About Sarah Conway

Sarah is a wife, mother, educator, researcher, nutrition and fitness enthusiast, artist, culinary innovator, ethics advocate, and overall lover of learning.

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The acquisition of language skills in infants is more than a little bit difficult to predict.  Babies develop in a wide and varying “normal” range.  While some vowel sounds and simple consonant sounds seemed to be mastered in baby babble,  it is nearly impossible to determine when an infant is going to use those sounds to communicate in words with deliberation. In an effort to aid communication with our babies, my husband and I introduced to our children at around six months an array of simple signs. The hope was that the combination of sounds and the signs would helps … Continue reading →

St. Valentine’s Day

Today was a day my husband and I routinely ignore on an annual basis as something designed by marketers to make money selling situationally overpriced flowers and unnecessary calories to unsuspecting and uncreative individuals wishing to mimic the idea of love in a physical form. We ignore it to save money, to save time, and to save sanity. Often we would exchange a handwritten letter to one another as an indication that today is a day when people remember their love and commit to strengthen it anew in the face of the day to day struggles of any relationship. Today … Continue reading →

Snow Day Part III

In the midst of my phone conversation with my husband, our son noticed that his aunt (my sister), who lives next door in the other side of the duplex, was outside shoveling the driveway.  Since her work was canceled because of the snow too, I invited her to spend the day with us. While I started making the coffee ice cream base, my sister entertained my three year old and one year old by reading books and singing songs with them. So far they were really enjoying the snow day. Soon enough my husband arrived at home with a work … Continue reading →

Snow Day Part II

There was not a lot of snow maybe three or four inches, but I was shocked at how terrible the roads were.  None of the roads had been cleared (at this point is is almost eight thirty in the morning).  I carefully drove, with the children safely secured in their car seats, through town.  There were a few hills to tackle and I crossed my fingers that the light at the bottom of one large hill and before another rather large hill would stay green.  Twenty miles per hour was about the safest speed at which to travel even though … Continue reading →

Snow Day Part I

The day was planned.  My husband and two of his colleagues were carpooling seventy minutes to one of their company’s retreat houses (a program to help those with substance abuse issues overcome their addictions) to work on training and curriculum development. After taking on a new position in the same company where he has worked for over a year, he spends less time out at the houses and more time working on bettering the program. I also had a busy day planned.  Breakfast at seven in the morning (obviously) so that we can eat with my husband before he goes … Continue reading →

Shoes for My Daughter Part VI

Once we I got my daughter home, I put her into the black patent leather shoes to help her get used to them.  She threw another fit refusing to stand up and stubbornly remained in a squatting position. When I did not take them off of her right away, she sat down after a few minutes of squatting and ripped them off of her feet herself.  I put the shoes  back on her feet and examined how the fit her.  The shoes seemed more than a little big (but it seems shoes are supposed to be a half a size … Continue reading →

Shoes for My Daughter Part V

Now that I had finally found some shoes that might be acceptable, my daughter still needed to try them on and get her feet sized by the certified fit specialist  When my daughter was getting her feet sized, the first thing the saleswoman/certified fit specialist said to me was that my daughter had wide feet.  I was shocked because her feet always seemed long and narrow to me … but who was I to argue with the certified fit specialist.  I has sized my daughter’s feet at a four and a half but tended to go with a five to … Continue reading →

Shoes for My Daughter Part IV

Finding shoes for my daughter has been a huge struggle between finding shoes that are affordable, comfortable, and something that she could wear with anything.  With weekly perusals at the children’s consignment shop and finding very little that met my criteria, I was relieved when my mother-in-law expressed the desire to buy my children shoes.  However, I was met with similar issues in the children’s shoe department. While most of the shoes were very cute and colorful and pricey,  I was only getting one, possibly two, pairs of shoes.  I wanted to find some shoes that had the comfort of … Continue reading →

Shoes for My Daughter Part III

I knew that I needed to find a way to help my daughter get used to wearing shoes. So I did what any mother would do, I put them on her while she was in her carseat or riding in the stroller. This helped her get used to the feel of them on her feet without giving her the opportunity to tear them off of her feet.  It was especially helpful when she fell asleep in her carseat because she was was unknowingly getting used to the feel of a shoe.  It took a little while for her to be … Continue reading →

Shoes for My Daughter Part II

Having purchased several pairs of shoes (granted they were all from a consignment shop for children’s gently used clothes) for my infant daughter that she either only wore once or twice or not at all, I decided to let the whole shoe wearing urge go for the summer.  My daughter spent the remainder of the warm weather blissfully and gleefully shoe free. Once the weather started to turn cool, I was on the hunt again for footwear for my daughter (who at this point was ten months old and has already taken her first steps). This time around, however, I … Continue reading →