If you thought Barney or Blue’s Clues was enough to put you over the proverbial edge, you haven’t met JJ from the cartoon, CoComelon. 

At first blush, it’s a harmless show with cute little nursery rhymes and topics that are typical for the preschool set. Don’t be fooled though, the more you listen, the worse the voices get and the repetition leaves you ready to pull your TV off the wall. 

Nevertheless, the littles are hooked.

It’s no wonder why they’re entranced because there’s apparently a dopamine hit that occurs in kid’s brains as the scenes change every few seconds. You and I both know that highly overstimulating kids isn’t a good idea. 

Ringing in for mom of the year, I let my daughter watch said train wreck during emergencies. Read: airplane travel. As we watched JJ and his siblings start singing about exercise, my ears perked up. With a degree in exercise physiology and career in fitness, I was intrigued...

I'm a terrible flyer. I've mentioned that nerves plus motion sickness make me a real peach to sit near on an airplane. 

I was surprisingly good on my last flight, especially compared to the guy a couple rows back. 

He was traveling with his two daughters with no other adult in sight which could explain his loud-talking-borderline-yelling. The minute he took his seat he was pleading/informing his daughters they better behave themselves for the next two hours. 

Right before the flight attendants did their safety speech, our buddy yells out, "how did you get that chocolate in here? You have to eat some almonds before you can have any chocolate, ok?"

It was a you-better-listen-to-me-kind-of-ok. 

During the flight there was more loud talking about who knows what since I was rewinding Sing 2 for the fiftieth time while helping my daughter unwrap her seventh lollipop. 

I felt for this dad. He's doing what diet culture tells him to do which is...

I went to church almost every Sunday as a kid and couldn’t wait to get out of there. It wasn’t the hard pews or long, sometimes boring mass that got to me. I actually liked seeing my extended family, singing songs and having a quiet moment to reflect. I had to get out of there to get back to the car to hear the results of Rick Dees weekly top 40.

I would even wait in the car once we got home to hear if “Faith” (1988) or “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” (1989) would top the billboard charts. Why did he have to drag out those last top three for so long? 

Topping our little corner of the Mind Body Mondays charts for the year are below. Maybe you need to catch up or re-read to remind yourself that it’s ok to eat whatever you want this holiday season and know that your body has your back in terms of balancing out the inevitable extras you’ll consume.

I wish you a relaxing and joyful holiday season free of any food or body worries. Thank you...

Since when did my trips to the mailbox start requiring a wagon? The number of catalogs rolling in during the holiday season is insane. Most of these go straight in the trash, but this year I’ve been on the hunt for some good family holiday pajamas (I know, cheesy, dork mom over here) so I was skimming through a few catalogs in hopes of finding some holiday treasures. 

Because we know a girl who models for a lot of the catalogs we get, anytime we open a catalog, it’s sort of a treasure hunt to find her on those glossy pages. A Where’s Waldo activity, but only better because her gorgeous face is easy to spot and it’s fun watching for her and feeling like we know a celebrity. 

What’s not fun is that I spotted her on a website that we wanted to cross reference from our catalog hunt and saw that she was modeling an adult sweater. Bless this eleven year old’s heart that she, of course, didn’t likely sign up for an adult gig, but the...

My son stopped dead in his tracks in my bathroom doorway. 

I did that slow head turn wondering what absurdity might be hitting his little eye balls. 

“Um, mom, what are you doing?” 

I had to stop for a minute because I was now used to the little buzzing coming from my hand held face mister device. 

“Oh, this?!” I questioned as I pointed to my handy micro-infuser (If I’m being exact with my terminology).

”Yeah, what the heck is that thing?”

”It’s supposed to get the stuff I put on my face into the deepest layers of my skin so it feels and looks extra soft like yours.”

”Oh, okay. Well it looks and sounds really weird. Can I go play outside?”

Sometimes all it takes is your ten year old pointing out the obvious. Was this little NASA funded and backed device really going to make me look that much different? Probably not. Is the beauty industry a kissing cousin of the diet industry? Absolutely,...

Last week I purposely stayed out of your inbox. Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday were all poised to rob your holiday spirit before December 1st. 

As soon as I had cleared the overwhelm and what felt like a thousand emails, I saw an email with the subject, “We won’t stop Wednesday”. 

This one stopped me, because these three words are basically the mantra of every diet/cleanse/lifestyle/wellness program pummeling your inbox, your brain and your social feeds from now until January. 

We won’t stop convincing you that you aren’t thin enough. 

We won’t stop making you feel less than. 

We won’t stop playing to your insecurities. 

We won’t stop tugging at your fears. 

We won’t stop triggering your anxiety. 

We won’t stop making you think that your body is a problem to be solved. 

We won’t stop making audacious claims that aren’t backed by...

My son sat at the top of the stairs with a small pool of crocodile tears collecting at this knees. I was sure something catastrophic had occurred as he sobbed over and over,

“I ruined it! It’s all my fault! I wreaked it again!”

It took me a minute to realize that we were talking about a Halloween slap bracelet. I was relieved that any tragedy had, indeed, been averted. My son, however, was deep in his guilt over breaking the second bracelet like this in the last two days. 

“Ok, buddy, it’s actually not your fault that the bracelet broke. These are not high quality items and the people who make them even know they won’t last very long. These aren’t intended to last forever.” 

He was not amused with my explanation and just dug in his heels repeating that it was ALL HIS FAULT. 

As we were talking, I couldn’t help but relate this situation to any diet. Like the slap bracelet, diets aren’t made well, only meant to...

Two weeks ago Friday at 5pm had my teen daughters debating the best songs on Taylor Swift's new album, Midnights. They both agreed that anti-hero was their favorite. Little did they know that the video of this song would have a not-so-hero moment (insert face-palm emoji here).

At one point of the video, Taylor stands on a scale while her devil self looks on at her side. They both look down at the scale and the word "fat" pops up on the scale instead of a number. Both Taylor and her devil self shake their heads disapprovingly at the scale read out. 

34 million have viewed her video, and thankfully, some of those millions spoke up enough to have her delete the "fat" read out moment. She's still shown on the scale giving a disapproving response which I actually think is very relevant and real in today's fat phobic world. Who really steps on the scale and has that feeling of enough or worth or value? Usually the feeling for a majority of women is that you'll never be thin...

It was the quintessential fall day last week.

A trip to the pumpkin patch (still wondering if professional pumpkin finder could be my seasonal day job), a bumpy hayride, a not-so-scary corn maze and the farm store for fresh apple cider donuts and apple cider. 

A walk along a lane filled with trees boasting the perfect autumn hues. 

Mid-60’s and sunshine, jacket optional. 

Enough time to make it to the grocery store and score fresh baguettes and butternut squash soup.

I even bought new napkins at my favorite home decor store in town a few days back which made the dinner table look extra festive. 

I was feeling rather proud of my dinner table spread. 

Two kids happily ate the soup, two tried it and wrinkled their nose and two gave an outright refusal. Thankfully warm bread and chicken came to the rescue…..and cereal. That’s right. Barbara’s cereal came straight out of the pantry and into the bowls that were supposed to be for that...