Mari Walker

  First published on the Baton Rouge Parents magazine website . On December 9, my girls asked me for an Elf on the Shelf. And although I immediately guffawed, rolled my eyes and said “NO WAY,” because it’s 2020 I had second thoughts as soon as the “no” left my mouth and the request had time to settle. If they’d asked in late November or maybe even earlier in December would I have given in, added to cart and clicked “buy now”? My hesitations about introducing an Elf to our holiday tradition are varied; mainly I don’t want the extra work or to confuse my girls further about what’s real and what’s just something fun to pretend and imagine. I’m not sure about the idea of someone (something?) watching the kids and reporting to Santa on their behavior or if that’s developmentally a good thing. The surveillance aspect is a true objection to the Elf idea.  HOWEVER, from the outside, Elf on the Shelf looks like an ideal #ExtraMom activity, and I definitely identify as a...

First published in the December 2020 issue of Baton Rouge Parents magazine and its website. Aubrey Martin is a fighter. Living with Rett syndrome and its associated global developmental delays is her everyday life. But in 2020, she faced a more urgent and critical health issue when she developed multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, or MIS-C, the rare condition that impacts some kids with COVID-19. “We were confused, didn’t know what was going on and couldn’t figure out the fever,” says Brit’ne Canezaro, Aubrey’s mom. “She was faced with a new obstacle of severe inflammation. She’s finally progressing enough that she’s not sleeping all day now. She pulls through every time.”  Aubrey had to be in the hospital while recovering from MIS-C but is home again and back in therapy at Pediatric Therapy Solutions and school as a second grader at Oak Grove Primary in Prairieville. Surviving and thriving with a rare condition is something Aubrey knows how to do. Rett s...

  First published in the December 2020 issue of Baton Rouge Parents magazine and its website . Sophia Lurue Guyton learned to read when she was three, and by the time she was seven, she had already published her first book, The Adventures of Mia and Jace . “God gave her a message and told her that he wanted other people to know about him,” says Tabitha Lamb, Sophia’s mom. “Her goal was to write a letter to everyone in the whole world.” Once Sophia realized the enormity of finding so many addresses, she decided to write a book instead. Available on Amazon, the 32-chapter book about life lessons on character and integrity was completed in five months, and the stories feature characters based on herself, older brother Jace, and several of her favorite toys.  A third grader at Math Science & Arts Academy West in Plaquemine, Sophia, now eight, hasn’t published anything more since the book was released. “She’ll think about it every now and again,” Tabitha sa...

As Education and Community sections editor, I wrote pages 16-23 and page 28 of the December 2020 issue of Baton Rouge Parents magazine. See the web layout on the magazine's website .