Mari Walker

“Mama, will you play with me?” The question can sometimes sink me like a stone, especially if I’m in the midst of a work project or otherwise doing something I want or need to do. Read a book? Sure. Play a board game? I can manage that. Take you on adventures to play spaces, museums, story times, the zoo and more? I do those kinds of things a lot, as my Facebook wall can attest. But playing? It’s not a skill at which I excel. I try to play with my girls, I really do. But often I find myself at a loss. Read the rest on the Baton Rouge Parents Magazine website .

Originally posted on the Baton Rouge Parents magazine blog . My girls love to dress up any day, so Halloween season is a favorite because it adds even more options to their already overfilled dress up corner. Oh, and the candy, my girls LOVE candy. (So does their mama!) Growing up, my sister and I trick-or-treated with friends in my small town and dressed up for the annual school carnival. I like looking back at the funny 80s-style budget costumes: clowns, cheerleaders, ghosts. One year, I was Punky Brewster (whom I adored), and I was devastated to lose my bandana I’d tied around the knee of my jeans. Weirdly the loss still haunts me, although I could have a hundred bandanas now if I really wanted. One of the many times I was less than careful with my belongings, but perhaps the first time I was aware of that. Mostly, my mom let my sister and me pick our costumes, within reason and ability. I’m doing the same for my girls, but of course I chose their baby costumes becaus...

Emma Benoit is ascending.  The 19-year-old graduated from Dutchtown High School in 2018, but the summer before her senior year was when her life changed forever. “I was 16 and dealing with a lot of depression and a lot of anxiety but I didn’t know what those things were,” Benoit says. “I was so confused about the way I was feeling.”  Life felt too much to bear, and on June 7, 2017, Benoit shot herself in the chest. “By the grace of God, I’m still here,” Benoit says of surviving suicide. Read the rest on the Baton Rouge Parents Magazine website .

As Community and Education sections editor, I wrote pages 16 through 25 of the October 2019 issue of Baton Rouge Parents Magazine . See the layout on the magazine's website . I wrote Pathways to Parenting: Understanding Celiac Disease and Exceptional Lives: My Life After Attempting Suicide .

At age seven, Emma Edmonds is already an accomplished gymnast. The second grader at Bethany Christian School is passionate about the sport and competing with her Pristine Performance Academy team. “She started when she was four years old,” says Stephanie Edmonds, Emma’s mom. “She started riding her bicycle when she was three without training wheels, so we just knew she had a great sense of balance. We decided to see what piqued her interest.” Read the rest on the Baton Rouge Parents Magazine website .

When Miss Seven started Kindergarten, her dad and I decided to limit after school activities to two: one sport or otherwise something physical and one more arts focused activity. My, how times have changed. Right now, we have four extracurricular activities, and the possibility of another huge time commitment on the horizon. Where did I go wrong? I have trouble saying no–both to her if she asks and if another friend suggests something our kids could do together. And I have trouble letting go–like of activities we’ve been doing and enjoying for a while, especially those skill builders that only pay off if you keep at them. Read the rest on the Baton Rouge Parents Magazine website .

As I established in Suit Up, Mama , I’m living my life in a fat body. It’s not good or bad, it just is. I certainly wish my body were smaller sometimes, and I do exercise and try to be healthy. But I also accept it for what it is: my body that allows me to exist on this corporeal plane is fat. Several times in my life, children have commented on my body, specifically its size. Long ago, pre-kids and when I actually wasn’t even at my heaviest, an eight-year-old friend bluntly informed me I was fat, as if I didn’t know. It was an awkward moment, and I don’t remember how I responded, if I did at all. Kids are honest and straightforward, sometimes to a fault. I don’t want to limit their expression or to think that talking about bodies with trusted people is bad. It’s good! But there are social skills learned through these types of interactions. I’d rather the lesson be “ask in private with someone you trust” rather than “fat people are bad, but we shouldn’t tell them...