Christina Fairman

Christina lives in Northwest Illinois with her husband, daughter, and two English Springer Spaniels. Before becoming a reluctant stay-at-home mom, she worked in a variety of customer-service-oriented jobs while dreaming of living in the lap of luxury as a housewife. Unfortunately, having a child threw a wrench in Christina's plan to do nothing but eat bonbons while lounging in the Jacuzzi reading all day. Now, she spends her time looking for fun activities and crafts for her daughter and easy-to-prepare meals for her family, while trying not to land the kid in therapy when she grows up. Christina volunteers at her local library, and does both volunteer and paid work as a sexuality educator. She loves to read, and to learn about--and share--new products and resources.

There are a lot of milestones in your child’s life, and we tend to think of most of them happening either when a child is very young (first step, first word, first tooth) or older (driver’s license, high school graduation), but let’s not forget about the stuff that happens in the middle, like the first …

Football season is upon us and you know what that means: tailgating! And even if you don’t tailgate—or football—the season is an excuse for all kinds of less-than-healthy-yet-amazingly-delicious food. Here are some of my favorite tailgating recipes for the season. Stuffed Pizza Rolls: My favorite thing about anything pizza is that it’s going to be …

We hear so much about helping little kids with first day of school jitters, but what about big kids? It can be just as nerve-wracking to go back to school as it was to go to school the first time. Whether your family has moved and your kids are starting over in a new community, …

Not that it’s been particularly cool where I live so far, but it’s about to get even hotter now that we’re heading into the dog days of summer. We’re also easing towards back-to-school time and fall activity practices are starting up (hello there, two-a-days—we see you!). With the warmer weather and the time our kids …

Did you know that National Ice Cream Month has been celebrated in the US since 1984? And that since that same year, we’ve been celebrating National Ice Cream Day on July 15? If you did, I hope you’ve been enjoying your celebrations! And if you didn’t, whoo boy, you have got a lot of making …

Summer’s just begun (heck, official summer hasn’t even started yet!), which means there’s plenty of outdoor play time ahead of us. Everyone knows that one of the best ways to head off summertime crankiness is water play, so let me help you with that by telling you about eight awesome water tables. Little Tikes Anchors …

Father’s Day is coming up soon (Sunday, June 17). I’ve been perusing gift guides, mostly because every blog, magazine, and store I get emails from is flooding my inbox with them. But you know what? It would appear that fathers have some really expensive tastes. (A $3000 speaker? Really? And this has shown up on …

So I don’t know if this is a parenting win or a parenting fail, but my daughter didn’t have a birthday party until she turned six. For her sixth birthday the only thing she wanted for her birthday was a play house. She’s an only child and thus a wee bit spoiled, so upon hearing …

A few weeks back, my daughter mentioned that one of her classmates had watched a movie with Chucky in it. My husband and I stared at each other thinking she couldn’t possibly mean what we thought she meant, because she is a first-grader. But after a few days of her talking about this, we realized …

Based on the glowing reviews and recommendations of, like, every friend I have, I asked for—and received—an Instant Pot for Christmas last year. (Thanks, Mom and Dad!) After just over four months of owning this kitchen gadget, I’d like to invite everyone over for tea, or wine, or water, or hard liquor—whatever, I’m not picky, …

Okay. I’m a bit behind in addressing this viral post, but that’s because I wasn’t going to say anything about it since I have feelings. But then somebody went and got the kids involved, so here I am. In mid-April, Twitter user Laura Turner shared that a guest at her baby shower started the gift-opening …

World Autism Awareness Day—Sesame Place announced that it is the first theme park in the world to be designated as a Certified Autism Center through the International Board of Credentialing and Continuing Education Standards (IBCCES). What does this designation mean? Well most importantly, it means that the staff at Sesame Place has received specialized training …