Corinne Holck

Hey Mamas! My name is Corinne and I’m the Mom of 2 beautiful young boys.  My oldest Camden was born in the fall of 2021 and my youngest Logan was born in Spring of 2024.

My husband Kai and I are both born and raised in Tucson, Arizona.  We moved to San Diego, California together in Spring of 2016 and lived there for a couple years before moving to Houston, Texas in Spring of 2018.  Both moves were motivated by our jobs and as we didn’t have kids at this point it seemed like the perfect time to do something seemingly crazy like moving around the country just the two of us.   While we did have some friends in Southern California when we moved there, when we ventured to Houston, we didn’t know a soul in the whole big ‘ol state.

We got married about a year after moving to Houston and then started thinking about starting a family.

When we first found out we were expecting Camden we were a little worried that he wouldn’t grow up with any family around but as luck would have it, only a couple days after finding out we were pregnant a job opening came up for my husband.  We felt it was fate or something bigger telling us that we had to take the opportunity to move home.  We weren’t quite ready to be done with our adventures, but we couldn’t pass up the chance to have Camden grow up within 2 hours’ drive of all 3 sets of his grandparents, aunts/uncles, cousins, and our friends.  So, we moved back to Tucson in the Spring of 2021.

I’ve noticed almost all of our moves have been in the spring for some reason.. interesting..

Anyways! So here we were! We sold our house in Texas, bought a home in Arizona and started preparing to welcome our baby boy.  We couldn’t wait for all of the family to gather around when he was a newborn!  Most of our friends’ kids were a little older already but they would get the chance to see Camden from the very beginning!  We were so sure that we’d have so many house guests we were worried that having only a couple guest rooms plus a bonus couch wouldn’t be enough space!

Well… things didn’t go exactly as we planned.  Don’t get me wrong, we definitely had people over but it wasn’t quite to the extent we thought we would.  Now this was in 2021 and COVID was still very much a thing, so we thought that probably had a lot to do with it.  But Camden’s 1^st and 2^nd birthdays came and went and my husband and I found ourselves doing way more just the two of us than we thought we would.   We were balancing childcare and those astronomical expenses on top of us both working full time jobs.  We were taking time off work when he was sick or had appointments as there was no one else to help out, we planned and hosted all birthdays and holidays, and months would go by without seeing some friends and family.  The uncles, aunts, and cousins that were only a couple hours’ drive were only seen 1-2 times/year.  We kinda thought this was no different than if we’d stayed in Houston..  All of the hardships of having a new baby still fell on our shoulders.

I do want to make sure to note that we weren’t expecting to not have to pay for childcare, or to have someone clean our house for us, or to go on date nights alone or vacations either alone or with help, but more often than not, it was just the three of us living life and doing things all ourselves.

Towards the end of 2023 we found out we were expecting our 2^nd baby and we started to wonder if things might be different with Logan.  First, constant fears of COVID were gone, people had returned to normal activities and second, Camden was now older and much more interactive.   Surely now that we had a toddler and were about to welcome another baby people would come around more right?  Nobody in our immediate family had more than 1 kid, even I’m an only child, so I thought people would be ready and willing to help out once we had 2 little ones.  Again… my husband and I were a little disappointed.  In the first few months of Logan being home, people only saw either kid if we were the ones to make it happen.  The support we got at home was minimal and for all intents and purposes, life just went on for everyone outside the walls surrounding our growing family.

It was our decision to have 2 kids and we knew that it would be challenging and at the end of the day, we’d take care of it, but we often daydreamed what it would be like to have a true village helping out.

There are sooooooo many products and opinions out there about babies and raising kids and it’s hard sometimes to sort through it all and figure out what’s what and that’s where My Modern Village comes in!  If I can help other Moms feel heard, understood, and sort through the massive amounts of information and products out there and feel slightly less alone in this journey then I’ve succeeded in my dream!