You've had a long day at work. Traffic was bad on the way home. You arrived home only to be faced with the reality that you need to get dinner on the table. You spend the next 30 minutes dashing around the kitchen, putting together a meal that everyone in the family has eaten a dozen times before. You get everyone seated around the table, and are about to congratulate yourself on being a good parent, when you hear your little one declare…

Because my husband and I both work, my son's summer is filled with daily camps. He loves camp, and he should, because the camps he goes to are crazy fun. I love hearing all about his daily adventures.



But camp only lasts so long. And sometimes, my son gets bored. And when my son gets bored, he acts like…

My son really likes visiting his primary doctor. I think this is mostly because he is not due for vaccinations any time soon, and we get his annual flu shot somewhere else. Generally, the visits with his primary care doctor are fun - he learns how much he is growing, he asks questions and he has the doctor's complete attention during the exam.…

What's your first memory?



I often think about what memories my son will retain from this time of his life. He has reached a point at which he is losing a lot of his early memories, and only retaining the important ones. It will be a long time still when he is able to determine what his "first" memory will…

A cruise mailer has arrived at our house. It is filled with images of families having adventures in gorgeous locations. My son is enthralled. He is staring at the circular while he is supposed to be eating breakfast. Finally, he asks if we can go on another cruise.…

For someone with only one child, I read a lot about birth order. While there are some experts who say that it is all speculative - characteristics that are applied to first born children can be applied to children from any place in the family line - there are many others that point out how nurturing is a major factor in the type of adult we become.…

My son and I talk about his future phone use. He tells me that some kids in his grade already have their own phones. So we talk about how phone use should be limited at his age and that oversight is required. He still asks when he will be able to have his own phone, and I still don't have an answer yet. Lately I've been telling him that we may want to start him off with a flip phone that has no apps or games on it. (He is open to…

Once upon a time, right after our son was born, everyone started asking if we were going to have another baby. And the way they asked it, they expected to hear the word "yes" right away, and not the litany of answers that we gave, which included "we aren't sure," or "we just had this one, can't we just enjoy him for a little while?" or "do we know you?"…

I recently showed my son pictures of himself when he was first eating solid foods. He asked what type of food was his favorites. It was bananas. He couldn't wait for me to slice them so he could shove them into his mouth and gum them down.…

One of the best parts of my work is that I talk to people in every stage of life. I work with people who are just out of college who want to prove themselves or find their inspiration; people who are starting families and need to shift the amount of time they work; empty nesters who have different career goals for the first time in years; and folks who are about to retire to pursue other passions in their lives.…

In my ever-constant fascination with sleep, I continue to read about our circadian rhythms and how it's not healthy to fight our own clocks. Of course, that makes the world a little harder for my bears that I live with, as the world is built to accommodate morning people like myself.…

I work with a fair amount of men who are fathers. These men are all incredibly intelligent, very conscientious team members and great fathers. I know about the last part, because they share. They open up about their role as Dads, and the way they play with their children and the struggles that they sometimes experience as a working parent.…

For most of high school I walked to school. Although we lived in a few different houses, the walk was only a few blocks long. I was pretty adamant about walking. Even when various boys would offer me rides home, I told them that I preferred to walk.…