Photo Credit iStock Sometimes every parent needs advice. For our occasional advice column, we post readers’ questions that we know (or at least suspect) plague more than one parent. You — the readers — provide the advice: How have you made this work better in your family? I invite an expert to add to the…
Photo Members of Diane Stanley’s family gathered in the courtroom on the day the five youngest children were adopted.Credit Diane Stanley has seven children in her home: her biological son, Cooper, 18; her foster son, David, 22, who is intellectually disabled; and five younger children whom she and her husband adopted in November 2015. Those…
Photo Credit Tony Cenicola/The New York Times One kid-favorite Panera cinnamon crunch bagel: 430 calories. Add a medium low-fat strawberry banana smoothie (260 calories) or even just a lemonade (240 calories), and your 7-year-old is well into his 1,600-calorie budget for the day. Of course, kids rarely finish what’s on their plates, and it’s unlikely…
Photo Credit Getty Images My father isn’t the first person to ask my son if he has a girlfriend. The question pops up frequently when we’re visiting friends of my mother’s over the holidays or talking to affable cashiers at the supermarket. It’s always asked in the same way — with genial good humor and an…
Photo Kelly Rudnicki’s son Michael, 6, prepares batter for cookies that are allergy-safe for her family.Credit Kelly Rudnicki “I always think that my kids eat healthier because of their allergies,” said Cristina Henriquez, a writer who lives in Chicago. Her children are 8 and 3 and, between them, are allergic to eggs, peanuts, fish, shellfish,…
Photo Credit Getty Images Many people can roll their eyes, but adolescent girls have practically monopolized the ocular gesture as a form of communication. Adults on the receiving end of an eye roll are often offended, and sometimes that’s just what the girl had in mind. But frequently, it’s not. Eye-rolling serves a variety of…
Photo The author’s contribution to a Navy ship’s slide show on what families look forward to when their loved ones get home.Credit The hardest part of the journey is the first step, right? Respectfully, I disagree; I think it’s the steps in the middle. We’ve just passed the halfway point in my Navy husband’s seven-month…
Photo The author’s son.Credit It’s 3 in the morning when a lovely woman dressed in baby blue slips through a crack in the door to take my vital signs: temperature, blood pressure. She pings my knees with a rubber mallet, does a jerky massage on my feet to see if they’re swollen. “Your ankles look…
Photo RibsyCredit Rique Sollisch Almost 20 years ago, when our five kids were all in elementary school, Rique and I blended our families. That’s the word the parenting industry uses. “Blend.” Talk about euphemism. There is no stress in the word “blend.” It’s one utterly pleasant syllable. Blend is how you make smoothies. Another delightful…
Photo Credit Two things engage me when it comes to fiction — characters I want to spend more time with, and details, the juicier the better, from a world I’m curious about, but not likely to ever experience. Elizabeth LaBan’s novel “The Restaurant Critic’s Wife” has both. When Sam, the restaurant critic of the title,…