And then on vacation, all hell broke loose. It didn’t take long for her to realize that she could both climb off her air mattress (and into our bed) or leave the room 50 times before going to sleep. I blame her cousins. My worst nightmare realized, the genie was out of the bottle. And the only way I knew to put it back in, if that was even possible, was with a sleep-training clock....

A scent’s ability to last is determined by several factors, including concentration, quality, and application. The higher the concentration of scented oils used, the stronger your cologne will smell. And the better the quality of the oils, the longer the fragrance molecules will remain on your skin. Part of this has to do with application. It’s is essential to know where to apply cologne so that it stays strong over the course of the day....

“It was a crazy wild experience because I knew that I will never be able to carry. This is such a wild gift and joke from the universe. I’m just gonna take it in. Yes, hold that door for me,” says Buteau, who reveled in wearing that prosthetic belly. Only Buteau decided that fuck it, she’d share her misery with the world because she was tired of the failure to conceive being some deep, dark, cry yourself to sleep but do so quietly so no one hears secret....

If you’re more interested in having a DVD or a Blu-ray, you’ll have to wait a bit longer, but not that much longer. Dune: Part One hits DVD and Blu-ray on January 11, 2022. If you somehow missed Dune: Part One, snagging the movie in December (or January) will certainly make your at-home streaming life a bit better. Plus, the sequel is coming in October of 2023, and there’s a good chance we’re looking at a third movie after that....

Grayson, Today you turn thirteen years old. You are becoming a man. That’s a good thing. It’s good for you, and—because you are going to grow into a strong, wise, compassionate man—it’s a good thing for all of us. I’m proud of you, and happy for you. I’ve talked a lot with your Dad, who—by the way—loves you more than you know, and I know that things haven’t always been easy for you....

Mom of two Stefanie Trilling, who lives in New York City, says she started painting the book cover series—which she has titled ‘Children’s Books for Pandemics’—to cheer up her own quarantined family. “I sought a way to distract myself and my children from the constant sirens outside our window,” she told Scary Mommy. “One day, I was painting with my kids to occupy our minds, and I started copying the first thing I saw — a book we had read earlier in the day....

Kahla Maneely, from Joy, Pennsylvania, received a text with a photo from a parent in her 5-year-old daughter’s class. The photo was a “friendship ring” with a message that read, “hey Myla gave this to [daughter’s name] on the bus today? She might have been in your stuff lol.” The “friendship ring” was a sex toy. A purple vibrating ring that the mom kept in her bedroom cabinet, intended for her and her husband....

“The very first thing that parents should know is that toys, in general, are beneficial,” explains Dr. Celeste Kidd of the Rochester University Kid Lab. “Even if it does not teach a specific skill, we have a lot of evidence that play is a mechanism by which kids build knowledge and social skills.” Kidd notes that just because a toy does not bear the designation of “educational” doesn’t mean that it isn’t educating a kid....

Tooth brushing is next to only nail-cutting (why don’t they understand that wriggling = blood?) in terms of pure misery. It may seem like a trivial task, but it is one that requires extraordinary patience and offers little to no joy. Starting at the infant stage (where you tackle biting, mouth-closing, crying, and spitting) and moving on through the school-age (where you tackle all that plus an attitude), it sucks....

Damn, Wesley. That’s a pretty massive student loan debt load for a profession that most people enter for the love of it – not the exorbitant salary. Unless you’re starring in a pet rescue show on TLC — or have a Doctor Dolittle-esque team of animals that can help you chip away at the debt — I can totally understand why you’re feeling the squeeze. The average student loan interest rate is tough....

Was this because of a broader backlash? Hard to say. Probably not. Maybe? Our criticism of the sketch was a reaction to the tone and insensitivity of the “Dad Christmas” bit. Were we outraged? Nah, life is too short to be that guy. We were just quibbling with the cliched presentation of divorced fathers — pointing out that it’s a bit behind the times and unsubtle. We published our piece on Monday, and on Tuesday, NBC — no doubt trembling in the face of mild criticism levied by a parenting publication — pulled the video....

The pandemic has made everything even shakier. Those birth years mean Gen Xers were between 28 and 43—the prime of their working lives—when the Great Recession hit in 2008. By 2018, their average pretax household income was $106,173 according to the report. That’s well above the U.S. average but barely half of what Baby Boomers are holding. And with fewer working years ahead of them than younger generations, Gen Xers don’t have as much time to collect wealth as Millenials and Generation Z....

New Zealand’s Parliament unanimously passed a bill on Wednesday granting parents who have a miscarriage three days of paid leave. Although many employers in the country already provide paid bereavement leave after losing a baby, the new law will protect parents from having to use their sick leave and, lawmakers hope will reduce the stigma of miscarriage. New Zealand is only the second country to give parents paid time to grieve after miscarrying — and is the only one to give it to both mothers and fathers....

Andrea Cutway, who is a mom to 16-year-old Avery Lewis, learned of the extra credit assignment — requiring students watch videos from Prager University, which is not, in fact, a university but a non-profit founded by conservative talk show host Dennis Prager (who once bemoaned the fact that white people can’t say the N-word) — and then immediately went to the administration with the assignments. Her daughter and other students were supposed to watch videos titled, “Build the Wall,” “Why the Right Was Right,” and “The Left Ruins Everything,” among others....

“Most children will eventually learn to sleep on their own by middle school,” says Andrew J. Bernstein, M.D., a clinical assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin. “But those that were cuddled for a long time will often have a hard time going to sleep until they feel very tired, resulting in bedtimes that are too late.” Most parents practice some form of co-sleeping, studies suggest. While scientists have clearly demonstrated that it’s dangerous to co-sleep with an infant, co-sleeping with toddlers and small children is seldom a safety issue....

There’s much more to love than you know now. It is more than what your mother and I feel for you. It’s more than the stories you hear in catechism about the love of God. And as you grow up, people will try to tell you what love really is. You will see movies depicting misty romances. You will read Valentine’s Day cards with loving sentiments. And you will hear supposedly very important people saying that certain people should or should not love one another....

First, a reminder on how this virus physically spreads: The virus hops a ride on little droplets in your nose or mouth. When someone infected with the virus touches their face they can pick up the droplets and then leave them on whatever surface they touch. Someone else who touches that surface and then touches their face can then be infected. The droplets can also be launched onto surfaces or people when an infected person sneezes or coughs....

“It’s just a prayer, like we say in church,” I told them. “We’re going to ask God to bless people and thank him for the day.” My seven-year-old immediately thought of his grandmother. “I’m going to ask for God to bless Bomba,” he said. The 5-year-old looked at me with his eyes wide. “Bomba’s dead?” he asked in a concerned hush. “No, she not dead,” I replied. Clearly, as far as prayer at home was concerned, we were out of practice....

While he and his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, were offering some insight into how they’ve made their 43-year marriage work, the President shared a tough but important truth: you can’t expect that partnership to be a perfectly-shared partnership all of the time. “Everybody says marriage is 50/50,” President Biden told People. “Well, sometimes you have to be 70/30. Thank God that when I’m really down, she steps in, and when she’s really down, I’m able to step in....

Here’s what you said: ” I wouldn’t catch my family and drag them to Germany or Sri Lanka or where the next story takes place. I can be a little bit more at home and a little more like a man of letters…I think this is the time for Act 3 [of my life] to learn just a little more about literature, which would be good as a new father, a new husband....