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That was me at the end of March. Just two weeks earlier, without ceremony, our boys had passed the one-year mark of being home all day, every day. With no firm date for a return to in-person learning, I wondered if my older son would finish first grade without crossing the threshold of his school even once. This story was submitted by a Fatherly reader. Opinions expressed in the story do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Fatherly as a publication....

And, in its fourth season, exactly 30 years ago, on September 23, 1992, Seinfeld delivered the first part in a brilliant two-part episode that’s probably less celebrated than it should be. As a pair “The Wallet” and “The Watch” represent some of Larry David’s finest writing on Seinfeld, and it’s all just as funny now as it was 30 years ago. If you look through various top 10 and top 20 lists of Seinfeld episodes, you’ll almost always expect to see long-praised classics like “The Contest,” or “The Soup Nazi,” or “The Chinese Restaurant....

It’s also a lot easier said than done. And why we wanted to talk to some notable Little League coaches about everything from how they run practices and encourage players, and what they’ve learned along the way. While each has his own style of coaching and ideas about the game, one thing is for sure: their commitment to helping create strong, productive young men is all the same. RELATED: 8 Baseball Cheers No Little League Coach or Parents Should Ever Use...

Here are four water drinking myths that parents need to flush out of their systems: Myth #1: Babies Need Water in Order to be Hydrated The “drink more water” hydration-fad is most dangerous for babies. It would seem completely reasonable for parents of a baby to conflate the benefits of water on a hot day for adults, with a benefit for their kid. But a baby that drinks water could be at risk of seizures and even death....

In 1977 Boris Karloff was too dead to return as the narrator and the Grinch so he was replaced by Hans Conreid who was famous(ish) for playing the voice of Captain Hook in the 1953 Peter Pan. While Karloff imbued the Grinch with the soul of a black-and-white Universal monster, Conreid gives the Grinch a kind of evil closer to a serial killer. This Grinch is edgier and not exactly in a good way....

Okay, we’re kidding. A little bit. But, the truth is, so many of us had traumatic experiences with poetry growing up, perhaps being force-fed the classics a little too soon, stuffing Beowulf’s kennings down our throats, or robbing us of the fun puning in Shakespeare with pop quizzes on iambic pentameter instead. But once upon a time, before formal schooling stole your god-given love of language, you probably reveled in poetry too....

“High-conflict couples often struggle with power and control,” explains Nicole Arzt, a licensed marriage and family therapist who serves on the advisory board for Family Enthusiast. “Codependency threads the relationship together; it’s that cliché of ‘Can’t live with each other, can’t live without each other.’ ” It’s not uncommon, per Arzt, for one or more partners in a high-conflict couple to have a mental illness like depression or anxiety or a substance problem....

Sign 1: You’ve Tried (And Tried) The first sign of knowing that you need a divorce is knowing that you tried not to have a divorce in the first place. “The first question I ask couples who come to me for therapy in the midst of trying to decide whether they need a divorce or not is, ‘What have you done to remove the defense mechanisms and negativity from the relationship?...

Bill Muller, MD, PhD, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine who is working on a children’s COVID vaccine trial, says, “The studies are being appropriately cautious about extending the age to younger and younger ages… I want to reassure parents that these studies are really done very carefully.” In other words, parents of younger children should know that their time is coming, and your patience is nothing short of heroic....

“Healthy couples don’t actually make a big deal when talking about sex,” says Jackie Golob, a mental health counsellor and sex and relationship therapist at the Centre for Sexual Wellness, “The key to good sexual communication is consistency. Foreplay begins the moment we wake up in the morning. We have to communicate our needs in ways that help us compromise, as couples, to please each other, make each other feel safe, and encourage us to look forward to the next sexual encounter....

More than a year after the Covid-19 sent kids home from school, shuttered businesses, and pulled the emergency brake on travel, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has loosened its travel guidance, saying that fully vaccinated people can travel without quarantining or testing. The agency has also recommended Pfizer’s Covid vaccine for kids over 12 and announced that vaccinated people can safely go mask-free in most settings. Sounds like time to jump on a plane, right?...

Fellow parents understand the contradiction. Most expectant moms and dads research as much as they can about how to care for their soon-to-be babies, but few consider how their relationship might transform after the baby comes, notes Ron Stolberg, Ph.D., a licensed psychologist, professor at Alliant International University. And research suggests the kid will have an impact on couples’ satisfaction with their relationship, which typically drops once they have a child....

To go without proper mental health counseling is to neglect oneself. Teletherapy is a worthy option in our socially distant times. But the experience of the virtual doctor’s office is different from the physical one. And understanding the various differences between the forms of therapy — and what you can do to make a smooth transition — is essential. “It can take some adjustment,” says John McGeehan LCSW, CADC, Founder and CEO of The Dorm, treatment group for young adults, “but teletherapy can work if you’re working with a treatment community that’s receptive and adaptable to your needs....

It’s this last death that we, as the ones left behind, have to work to stave off. When a loved one dies, we can be left with a feeling of powerlessness and an uncertainty of how to go on. It’s natural, but also incredibly difficult. But that’s where we can go to work on preventing that third death from ever taking place. Honoring the deceased person’s memory is a way for us to take control of our grief and turn it into something positive....

Learning arithmetic can seem like a chore, so the key is incorporating math into the fun stuff! “Sometimes, I play alongside the children so I can support and scaffold the math that I see emerging in their play, and this develops their understanding further,” says Dr. McLennan. “It also helps me recognize what knowledge the children have and plan for how I can support their learning moving forward.” Want to put those mini Snickers bars and boxes of Whoppers to use teaching some fundamental concepts?...

First, and most importantly, you need to talk to your family beforehand to make sure everybody is open to the life-long commitment and responsibility of a pet. At the end of the day, you’re not adopting a pet for one person; you’re adopting it for everyone. So you should have conversations with everyone about their feelings on a new member of the pack. Outlining responsibilities — like who will walk the new addition each night, who will clean the litter box, and who will feed them morning and night — should be a conversation you have before Christmas morning....

Masturbation Myths Although the phrases “porn addiction” and “masturbation addiction” get bandied around, experts tend to agree that these conditions just don’t exist. Brain scans back them up. A study conducted at the University of California Los Angeles used EEG testing to visualize the brain activity of 122 people as they viewed porn. Rather than showing spikes in activity typical of people exposed to an addicting stimulus, the participants actually showed lower brain activity....

Although Black Widow was originally set for a theatrical release, Disney has just announced it will be moved to a streaming + theatrical release in July. Disney also revealed the next live-action Disney movie Cruella will hit both theaters and Disney+. The next Pixar movie, Luca, will also hit Disney+. Like Black Widow, Cruella will be available for “rental” with a “premiere access” $29.99 price tag, while Luca will just hit Disney+ proper, kind of like Soul did last December....

In almost all cases, high chairs are recalled for one of two reasons: 1. They can fall over; or 2. The child can tumble out. Regardless of what part on the chair isn’t working properly, the danger posed to babies is almost always a falling hazard. Fortunately, high chair fixes are often easy and require little more than a repair kit and new part. The chair may be out of order temporarily, but rarely does it need to be returned to the store....