The first year of my son’s life — my first year as a mother — was a blur of wonder, exhaustion and anxiety for me, in nearly equal measures.

Mixed with pure joy was confusion (what is that rash on his face?), frustration (why won’t he stop crying?) and serious sleep deprivation. I read and re-read pages in the same books over and over without remembering anything.

​So, my best parenting advice: Trust your instincts. Start reading before the baby comes. And, if you pick up a book after the baby arrives, make sure it's worth your time.

Read More.

The love you show your children this Valentine's Day doesn't have to be all hearts and flowers and chocolate.

In Matt de la Peña's tender new picture book, “Love,” it’s also burned toast, made by someone well intentioned and rushed. Or the comforting arms of a loved one, when things really aren’t OK.

It is, in other words, real. And heartbreaking. And beautiful.
​
Read More.

It starts with an idle question for my husband: “Should I try to become a morning person?”

“Do I have to live with you?” he asks. “Or can I get a hotel room?”

For most of my life, I woke up to at least two alarms — one next to my bed and another across the room to make snoozing more difficult. I would walk back and forth between them, hitting snooze on each, for an hour or more. Anyone I ever lived with, and many I didn’t, became my wake up caller, checking on me for important events.

Children will change that for you. I haven’t set an alarm in six years thanks to my early rising sons. They wake up sometime around 6 am (or 5 during particularly brutal times) and that’s that. But have I become the morning ray of sunshine who says “Good morning, children! Let’s go play Legos?” I have not.

Read More

Confession time: Even though I eat a (mostly) healthy diet at home, I often find myself mindlessly drifting from M&M to Cheeto and back during a stressful day at work.

Snacks have become such a common office perk that one recent survey from Jobvite found millennial workers were more likely to get free food at work than they were to receive health care or retirement plans.

In our office, we have bagel Wednesdays, guacamole Thursdays and occasional pizza Fridays on top of the day-to-day snacks that fill our multiple snack drawers.

Just having those snacks available — and visible — could be the problem. Add in stress, multitasking, boredom and procrastination, and you have a perfect storm of office snackery.

Read More

​

President Donald Trump has blasted out controversial executive orders so quickly, it’s been difficult for many to keep up. And some experts say that may be the point.

All presidents work quickly to launch their agendas as they take office. But rarely has one made so many scattershot pronouncements all at once.

“This is definitely bizarre, rapid-fire presidential policy making,” says presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, a professor of history at Rice University. “It really is a ‘shock and awe’ strategy that every day there’s a new, radical initiative, and it doesn’t give journalists or the public a chance to get a grip on what just happened.”

Read More

If you ever sat at the edge of the cafeteria longing to sit with the cool kids, take heart: You may wind up happier than they are.

A new study looked at “cool” behaviors adopted by middle-schoolers and found that although they made kids more popular in the short run, that effect wore off quickly and eventually backfired. By early adulthood, the cool kids were more likely to have criminal records, abuse alcohol and drugs and have troubled relationships.

In other words, the world may be one big “Revenge of the Nerds.”

​TODAY.com: Revenge of the nerds? ‘Cool kids’ may become unhappy adults