Expert: Dr. Leanne Liddicoat, a VSP Vision Care network optometrist.

1. Confusing those school screenings with eye exams.

"Too often, these quick screenings give parents a false sense of security. Parents think because their child's eyes have been checked in school, they don't need to see an optometrist, which isn't the case. In fact, sometimes screenings actually do more harm than good because it leaves many vision problems undetected. It's crucial that parents know the difference between eye exams and screenings. Only optometrists can see the health and development of your child's retinas and eye muscles."

"The American Optometric Association recommends that all children have a complete eye exam by an eye doctor at six months, three years and five years old. Between the ages of six and eighteen, your child should see an optometrist every two years, even if they've been screened by the school or pediatrician. Of course, if you're seeing poorly, you should schedule an exam sooner."

2. Relying on your child's opinion of their eyesight.?

"Kids that have impaired vision from birth have no idea what normal vision is like, so they don't know the difference. Also, some children either really want glasses or really don't want glasses, which may skew their opinion. That's why it's important to schedule regular eye exams, even if your child swears he can see just fine."

3. Leaving the sunglasses behind.

"Sunscreen isn't enough! Even on cloudy days, radiation can be strong, and the effects the UV rays have on the eyes over time can be devastating. And oftentimes, sun damage to the eyes cannot be fixed by an optometrist. It's never too young to put your child in sunglasses -- younger ones often do better than the two-to-three-year-olds. Your optometrist can help you choose a pair that's right for your child. Remember, the most important factor in sunglasses is 100% UVA and 100% UVB protection, along with a good fit and polycarbonate lenses for safety. And when you choose a pair, it's worth it spend a little extra money on a pair that really protects your child's eyes."

As told to Andrea Zimmerman.

]]>Babble http://www.babble.com/Overachiever-flashcard-two-year-old/My son is two years old. He knows his alphabet in English and American Sign Language. He counts, relatively accurately, to eighteen. He can identify more than fifty words that I have been flashing at him from my homemade 4x6 cards for the past several months. He regularly wows strangers with his ability to count with the elevator as we go up and down the floors. "Smart kid," they'll say. "How old is he?" And I beam, of course. I thought I was being a good parent by encouraging such intellectual pursuits and helping him identify and interpret the world around him. But then I read Peggy Orenstein's "Kindergarten Cram" article in The New York Times Magazine and began to rethink my priorities.

Kids don't get to be kids for long enough, Ms. Orenstein wrote. Play is an essential part of any child's childhood, an indispensable tool to forming relationships and becoming socially and emotionally stable and there isn't enough of it in today's kindergartens. Drilling kids with flash cards pushes them to grow up before they are ready, robbing them of opportunities to learn necessary skills that will help them compete in our global society. Oops. I was robbing my child of his childhood. He probably wasn't "playing" nearly enough. As I read I imagined the track my bright little boy was on. He'd be the socially awkward, uncoordinated kid who never got invited to parties, acted out in strange ways and drew pitying looks from his classmates. He'd probably smell bad, too.

What had I been thinking? Let the kid grow up when he was ready. Sigh. I hadn't planned for things to be this way. I thought he'd be the rough-and-tumble little boy who roared at everything and bit the furniture as he stalked the house defending his territory. But when he showed interest in the letter "S" at twenty months on a cross-country flight, I snagged the opportunity to keep him quiet and contained. We looked for S's in the in-flight magazines calmly and intently for the rest of the flight. After that, his appetite for letters, numbers and words could not be satiated.

I had assumed I was doing a good thing, feeding his interests, giving him hugs and kisses when he learned new things and generally making learning fun and exciting. I even skimmed through a book, How to Teach Your Baby to Read by Glenn Doman and Janet Doman. The Domans assured me that starting young would make it easier for the child to pick up on new words and learn to read. The older he was, even kindergarten age, the more difficult it would be. As I watched my child, still shy of his second birthday, learn to recognize nine words in one afternoon — with less than ten minutes of effort on my part — I became a believer. The few minutes I spent each day showing him new words and then testing him on them later in the week were going to save us from a world of frustration once he was actually "old enough" to learn to read.

But when I was reminded of the power of play I decided to step back and watch for a while. Did my child even know how to play? I got out the wooden train set he had received for Christmas and spread the tracks on the floor. He spent a few minutes puttering around with them before coming to me and insisting I do it for him. Same story with the playdough. Hmm. At play groups I noticed him standing on the sidelines, unsure of what to do while other kids his age tackled each other, wrestled over balls and pulled things out of the toy fridge. Then he found a book and brought it to me to read to him. Hmm again. And finally, while playing at the park with some friends, he watched, puzzled, as two boys his age battled with sticks the size of staves. His own wand-sized stick, held loosely in his hand, remained unused. Certainly this was the lack of play that would prevent my child from forming lasting relationships, from figuring out how to build bridges, from becoming a contributing member of society. I hung my head in shame.

Still, I don't intend to stop my encouragement of his intellectual pursuits. Not only does it make him happy, it makes me really, really happy. Why? Because playing with him is, um, boring. And frustrating. He doesn't understand the rules of the games. He pushes me around indecisively whenever I let him take charge. He gets distracted. He makes messes that I have to clean up. Standing at the bottom of the slide waiting for him to come down and hovering beside him while he climbs up the tricky ladders at the playground lest he lose his teeth may be fun for him, but a mother can only take so much. We both need our alone time and, of course, we get it. But when we're together, I'd rather spend it doing something that has measurable results, something that I can look back on and say, "I taught him that." Watching him learn letters and words allows me to look back on the day and count it as a success.

And so, at my house, we blur the line between learning and play. We can spend a half-hour sitting on the couch bending chenille stems into Os or spelling out words on flash cards and be utterly delighted. To heck with building towers with oversize legos. Making Ts with them is so much more fun. Who cares about drawing, unless a W magically appears in the random scribbles? Now that is cool stuff. And so what if it's too cold to play outside? We've only read Corduroy four times. There's still plenty of fun to be had.

— Are You There God, It's Me Mommy

Dear Are You There God,

One of us was recently involved in a conversation with parents about this very issue. How do you talk to a kid about god (we'll go lowercase here, out of respect for your beliefs) when you don't know whether you believe in god yourself? Or when you know that you don't, but don't want to force your ideology down your kid's throat? A lot of thoughtful discussion was had, and there were no easy answers. Is it as easy as saying "This is what I believe, this is what other people believe, you can believe what you want . . .?"

It's a bit much to expect a three-year-old to understand this abstract choice. She doesn't even know what or who god is, let alone whether to hitch her horse to his (or her or its) cart. One mom suggested parents should play shrink, dodging any personal inquiries by lobbing questions right back. We like this idea, if only for exploratory purposes: You want to know why this is coming up now. What has she heard? What does she think? But if she's anything like our kids, she'll eventually demand a direct answer on your own beliefs. Avoiding her curiosity won't be much help. As parents, your beliefs matter. At this age, it's fairly likely that she'll follow your lead.

When we read your letter, we were struck (and impressed) by your openminded attitude. Not every atheist (or anything-ist) shares your views, namely, that it's ok for not everyone to share the same views.  And therein lies the answer to your question. It seems like what you're looking to teach your daughter is not what to believe, but how to respect different beliefs.

When ("if" is not a realistic expectation) your daughter asks you about god, we suggest you tell her a simple version of your truth. And follow up with some context, including the fact that other people she loves have other ideas . . . and how that's ok with you. In terms of how exactly to talk about it, there are lots of ways. Sometimes people frame religion like a story that some people believe is true and others don't. You can also tell her feelings about god are a little bit like feelings in general; unique to each individual. So there's room for everybody's own ideas about god; yours, Grandma's, and eventually, her own.

Have a question? Email parentaladvisory@babble.com

Click to buy Ceridwen and Rebecca's book!

It's the kind of scenario that can make parents of a toddler and an infant toss down their burp cloths in despair and think, as they narrowly avoid tripping over the musical truck, that having two young kids means no one's ever satisfied.

But while you can't keep 'em both happy all of the time, here are a few tricks to keep them, and you, from pitching a fit most of the time. — Shoshana Kordova

It takes three to tango (and eat, and change a diaper)

When the latest arrival needs to be held or fed, your primary interest may be baby's basic needs, but just about any infant-centered activity can become fun for the kid who might be feeling displaced. The baby's gassy? Hold her while dancing and singing silly songs with your older kid (our favorite made-up ditty includes the line "Don't drink beer in my ear, it makes it hard to hear"). The baby's gotta eat? Whether you're nursing or bottle-feeding, extend your limited lap space by grabbing a spot where you can put up your legs, and ask your toddler if she wants to sit on you (even better if you have toys or books nearby). As for the diaper change, lots of toddlers like being, er, helpful, and handing you a diaper is one of the least calamitous forms of help a toddler can offer.

Find the pattern

It's always a good idea to pay attention to what sets off your kid, and that's all the more true when monitoring the way the former center of attention reacts to the cause of her reduction in star status. Maybe there's something about the time of day or the way you relate to your infant that sparks a meltdown in your toddler; pay attention to the contributing factors and you may be able to head off an ear-numbing exercise of the will. I noticed that my oldest would get upset if I tried to feed the baby at a time when big sis was usually hungry. Now I grab some food, get my toddler into the high chair and sit next to her while feeding both of them. Which brings us to the next point . . .

Don't paint yourself into a nursing corner

Some moms like settling in with baby in the same comfy feeding spot every time. But while that can be great at the right moment, be open to feeding the baby wherever your toddler is. The same holds for other necessaries, especially if you've got multiple rooms, or floors, you hang out in. If you have diaper-changing basics or safe baby-dumping spots (even just a blanket or towel spread out on the floor) in a few strategic locations, it'll be easier to stay with both kids. And if you do have to, or want to, go somewhere else with the little one, try asking your toddler if she wants to sit on the couch with mommy too.

View your home as a kid lab

Don't keep doing something just because it's what you started off doing; your kids are changing every day, so if something isn't working right now (even if it used to), modify it. The trickiest time in our house is my toddler's bath-and-bed time, because I need to give her my attention when the baby is likely to be hungry or kvetchy. I tried sticking to our old routine, but got too stressed if I could hear crying in the other room. I tried simultaneous bath-giving and baby-wearing, but found it too cumbersome. I tried giving big sis an earlier bath if the baby was calm, and that worked well until I started hitting resistance. I ultimately settled on putting the baby in her car seat and bringing her into the bathroom with us, but I'm up for figuring out something else if this doesn't pan out either. There's no way of knowing what will work best for you at any given time other than by trial and error, so try, try, try again.

I'll take two

Keep spares of baby stuff in stock, ready to offer to your toddler if she expresses interest. Mine hadn't used a bottle in nearly a year, but as soon as she saw the baby getting one, it became the hottest item of the season. Instead of saying, "No, that's for the baby," we gave her a bottle of her own that looks different from the others. She also adores having her own blanket spread out on the floor, right next to the baby mat; when I first put it down she stalked around the perimeter with this huge proprietary grin, proud to have her own territory to stake out.

Make some one-on-one

No matter how well you manage to incorporate both kids into your daily tasks, at some point you'll probably feel like you're shortchanging at least one of them. So before you rush off on the never-ending quest to cross off everything on your to-do list when one of them falls asleep, take a few minutes to let your toddler swing like a monkey from your neck or to have a staring contest with your baby while speaking in a ridiculously high-pitched voice. It's worth building up a bank of one-on-one time, both for your kids' sense of security and so that the next time one or both of them is too tired, hungry or sick for any of these tricks to work, at least you'll know in your heart that — despite the surround-sound crying you're sure will have the neighbors calling social services — you've been doing your darndest.

Patrimony: A True Story by Philip Roth

I can't think of a more honest or unflinching account of fatherhood. This is the story of Roth taking care of his father, who is dying of brain cancer. There is a scene in the beginning — Roth's sick, aged father wipes his feces all over the bathroom. It's very easy to talk about feeling awe or great affection or worry about the family but I think it's very hard, and also more honest, to talk about the shit and blood and physicality of it. That was one of the things that surprised me about parenting, actually. Babies are not intellectual human beings — in the beginning, they are not even capable of smiling, the most simple expression of human life — and yet they're demanding of a physical relationship. One of the funny — or not so funny — tricks of life: As you get older, relationships come back to that physicality. You might find yourself wearing a diaper again and needing someone to bathe and feed you. Can anyone hold a baby without imagining oneself as an old person or the baby as an old person?

Kaddish by Leon Wieseltier

This book is like the continuation of Patrimony in a sense, because it begins after the end. Weiseltier immerses himself in the Jewish ritual of saying Kaddish after his father dies ? this act of committing himself does not mean he can make sense of death but he engages with it. Religious or not, as a parent, you are somebody who makes rituals. Whether it is a particular succession of books at bedtime or waffles on Thursday mornings ? they're all practices that you repeat and they take on a special meaning. Ritual gives kids and adults a sense of structure where structure is naturally lacking. It's the counting on it that matters.

Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee

I was so moved by this novel, particularly by the way the father and daughter are bound together through shame. The father's shame comes from the fact that he won't admit to an affair he had and the shame of his daughter is for her country, about apartheid in South Africa. Shame can be a good thing though ? it can prompt exploration. It was actually the inspiration for me to write my new book, Eating Animals . There is the shame of a kid asking you a question and not being able to answer it, of almost entirely forgetting your responsibility. Why do we eat animals? Children's questions highlight our inconsistencies and paradoxes, but they also inspire us to consider the answers.

Life? Or Theatre? By Charlotte Salomon

I was in Amsterdam and I just stumbled into the Jewish museum. Salomon's work — the paintings and text that make up this book — was on display there. There was something about the line of suicides in her family — her grandmother, aunt and mother all took their own lives — and the idea of inescapable fate that drew me in. Since I've become a father I've become very aware of things that are handed down on purpose and by accident. And I'm interested in what can be resisted. I have a bad habit, for example, of being anti-confrontational. I know why I have it — we can usually trace these things to historical and familial trauma. Part of being a parent is the opportunity to correct these things. I admire Salomon for resisting her fate so forcefully through her art. Sorrowfully, the Nazis captured her not long after she made these paintings and she was killed at Auschwitz. The conflict is: How can art redeem or correct? Sometimes it can't. And yet we keep doing it.

It needs to be said from the outset that this is not a pro- or anti-cry it out article. How you approach sleep is as personal and complex as any aspect of parenting. And, rightly so, many moms and dads use their instinct as their guide. The intent of this article is to examine the scientific evidence that sleep training (the kind that involves a distinct period of crying to sleep) causes long-term brain damage — a very serious claim that should not be tossed around lightly.

The work of big name researchers and clinicians comes hand-in-hand with the anti-cry it out stance. For example, UCLA researcher Dr. Allan Schore is often cited as showing that stress hormones like cortisol, released during intense crying, damage nerve cells in the brain, leading to unhealthy attachments and psychological disorders. He demonstrates that a repeated pattern of unmet needs disrupts a child's stress-regulating systems and can alter the way her limbic structures process emotion.

But Schore's research is actually about how trauma, chronic neglect, or abuse affects a small person. No doubt, if ignoring distress were your every day parenting philosophy this would apply, but sleep training against the background of caring, responsive parenting, does not. In fact, this is the case with a lot of sources opposing the cry it out method — the claims of brain, personality, and attachment damage come from research conducted with grossly neglected children (some studies use data from Child Protective Services cases) not healthy children with loving parents who let them cry for an isolated timeframe.

Another well-respected source that makes the rounds on the Internet is a list of studies put together by Dr. Sears that conclude crying it out is dangerous. There are too many to explain each here, but for example, one states that infants who cry excessively have a higher incidence of ADHD, antisocial behavior, and poor school performance. When you look at the original study, though, the crying clearly has nothing to do with sleep training. The study shows that extra fussiness and subsequent crying (regardless of what parents do in response) might be a symptom of an underlying problem that could come up later in life. Sears quoted another study as showing that crying early on makes a child fussy and emotionally unbalanced. Again, the actual study says that babies who already cry a lot might be showing early signs that they are slower to develop emotional control. None of the Sears studies listed shows negative consequences as a result of a structured sleep training program.

A Harvard study often surfaces in this debate to show that CIO is bad for baby. This is not actually an original research paper, but an opinion paper based mostly on anthropological studies of parenting practices. It describes how U.S. parents emphasize independence, while mommies from other cultures co-sleep and respond faster to their little ones. It does not have any data about sleep training.

On the other hand, there isn't a robust body of evidence showing that crying it out is safe. When you think about how complicated emotional health and brain development are, it seems like a difficult conclusion to draw absolutely. Maybe certain children are more vulnerable to stressors and maybe if crying it out comes in tandem with another major change, like starting daycare or weaning, the effects might add up to a tipping point and direct a child's brain development in some way. But is there evidence of this? Not yet. It's worth noting that if it's crying we're worried about, the overall amount of crying involved in a well thought-out sleep-training program can be less than the sobs that many parents have reported when they go with a "no-cry" solution.

So the bottom line? Soothe your baby and respond to her all the time, especially in the early months. Carry her, snuggle her, feed her on demand. Being responsive and loving is a parent's most important job. In fact, it's probably the case that co-sleeping is the most natural and adaptive family arrangement — we've done it for thousands of years and, somewhere deep in their brains, our babies are probably programmed to thrive best this way. But most parents want independent sleepers and a bedtime routine that doesn't end up as a mini-trauma every night. If you decide you can't possibly bounce for another forty-five minutes on the yoga ball to get your baby to sleep, will the times that you let her cry — provided she is fed, healthy, and comfortable and you check on her — alter her brain development? There is no evidence of this so far, so you're free to make that very personal parenting choice for yourself.

Here's the dish those articles never serve up. Read it, and enjoy Halloween a little more this year, knowing that you don't need to be scared of . . .

Poisoned Candy

According to Harper's index, the number of children ever killed by doctored Halloween candy given to them by strangers equals a whopping zero. I for one plan to continue taste-testing my kids' snacks for poisons, but only the good stuff

Choking

Now that you're not worried about your kids' candy being poisoned, you can go ahead and let them eat it without fear of choking. Between 1999 and 2002, over 75% of choking deaths were people over 65. Only about 100 children die from choking each year. While many more are rushed to hospital emergency rooms, fewer than 20% of those kids choke on candy, according to the CDC.

Sugar

Afraid a candy binge will make your kids into little monsters? Experts say the link between hyperactivity and sugar just isn't there. On the other hand, if parents think their kids have had sugar, they will report more hyperactive behavior, even if the child did not actually eat any sugar. The same goes for artificial food coloring and other additives. Look the other way and let the little ones gorge on their loot.

Food allergies

Wait! What about all the potential allergens lurking in those brightly wrapped treats? Only about 6% of children and 1-2% of adults have a food allergy, and most of those are not the fatal variety. While the cause of food allergies remains a mystery, the Mayo Clinic and other experts place increasing weight on the "hygiene" hypothesis: that keeping potential allergens away from kids certainly doesn't help, and may make them more susceptible to food allergies. If you know your child has an allergy, of course you need to be vigilant, but if you've never had a reaction, count yourself lucky and indulge.

Dirt

Speaking of the hygiene hypothesis, it's probably healthy to let your kid eat that piece of candy that fell on the ground. The hygiene hypothesis states that children who are exposed to a wide variety of microorganisms at an early age develop more robust immune systems. Around here, we call the dust that invariably gets into our trail mix Vitamin Fun.

Satanic cults

Worried that some of those demons and witches prowling the street might be real? While Satanic cults make great TV, they've never been shown to exist in real life. If your child does run into a real witch on Halloween, she's likely to be an earth-loving Wiccan who might trick you into taking home some whole wheat brownies instead of the commercial chocolate.

The Internet

What Satanic ritual abuse was to my generation, Internet predators are to my kids' era: the bogeyman in the closet. The Internet Safety Technical Task Force, a Harvard-backed study that included forty-nine state's attorneys general, found that fears about Internet predation vastly outweigh the reality of this fairly rare crime. Unlike Satanic cults, creeps with computers really do exist. But they're a danger to be aware of, not lived in fear of. For most kids, the most dangerous person they'll meet on Facebook is their mom, who might well use the social networking site to find out what they were really up to last Friday night.

Abduction

Not only do you not have to worry about your child being stolen by Satanists or virtual predators, you don't have to worry about your child being stolen by any random stranger. How long would you have to leave your children outside unattended to make it statistically likely that they'd be abducted by a stranger? 750,000 years, says Warwick Cairns, author of How to Live Dangerously. Let the kids trick or treat on their own if you feel like it.

Death

Kids tend to survive. Only about 3% of the deaths in the United States each year are people under twenty-five. While tragedies do occur, it's worth remembering that kids are resilient, and that the scary things on the news make the news because they're rare. As safety guru Bruce Schneier says, "I tell people that if it's in the news, don't worry about it. The very definition of "news" is "something that hardly ever happens." It's when something isn't in the news, when it's so common that it's no longer news -- car crashes, domestic violence -- that you should start worrying."

There is one real terror on Halloween to watch out for: cars. Kids are four times more likely to be hit by a car on Halloween than on any other night of the year, according to the National SAFE KIDS Campaign in Washington, DC. So tell your kids to look both ways, and then relax - Halloween isn't nearly as scary as you think.

Dear Royal,

Year after year parents worry that their vulnerable young daughters will be damaged by obsessions with Disney's wasp-waisted, pug-nosed role models. The princess industrial complex is unstoppable, and our little girls are drawn to it like flies to sh*t. If you manage to keep the whole thing outside of your daughter's frame of vision, we salute your efforts (and wonder if she's getting enough Vitamin D locked in that basement). If your daughter knows about princesses but doesn't give a hoot, we salute your . . . luck. The major feminist argument against The Princess is that her entire personality consists of being passive and pretty. Some worry more about the stress on beauty, for others it's the lack of agency, or the lack of cultural identity. It's all very interesting from a semiotics standpoint. But as Peggy Orenstein put it a few years ago in the Times, " maybe a princess is sometimes just a princess." In other words, what she means to you is not at all what she means to your daughter. Fighting her obsession could hurt your cause. These tinsel goddesses are characters she identifies with; negativity may be wrongly interpreted or internalized. You might teach her that you don't like what she likes, or what she imagines she is. Or, you might just show her a really easy way to rile you up. The last thing you want to do is to give the princesses the power of getting to you on top of their other powers. You can help your daughter see outside the pink satin box by providing her with a range of pretend play options, and reading her fantasy narratives that go beyond the basic happily ever after (AKA wedding) tale. You can certainly introduce her to the wonders of Wonder Woman and see if she takes the bait. (She does have a crown, after all.) But Halloween is probably not the time to challenge her interests. Halloween is an opportunity for self-expression and identification. We are believers in the self-generated costume (if not in construction, at least in concept). You can force your daughter to wear a Wonder Woman costume, but you can't make her like it. Our advice is to go with the flow and let her be whatever she feels like being for the moment, however much it abrades your feminist sensibilities. Word among parents of older girls is that the princess phase, though often torturous, passes quickly. If you don't add the element of rebellion into the mix, maybe it will run its course sooner. And hey, if you let her go as a princess now, you've got a good excuse not to let her be one again next year.

Have a question? Email parentaladvisory@babble.com

Click to buy Ceridwen and Rebecca's book!

Oscar and the Bat: A Book About Sound by Geoff Waring

Lots of spooky noises come alive at night that can scare kids: hooting owls, whispering wind, clashing thunder. This book explains why sound--even scary sound--is important. Plus, it will show your children how to use their ears to tell how far or near something is, and to find something, like a bird's nest or raindrops, before their eyes can actually see it.

Lesson: The world would be really boring without sound.

There's No Place Like Space! by Tish Rabe

Nighttime is synonymous with being dark and dreary, but it doesn't have to be that way. Why not teach them about just what's out there in our vast universe? Starting with the moon, this book takes kids on a super-speedy trip through our solar system, and addresses questions like, 'If the Earth is always spinning, why aren't we dizzy?' Who knows, after a few reads, you may have some night owls on your hands!

Lesson learned: Darkness isn't scary when you know what's out there.

Dark Night by Dorothee de Monfreid

This story about a boy named Felix who encounters some ferocious-looking animals in the woods will give your kids a boost of bravery before bedtime. At first, the forest animals frighten Felix but he runs into a wise rabbit that says, hey, if something scares you, scare 'em back! Halloween mask in hand, Felix turns the tables on his nemeses.

Lesson learned: Confidence goes along way in combating scary stuff.

The Scariest Monster In The World by Lee Weatherly & Algy Craig Hall

If your kids are scared of monsters under the bed, read them this funny tale about a monster that gets hiccups?and can?t get rid of them! Not only does it show that even the most menacing creatures have a soft side, we find out in the end that the monster?s scare tactics are mostly for show.

Lesson learned: Monsters aren?t that different than you and me.

What Was I Scared Of? by Dr. Seuss

You can?t go wrong with classic Dr. Seuss, and lucky for you, he?s concocted a tale sure to soothe your child?s fears of creatures lurking in the dark. Read this wacky tale about a kid who stumbles upon a pair of (literal) scared-ey pants that rides bikes, rows boats?even runs around with no feet!

Lesson learned: The things you?re most scared of are probably just as scared of you. (Bonus: The book is glow-in-the-dark!)

Creaky Old House by Linda Ashman

Got a creaky house? Read this to your kids. This story about a family with a house full of drafty shutters and dilapidated stairs shows that everything ?spooky? only became that way through years of love. (The fraying rug? That?s where Gran and Grandpa jitterbug!)

Lesson learned: A creaky house is a happy house.

Expert: Suzanne Tingley, former teacher, principal, superintendant, author of How To Handle Difficult Parents: A Teacher's Survival Guide, and named a "Woman of Distinction" by the New York State Senate in 2007.

1. Go in with a plan, and ask questions that relate to your child's overall well-being, not just their academic progress.

Parents sometimes don't think about what they want to learn from the parent — teacher conference their school schedules. They go in as passive receptors of the information the teacher wants to give them. But, it's a good idea if they think about the conference beforehand, because most parents really want to know not only how their child is doing academically, but also how their child is doing socially. They also want to know "Does my kid have any friends?" And sometimes if they don't ask that, they're not going to get it. If they don't think about questions like that ahead of time, they're not going to get the information they want.

2. If there's a problem, ask the teacher about his or her game plan.
Sometimes when parents hear their child is having a problem, they don't ask: "What's the plan to correct it?" They let the teacher say "Well, he's behind in reading." Or "He's got this or that problem." And the parents don't respond, "Well what's the plan to correct that?" Along with that, they need to say "And what can we do to help?" What's the game plan here to work together to help the child? Because just getting the information that there is a problem isn't enough; and the child's issue is not your responsibility alone, it's something to work on constructively with the teacher.

3. Don't play mediator.
If the child has had a conflict with the teacher, the worst thing a parent can say, the thing that really really annoys teachers, is "And now we'd like to hear your side." When they put it that way it sounds as if the parents are stepping in to be the moderators between two equals. A five-year-old and a forty-five-year-old? As though the teacher and the child are siblings, the parents pronounce: "Sam says 'blah, blah, blah' and now we'd like to hear your side of the story." They should say something like "Our child is saying this at home, what do you think is going on?" Or "What's your take on this?" You should appeal to the teacher in an adult-to-adult manner, rather than play mediator as though they're brother and sister.

— As told to Emily Frost

Find Suzanne Tingley's How To Handle Difficult Parents from Cottonwood Press or on Amazon.com .

]]>Babble http://www.babble.com/lie-about-childs-age/Seven minutes. That's how long it takes Playground Mommy to make her move.

? "He's so cute," she says, touching my son's curls. "Still not walking?" His chubby fingers clutch mine as he inches towards the swings, wobbly as a newborn foal.

"Oh, you know.?He's getting there," I say, as if everyone walks around with a twenty-five-pound toddler death-gripping their thumbs. As if on cue, Owen drops to his hands and knees and speeds off, slap-slap-slapping across the filthy playground flooring.?

"He's a big boy," Playground Mommy says. "How old?"

"Thirteen months." ?

"Thirteen months?!" she says, eyes wide. "He's huge!"

That's true . . . except for the "thirteen months" part.?My son is actually seventeen months old, but you'll never hear it from me, at least not at the playground.? ?

Yes, I know it's nuts. As a reasonably intelligent, Birkenstock wearing, "Every child develops differently" type of gal, I always assumed I'd be Captain Awesome when it came to raising my own kid.?I pictured myself surrounded by a crew of happy, tow-headed tots, each secure in the knowledge that they were special Just The Way They Are. But all that flew out the window when faced with a gaggle of playground parents whose ten-month-olds were running laps around my older son.?

I'd round down his age down to the nearest month, shaving off a few precious developmental weeks.?"Oh," the parents would sigh, relief flooding their faces. "That makes more sense."At first I didn't think too much of it.?The babe had always been a little slow with the physical stuff, but I figured it was genetic.?His dad and I veer toward the "readerly" side of the athletic spectrum, so it made sense that he'd rather thumb through Goodnight Moon than run a 5K.?But then it started.?The looks. The tsks. The well-meaning advice from people whose charges were walking — running! — at twelve or nine or even seven months.

Within weeks I'd heard it all: Buy him sturdier shoes.?Buy him comfortable shoes.?Make him walk everywhere. (He's only crawling because you're not putting your foot down.) Don't let him watch television.?Tempt him with treats. One ancient grandmother-type recommended that I tie a scarf under his armpits and march him around the playground like a puppet.?

I've found myself considering it.

Still, my gut tells me he's fine. I've done the reading; I know that boys tend to be slower with language and that taller children take longer to walk. At seventeen months — and thirty-six-inches tall — he's as big as most three-year-olds, so it makes sense that his toddler brain would have trouble coordinating his preschool-sized parts.?But just to be safe we went ahead and had him evaluated to make sure we weren't missing any red flags. The physical therapist, a small woman with a reassuring smile, said that Owen was a little behind the curve, but physically and cognitively he was fine.?Better than fine, even.?Smart!?Social! Wonderful in all the ways that warm a neurotic parent's heart!?The best thing I could do for Owen, she said, would be to put down the parenting magazines and let him develop on his own schedule.?After all, nobody goes to college not knowing how to walk.?I know?she's right, yet all it takes is one raised eyebrow on the playground to send me spiraling.???

It started small, as most lies do. I'd round down his age down to the nearest month, shaving off a few precious developmental weeks.?"Oh," the parents would sigh, relief flooding their faces. "That makes more sense."?Gone were the furrowed brows and awkward talk of early intervention. Suddenly we could gab about normal things like nap schedules and vegetable aversion.?I was happy.?They were happy.?And my son didn't understand what I was saying so, hey, happy. ?

Of course I still have qualms.?It doesn't take an episode of Toddlers and Tiaras to know that it's a slippery slope between fudging a few facts and turning into a full-fledged Freakmother.?But some days saving face feels like the only way to keep my sanity. I know I'll have to stop when he's able to understand me, and that's fine.Until then, telling a white lie every now and then to avoid an hour-long lecture on footwear seems small in the scheme of things.?The less time I have to take to defend his (okay, our) honor, the more time we have for important things like playing chase.?Even if it's on all fours.?

Dear Sugar free mama,

For parents, the avalanche of candy at Halloween can be scarier than the ghoulish costumes. On the one hand, there are your standards: healthy, natural foods. On the other, there's tradition: an all you can eat sugar-soaked artificially Technicolored candy gorgefest.

Unless you live in an exceptionally health-conscious neighborhood where kale chips are the Halloween treat of choice, if you want to avoid sugar altogether, you have to avoid Halloween altogether. Which would be a bummer.

Though the chasm between kale and candy corn is admittedly vast, there are ways to compromise, giving you some control over your kids' sugar intake while still giving them some degree of enjoyment. You just need to decide what enjoyment-to-control ratio you're comfortable with.

The way we see it, there's life, and there are special occasions. Some candy on Halloween is not going to undermine years of healthy eating. Forbidding your son from indulging while his cousins pig out, on the other hand, could provoke the beginnings of a flat-out sugar OBSESSION. We've too often heard about the sugar-denied kid doing all kinds of things — early childhood shoplifters you know who you are — to get his or her hands on the stuff once freed from mom and dad's immediate purview.

Like you, many parents subscribe to the hard line no-candy lifestyle early on. And we totally support this. Giving a toddler a box of Mike and Ike's? What!? Why? But an older kid is starting to pick up the corn syrup scent. Now your job is not only to take control but to teach control. Moderation can be a harder, longer lesson, but it's a valuable skill that your child can eventually apply to all kinds of temptations.  

The moderation approach to Halloween can include any of the following:

  • Don't let your little kid trick or treat forever. There's no reason a three-year-old should be dragging a 3 lb bag of candy home.

  • Make the event more about the costume and play than about the booty. For every mention of candy, there should be at least ten mentions of costumes, pumpkins, hanging out with friends . . .

  • Feed him a good meal before you head out.

  • Consider rationing the candy. Two pieces of candy a day till it's done? If the bag isn't so big, we're talking a week or two. Let him pick his poison at a high-energy expending time of day. Not before bed. And not as a reward for eating "good food." Candy as reward is not going to help your cause.

  • Consider letting him feel sick. Some parents go for the one night extravaganza method. On the good side, this gets the horror over with, on the bad side, it is almost sure to result in a stomachache/teachable moment.

  • Try not to make a huge deal about the candy. Tell your son it's not good for your body to eat candy and/or junk food. But a little bit on special occasions is OK. This is the boring truth.

There are lots of variations and combinations of you could try. But all will require you to accept the basic premise: you're letting your kid do something you don't love. Believe us, this will not be the last time . . . but that doesn't make it any less difficult. May we suggest some chocolate to soothe your wounds? Or maybe some kale chips.

Have a question? Email parentaladvisory@babble.com

Click to buy Ceridwen and Rebecca's book!

About a year ago, my husband and I were faced with a dilemma. We had a dog. We had a kid. We had a lot of material possessions no luxury cars or Steinway pianos — just stuff, the kind that is sometimes hard to remember where or why we acquired, the kind that takes up space. In addition to these things, we also had an apartment, not a particularly small apartment but an apartment nonetheless: two and a quarter bedrooms, a wonderful location in a neighborhood we adored, a mensche of landlord, access to basement laundry, an all-in-all good set-up. Still, it wasn?t our own place. There was no garage, no mudroom, no private back yard or separate family room or guest room or any of those cushy amenities that have become synonymous with middle-class suburban living. And so with a one-year-old and vague thoughts about a second child at some unspecified future time, we took what seemed to us and to our parents and to many of our friends the only logical step: we moved. We bought a townhouse in a less exciting but perfectly acceptable neighborhood where our family would have plenty of space and room to grow.

I should pause here to say that what follows is not one of the countless real-estate horror stories that have become so commonplace. We didn?t fall pray to sub-prime loan sharks or end up in foreclosure. We didn?t end up mortgaging off anyone?s birthright or buying a McMansion built on quicksand. We guiltily accepted the help our parents so graciously offered. We kept to a budget (most of the time), and the next thing we knew we were shopping for our first lawnmower. Of course, even for people as lucky as we?ve been, home-ownership is not without its drawbacks: I?m thinking of all those hours spent not with family and friends, not working, but trying to find a good plumber or worrying about a flooded basement or trying to erect an effective but not-too-ugly fence to keep the god-damned bunnies from eating the begonias. In other words, as happy as our family is in our new home, there are times when I wonder — was it really necessary? Did we really need more room and a house of our own to raise a family, or were we just buying into a cultural ideal, an illusion of necessity? I began to wonder just how prevalent the idea is in other industrialized countries that family = house?

I brought these questions to Cynthia Gabriel, an anthropology doctoral student at East Michigan University who spent a significant amount of time studying childbearing and family living arrangements in Russia?s urban centers. She explained how, "Western-leaning businesspeople are increasingly able to live apart from parents and grandparents, but multi-generational households are still the norm. In these apartments, the young mother or couple is usually given the one bedroom in which to sleep with the baby and the grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, great-grandparents sleep in the living room. Almost every living room in the Russian homes I observed doubled as a bedroom. So out of space necessity, co-sleeping is incredibly common. I rarely, rarely, rarely saw cribs in Russian apartments."

I have to admit that at first I was shocked by this description. I certainly understood that Russia?s standard of living was not as high as that of most western countries, and that poverty was still pervasive. But the image of an entire extended families sharing an apartment seemed such an extreme example of want — the idea of not having space for something as simple as a crib an example not simply of a less affluent society but of real deprivation. How do they do it, I wondered. How do they make it work, raising a family in such close quarters when so many American families feel the need for a multi-acred lot and a ping-pong table in the basement just to stretch their legs?

For Gabriel, it wasn?t such a mystery. First, she explained, apartment buildings in Russian cities are usually designed with a playground at the center for all the kids. And second, "Russian children do not have nearly the quantity of toys that American children have. They have a box or two of special toys and that?s it. But there are lots of clubs for children: ice-skating, chess, gymnastics, etc."

When I asked her if the Russian children she observed seemed to go stir-crazy without the private backyard American kids and parents prize so highly, she observed that, on the contrary, some Russian kids, even those in cities, seemed far more connected to nature than American kids she?d known with huge yards. That they tend to play outdoors in public spaces far more than urban Americans. "In the summer," she explained, "many children spend big chunks of their vacation at a "dacha" — a rustic country home where they might live with their grandparents while their parents continue to work in the city. Often the mother and/or father visit for the weekend. The kids explore the forests, gather mushrooms and berries, play in the rivers, and help in the family garden. Not many toys needed."

How charming, I thought. And how impossibly exotic. The scene Gabriel described sounded so much like something out of a fairy tale, I kept expecting elves to appear and begin whittling their lutes. And yet something about her account of Russian childhood sounded vaguely familiar, too. Eventually, it occurred to me how similar it sounded to my mother-in-law?s childhood in Chicago or my own father?s childhood in up-state New York. Though my father?s family did have their own house in Gloversville, NY, it was a small, three-bedroom, one-bathroom place for a family of five, and this was considered quite spacious for the time. My mother-in-law grew up in a city with a middle-class family that lived in comfortable, but very small, one-bedroom apartments, the living room doubling as sleeping quarters.

"Do you think it was a harder childhood then, getting by with so much less space?"

My mother-in-law isn?t sure. "There certainly wasn?t the same expectation that middle-class families have now that you have to move to the suburbs."

My father, who?s lived in Richmond, Virginia for thirty years now, a part of the country where apartment living for families is an anomaly, puts it this way: "I meet people all the time who want to live on a big piece of land where they won?t be able to see their nearest neighbor. It?s not something I particularly understand. Space is nice, but it?s not everything."

Dear Too Posh,

There's no such thing as a stupid question, even when it involves the delightful prospect of defecating on a baby. In fact, this is a very common and totally understandable concern. Many women worry about what might come out in addition to a baby.

When you bear down in labor, you use the same muscles you use when you have a bowel movement. The urge to push a baby is pretty much the same as the urge to use the toilet. It's all the same area, same triggers, same muscles. So, yeah, it's true poop happens. It's common. It's normal. And you will likely never have a clue if it does.

Caregivers are discreet and quick to wipe away any evidence. They have seen it all a hundred times. No one will scream "GROSS." No one will worry. And if your partner or labor support person is watching the baby emerge, it's unlikely he or she will even notice.

As far as the baby's involvement: Any poop action will probably happen earlier in the pushing stage and be well out of the way before the baby's head emerges. Women often have diarrhea at the onset of labor: the hormone progesterone loosens intestines along with everything else. There is always the enema. A staple of labor preparation in the olden days, women are no longer required to flush their bowels before delivering babies. You can still request an enema if you want one, but realize that this comes with its own set of discomforts and humiliations. Plus, labor and your intestines are long. Even if you empty your bowels early in labor, by the time you push you may be hitting another digestion cycle.

Also worth mentioning while talking about babies and nethers: there's a lot of good bacteria in the birth canal (AKA the vagina) that does all kinds of wonders for the baby's immune system. Seriously, one reason there's added risk in a c-section is that babies miss out on that smear of bacteria. So while this may all seem rather impolite, it's a pretty good system.

Almost all babies born vaginally do come out facing the rear (posterior position). But when the head crowns and emerges, the baby's face turns out rather than back towards the anus. It's kind of like the head at the prow of a boat and pretty rad, at that.

Bottom line is: try not to worry about the poop factor. If you're trying to push but also not trying to push, you'll give yourself more unnecessary work. Birth is a pretty solidly intense event: women in labor tend to shift their priorities completely. It's hard to imagine now, but the chances are excellent that when that moment comes, poop anxiety will be pretty low on your list.

Have a question? Email parentaladvisory@babble.com

Click to buy Ceridwen and Rebecca's book!

Expert: Charrie Hazard, journalist and author of Falling into the Sun, a novel about her journey to help her troubled young son conquer his mood disorder to live a normal life. Visit her at charriehazard.com.

1. Failing to recognize and treat your child?s mood disorder.

"All kids have bad moods sometimes. That?s nothing to worry about. A mood disorder, however, deals with clinical depression and bipolar disorder, which is depressive manic behavior caused by chemical imbalances in the brain. Many parents are in denial that their child might have a mood disorder. They don?t want anything to be wrong with your child so they chalk up bad behavior to an artistic temperament or oh, they?re just very curious and creative. The 1999 Surgeon General?s report found that 75-80% of children in need of mental health services don?t get it because of the stigma. Also, many mom and dads would rather believe they?re bad parents than admit their child might struggle, because that?s something they can fix. They can?t necessarily fix their child?s mood disorder.

Some mood disorder symptoms to look out for: lethargy, no interest or sudden change of interest in activities, low-self esteem, defiant/manipulative/destructive/irritable behavior, extreme separation anxiety, explosive temper tantrums that last longer than thirty minutes, lack of impulse control, and major mood changes multiple times a day. If you think your child may have a mood disorder, seek professional help beyond a pediatrician ? a psychologist, and if necessary a psychiatrist. I also found these two books to be very helpful: The Bipolar Child: The Definitive and Reassuring Guide to Childhood?s Most Misunderstood Disorder and The Defiant Child: A Parent?s Guide to Oppositional Defiant Disorder."

2. Clinging to traditional parenting techniques
"Traditional parenting will tell you that when a child misbehaves, the consequence should be immediate. That?s really good advice . . . for most children. But for kids with mood disorders, that?s bad advice. If a child with a mood disorder is misbehaving, that means they?re dangerously close to a meltdown. And if you try to levy disciplinary action at that point, it?s only going to escalate the meltdown. The best thing to do is delay the consequences, and not engage in the fight.? For instance, you can say to your child, 'That was a bad choice and I?m not going to argue with you, but there will be consequences later for your disobedience and I will tell you what they are this evening.' Then, when it?s calm, sit down with your child and explain the repercussions."

3. Neglecting to get counseling for yourself.
"Having a child with a mood disorder puts incredible stress on your family, your marriage, your other children, and especially on you, the parent. You?re constantly living in an unpredictable atmosphere and walking on eggshells, because you never know what?s going to set your child off. You need a place where you can go a regular basis and talk about how you?re feeling. Will my child hurt himself? Will they be able to function as an adult? Will they live a full life? Have I done the right thing? Emotions like fear, anxiety, despair, hopelessness, and second-guessing yourself are all very common, especially when it may feel like everyone around you is judging your parenting style. It?s really important for both parents to talk to someone who is compassionate and non-judgmental and who provides a safe place to talk honestly and openly, even when you?re feeling like you absolutely can?t stand this child you love so dearly."

— As told to Andrea Zimmerman

]]>Babble http://www.babble.com/boy-girl-gender-divide/B

oys are better in math, girls are more empathetic — there's something almost alluring about the idea that our brains are wired differently. But in her new book, Pink Brain, Blue Brain, author and neuroscientist Lise Eliot synthesizes decades of research on the topic and concludes that both sexes — boys in particular — are suffering under our assumptions about their nature.?

Our X and Y chromosomes really do seem to point us in different directions. From the beginning, girls are more resilient and faster to develop than boys. They get a head start in language and fine motor skills. By four months, girls make more eye contact (not surprisingly, women are found later to be more skilled at reading emotion). Boys are more fussy as babies and vulnerable throughout childhood. Their motor skills are on par with girls', though, and they tend to do more jumping, running, and general stunt work than their female counterparts.

But according to Eliot, the biological differences between us are actually very small. Average skill levels vary slightly, but it's nothing close to how much the sexes differ in height, for example. When it comes to abilities and personality traits, there is way more variation within each sex than there is between the sexes. And the overlap is huge, meaning lots of boys are more verbal than girls and lots of girls are more active than boys.

So how do we go from slight biological variations to a clear gender divide? It starts when our babies come home from the hospital to their sports-themed or doll-inhabited rooms. Despite their best intentions, moms and dads treat their little ones differently, with boys tending to get tossed in the air and rough-housed more and girls tending to be described by their parents as softer and more delicate. One study in Eliot's book asked moms to judge how steep an incline their eleven-month-old could crawl down and showed that moms doubted the skill and courage of the girls and made the ramp steeper for the boys, even though both sexes were equally capable.?Studies also show that parents (dads in particular) are less supportive when, for example, their boy cuddles a baby doll, than when he wields a lightsaber.

Our biases are hurting the boys in particular, says Eliot. They are more likely to be held back from kindergarten, or labeled with ADHD and learning disorders. We expect them to be slower and less focused, instead of challenging them and adapting our teaching methods. She gives a lot of suggestions to help boost boys' communication and fine motor skills (two areas that have a big impact on school performance). For example, teach boys to type early; read non-fiction; and encourage cutting, stamping, and painting. Boys need more chatting and soothing and less "toughening up" ? they require just as much help, if not more, understanding their feelings.

Girls have been on the rise for a while now, but math and science are still dominated by boys, partly because we assume that they have a natural advantage.?In reality, boys only excel in visuospacial skill (the ability to mentally rotate an object), and girls actually tend to get better grades in both math and science. But the ladies fall off once they hit adolescence, which Eliot argues is because they get the message that hard-core math is not their turf and they lose confidence. Women are well represented in medicine (which has a human, helping side), but we still don't have very many female aerospace engineers or computer scientists. Give Legos and Lincoln Logs to girls, says Eliot. They need balls and paper airplanes, jigsaw puzzles and tool sets. Get them onto the computer for some fast-paced targeting games to practice spatial reckoning and healthy competition.??

There is no gene for garbage truck obsessions or tiaras and tutus, but if we only follow our children's lead and never challenge them to step out of their comfort zones, guess what will happen? Our brains are remarkably "plastic," meaning that they grow and strengthen based on our experiences.?So imagine that your boy needs a lot of emotional support and that your girl might grow up to be a wacky math professor.? "Whatever you do is what your brain will be 'wired' for," says Eliot. "So anytime we see an obvious difference between men and women, or boys and girls, ask yourself: how did they spend their time over the past thirty years to make their brains so good ? or bad ? at certain skills?"

]]>Heather Turgeon http://www.babble.com/hate-calling-from-road/Fall is here, which means a lot of us are hitting the trail to teach, speak, meet, and conduct all manner of business that keeps money and professional mobility flowing in our households. My slate is full this year and while I'm excited to be on the road — all those Bliss Spa beauty products and random talks with cab drivers in Midwestern towns — I dread not only saying goodbye to my four-year old, but saying hello. From my Blackberry at the airport, the phone in my hotel room, Skype on the screen of my MacBook, no matter the medium, I'd rather eat my arm than talk to my kid while I'm out of town.

Seriously.

You know how it is fellow sojourners: you long for your children the moment you see the airport sign on the highway. Suddenly nostalgic for the twang of the 5:45 alarm and epic daily corralling through teeth-brushing, face-washing, yogurt- and apple-eating, lunch-bagging and surreptitious eyelash-curling, you have inexplicably romantic thoughts about waiting for the bus or catching the subway with five million other people. You forget holding your breath when the man next to you sneezes five times in a row, and how often you wonder if you can get swine flu more than once. Or if you live outside of the city, you forget the pang of guilt you feel (the ozone, the future of the planet!) every time you turn on the air conditioner for the seemingly endless drive to school on nauseatingly curvy roads.

But these moments of waxing rhapsodic are fleeting, are they not? Mere hours later, comfortably ensconced in a room with a Heavenly Bed and a willing room-service delivery person, things change. There are movies on demand, movies you want to watch! The Wifi is perfect and you can work when you want to, at three a.m. say, without worrying about passing out the next day after morning drop-off. Did I mention you can pick up a phone, tell someone what you want to eat and then they . . . bring it to your door? A door you can answer in a long shirt and tights?

Yes, my friends. Things are good. Until the hideous red LED clock on the dark wood veneer nightstand creeps closer to what you have calculated to be bedtime at home. First you have an hour. Then twenty minutes. Five. Three. One. You pick up the phone with a heavy hand. Your mate answers, you brace yourself, and then you?re off to the races.

"Hello!"

You say this first word cheerfully, with great excitement, because you know the first rule of calling home is sounding as if you have been waiting to talk to your spouse and children since the moment you kissed them goodbye at the airport when the truth is you haven?t thought of them for hours.

"How am I?"

You say this with a little more than a soupcon of aggravation because rule number two dictates you sound as if being away is positively awful, the worse thing EVER. Sounding like you?re having fun could cause jealousy and possibly even long-lasting feelings of betrayal. And so, even though you have largely recovered from the atrocities of air travel, you share only the truly dreadful details.

"Uch, the trip was terrible. Bad food. My seat was in the back of the plane, and the flight attendant treated me like I had leprosy. They tried to give me a room ten miles from the elevator. When I told the person at the desk, he moved me to a non-smoking room that smelled like an ashtray. You know how it is."

Instead of pity, you are treated to a recounting of all of the extra work done in your absence. Adhering to rule three, you sympathize and share, from the bottom of your heart, how much you wish you were home to help. Which is more or less true, but the movie you?re watching on-demand has clicked back on after its three-minute pause, and you have to rush to silence it lest your partner think you?re luxuriating while he or she scrapes the burnt oatmeal out of the pot you left on the stove this morning.

Because you now feel guilty about the movie and yet understandably inspired by your twelve hours of solitude, you throw an offer out, forgetting the last time you did this it landed poorly.

"I?m so sorry, honey. I know it?s hard when I?m away. I?ll be back soon. When I get home, let?s pitch a tent in the backyard and have sex all night under the stars."

Which, as it did the last time you tried it, wins a sarcastic retort. Something like, "Well at the moment, all I can think about is how I?m going to empty the diaper genie before the natural gases cause a explosion and feed Claire something other than packets of almond butter and honey."

You roll your eyes but say nothing (rule number four). And then to get things back on track, you utter the words you?ve been dreading for the last few hours.

"Can I talk to the baby?"

And then it begins, the brutal exchange of barely intelligible grunts, awkward silences, and incoherent trains of thought masquerading as sentences. Ten minutes that sound more or less like this:

You: "Hi honey! How are you? Mommy misses you so much!"

Honey: "What Mommy?"

You: "I miss you!"

Honey: "What Mommy?"

You: "I miss you!"

Honey: "Daddy didn?t use the right toothpaste when he brushed my teeth this morning."

You: "Uh-huh. Well did you tell him it was the wrong toothpaste and show him where the other toothpaste is?"

Honey: Silence.

You: "Honey? Did you tell Daddy to use the other one?"

Honey: "No. I?m hungry Mama. Are you still on the airplane? Is there food on the airplane?"

You: "No I?m not on the airplane anymore. I?m in the hotel."

Honey: Silence.

You: "Honey? Are you there? I?m at the hotel."

Honey: "You?re at the hotel? Where?s that? Is that on the airplane? I lost my red bouncy ball today and Daddy couldn?t find it. Are you still on the airplane?"

You: "No honey, I?m not on the airplane. Remember when we went to Los Angeles and we went to the hotel and the man brought you the chocolate milkshake? Remember the hotel? I?m in a hotel."

Honey: "You?re in the hotel where we got the milkshake? Is that in the plane? Can I have a milkshake now or will the chocolate mess up my poopy?"

You feel as if you?d rather slit your wrists than continue this mother-child communication charade, but you must go on as everyone knows maintaining connection is the only way to keep your child from being irrevocably scarred in your absence (rule number five). You fight the urge to scream.

You, calmly: "Okay honey, give the phone back to Daddy."

Honey: "But mommy? When are you coming home from the airplane? Are you coming home tomorrow?"

You: "No, honey. I?m coming home in four days."

Honey: "Is that the day after tomorrow?"

You feel like pulling your fingernails out, but know you must not express one iota of frustration (rule number six).

You: "No, honey, but soon. Now let me speak to Daddy, okay? Mommy misses you. Sleep well. Love you."

Honey: Silence.

You: "Honey? Give the phone back to Daddy."

Honey: "But I don?t want to give the phone back to Daddy."

You: "Give the phone back to Daddy."

Honey: "Mommy, when are you coming home?"

At which point if you?re lucky, your frustrated but still adoring spouse takes the phone and saves you from throwing it to the floor and stomping all over it.

Spouse (again, if you?re lucky): "We miss you babe. I?ll find the toothpaste. I love you. We?ll be here when you call tomorrow."

Tears of gratitude well up in your eyes at this exquisite show of compassion.

"I love you too. Get some rest, okay? Don?t let them wear you out. Kiss."

You hang up and lay flat on your bed, staring at the ceiling. You reach for the remote with your right hand and thank God you?ve got twenty-four more hours before you have to do it again.