My daughter Katie’s first baby tooth came out in a spoonful of Nutella. And she lost the second one backstage at a play when she bumped a chair against her mouth by accident. She had gauze in her mouth until seconds before she had to perform. By the time the third tooth got loose, she was pretty brazen about it. She wiggled it. She let kids at school wiggle it. And I worried whether all that twisting...
Eight in ten teens have a profile on at least one of the many social media websites out there and most of them are on it daily, according to a recent report. This is hardly big news if you have a teen in the house – or even a tween like I do. Although social sites like Facebook and Instagram require users to be at least 13 years old, many of my daughter’s friends had Instagram accounts since...
A couple of weeks ago, I told you if you had any questions for health experts to ask away — and I’d see what I could do. Well, the topic for today’s post is thanks to my friend Kristin, who asked me to find out about BPA (bisphenol A) in dental fillings and sealants. Kristin is the “greenest” of all my friends; she even has solar panels on her house and gushes about how much it has saved...
First things first: I hope you had a wonderful holiday. My 9-year-old daughter, Kate, believes in Santa, so the last couple of weeks of 2011 were filled with wonderful anticipation (“Will he bring me a Harry Potter wand?”) and good behavior (the Santa card is better than any time-out chair). Speaking of magical creatures that leave presents, Kate is also fond of her visits from the tooth fairy....
When I was 9, my daughter’s age, I remember coming home from school, popping open a Pepsi can and starting my homework. I’d also have soda at dinner, and by the time I got to high school, I was drinking it at lunch too. Times may have changed, but our children’s soda habits have only gotten worse. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that consumption of sugar-filled drinks (like...
My family and I flew to Orlando last month to check out the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios — my 9-year-old is obsessed with the book series. The long weekend was spectacular on all fronts except one: My husband, who had a cold, came down with severe ear pain about halfway through the flight. By the time we landed, he could barely hear anything, and it took almost 12 hours...
