School has started, Fall has fallen, and it’s time to start preparing for the onslaught of annoying little illnesses that get passed around so easily. Pink-eye is one of the most popular, right?

I’m suuuuper susceptible to conjunctivitis. I had a raging, double-eye case of it when I was about 12 (after a week of sleep-away horse camp with no running water), and ever since, my body has leapt upon every chance to re-experience that hell. Any time my immune system is compromised, I have to be on the guard for a big flare up.

I’m also not a fan of antibiotics, as you know. The drops used to treat pink-eye are pretty benign, but why bother getting a prescription when you can use an extremely...

I wrote this initially as an email to a friend - a play-by-play of what was happening in the kitchen as my eldest daughter (our 2e child) was attempting to make herself a snack. This whole episode probably took 45 minutes. A task that typically takes less than a minute.
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Right now, I’m at my desk looking into the kitchen and I’m working with Sophia through the steps of making Banana Pudding.

[Basically: mash a banana up with peanut butter.]

She is having a really hard time with it. She is already in nearly-freakout mode this morning (I think triggered by disappointment over what she got for breakfast, and possibly a drop in blood sugar before she got calories into her; she’s...

Harmony writes:

Amazing friends recently gifted us with a new-to-us iPad.  We are leaving for a cross-country trip in a few days, and I would love to load it with some child-friendly activities.  Do you have any apps that you would recommend?

Oh, yes! We have some beloved iPad apps to recommend. I’m pretty picky about what my kids spend their screen time on, so here are my picks. I hope readers chime in with their own; we are always looking for more goodies.

There aren’t many free apps on my list. That’s because most free apps come with annoying ads or in-game payment opportunities. Both really bad if you are giving your kids screen time so you can have kid-free time. You don’t want them...

Last fall, I began a more formal homeschool attempt with my eldest daughter, Sophia, who was newly 6 years old.

It was a disaster.
There were meltdowns galore. Her attempts were fraught with anxiety; she couldn’t seem to remember to hold her pencil correctly for more than 5 seconds; she couldn’t follow a simple two or three-step set of directions. I was completely blindsided by my bright, creative, articulate little girl’s apparent inability to do the simplest of Kindergarten type academic work.

I was also desperately exhausted and nauseated by morning sickness with my third baby. So we put schooling on hold indefinitely and went back to just sitting on the couch and reading library...

Are you a parent like me, who grazes off the kids’ scraps and inadvertently consumes a whole meal’s worth of calories off of the “crumbs,” before even sitting down to your own actual meal?

I discovered a new lunch time hack last week. When I cut the crusts off my kids’ ham sandwiches, I added some cheese (they’re dairy free, but I’m not!) wrapped them up in big crunchy leaves of Romaine lettuce, and sat down to the table right away with my very own “Crust Wraps.”

These delicious, inside-out “mini-sandwiches” are a perfect answer to wasted crust and extra calories. Don’t they look delicious?

My whole family has been varying degrees of sick this week.

My 6 year old kicked it off with a crazy, croup-like cough that kept us both up basically all night the first night. Honestly, nothing I tried worked for her that night (and believe me, I subjected her to all kinds of crazy stuff!). Cold air from the open window alternating with the warm moist air from a bowl of steaming water helped keep the cough at bay for about 10 minutes at a time. But that was it. It was a long, long night.

The next day, I called my naturopath who said, “Yup, it’s a nasty cough that has lingered for a lot of my patients. Keep doing what you’re doing!” Not the panacea I was hoping to get from her, but...

I just ran across this article in Pediatrics magazine, further establishing the link between the use of acetaminophen and the asthma epidemic in the US.

If you or your kids are at risk (ie: have a family history of, or other significant contributing factors - like food allergies) for asthma, you would do well to find another fever and pain reducer.

In my house, we use the homeopathic remedy by HomeoLab called Kids Relief Pain and Fever Oral Solution. It doesn’t work for every single type of ache or pain (homeopathic remedies are very specific that way), but more often than not, it is just as effective as an OTC drug.

Read the full article of The Association of Acetaminophen and Asthma...