I’ve always thought that the Scholastic Book Fairs were pretty cool.  They make kids’ books available at extremely affordable prices in a very convenient and even fun way.  I imagine lots of kids have books because of Scholastic that wouldn’t have them otherwise.  The company is also good to teachers, offering liberal bonuses to let teachers get books for their classrooms cheaply.  Now, however, my opinion of the company is in jeopardy of changing significantly for the worse.

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The New York Times and Gawker report that, among other Conde Nast titles, Cookie magazine will cease publication.

The four-year-old parenting magazine — known for featuring $235-dollar cashmere cardigans … for preschoolers! … and nursery designs that cost more than an emergency c-section — is still offering free gift subscriptions at its website (and I just got a re-up offer in the mail on Saturday).

The publishers broke the news in a company memo Monday morning. The Cookie closure paragraph came after this jaw-dropper: Continue reading »

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The August issue of Parenting: The Early Years rounds up the six friends every mom needs in her life. Sure, writer Patricia Curtis makes some good points. It’s nice to have friends you can relate to or who push you. But not ones that push your buttons, which I’m afraid the glam-mom recommendation does.

Also, she left a few people off the list whom I would be very unhappy to live without. So I added three more friends at the end. Share yours in comments.

The list: Continue reading »

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I have three kids, with four years between each birth. When I want to torture myself, I do the math and recall that, a decade from now, I will have one starting college, one starting high school and one in the fourth grade. For a person who is exactly 12 months younger than her only sibling, this scenario is simply ridiculous. That’s too many years between kids.

Except the four-year stretch has, so far, been pretty good. One at a time in those totally dependent newborn to 3 years. One at a time in daycare (flash-forward to college — one at a time there, too). Plenty of breathing room for everybody.

So what is the optimal number of years between siblings? Eighteen months? Two years? Five? Continue reading »

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My husband and I shared the bed with all three of our babies. We were fine with it and it worked out just fine, especially during the newborn stage.

But we’ve already kicked our son out — he’s six months old — because after two already, I knew that getting them out when they’re older is hard, just hard.

The June issue of Parenting: The Early Years magazine devised a whole system to help parents reclaim their bed. It’s loaded with ideas that sound great. Yet I know from experience they don’t always work.

Here’s their plan in a nutshell:
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