A new TIME report discusses the health benefits of having a dog or cat in the home with infants to reduce allergies.
Based on what I read, a study found babies – well, boys anyway – are less likely to have animal allergies later in life if they grow up in a home with a cat or a dog.
Our 10-year-old dog – a lazy pug named Jasmine – was our first “child.” She arrived about two years before the kids, so all three of them have had her to love on …

Welcome to parenting, momma.
Now the real texts arrive.
I haven’t tested this, but it caught my attention, so I decided to pass along the information.
The National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition is offering free, health education via cell phones. When parents sign up for Text4baby, they will receive a weekly message timed to their child’s due date or birth date for their child’s first year. Topics will range from nutrition to immunizations to birth defect prevention.
The texts are offered for free through a partnership with many cell phone plans.
When phone users …

I took my son to his annual visit with the allergist/asthma doc today. How fitting this story about allergies is online.
When my son was 6-months-old, my husband and I found ourselves at Phoenix Children’s Hospital’s emergency room late one night with a wheezing baby (I still have the teddy bear they gave him). Since that night, we’ve had a nebulizer in our home.
The first two years – when kids catch every virus under the sun – it was put to use weekly, sometimes daily.
When he was 2, I tried alternative …

When it comes to seeking words of wisdom or advice, we moms move in circles.
Case in point: When my son was born 8 years ago, a girlfriend recommended we try her pediatrician. He was closer to our house than the one we were seeing. Plus, my friend – a nurse – thought highly of her doctor.
Seven years later I still take my kids to her pediatrician.
Another time, the same friend, recommended I try a daycare center where her child’s Sunday school teacher worked.
I didn’t look elsewhere. My son and daughter …

Alright moms out there. I have a few “questions of the week” to throw out there. Yes, these are challenges at home (though I don’t necessarily fight them….)
I’ve written before that my daughter and I battle over her hair. It’s long and very pretty, but for a while she’s challenged me when it comes time to brush it. The same issue comes up with hair washing! She’ll bathe nightly (or ever other night) but when it comes to showering or throwing shampoo on her hair, I don’t always get it …

The spring sports registration reminder arrived in my e-mail yesterday.
I confess, I did look at the dates and the schedule. Registration is the first part of February. Games would run through May.
I also found myself looking at the gymnastics schedule this week, wondering if my overly eager kids – frustrated with their progress – would benefit from two nights a week at the gym.
But I just signed my son up for his after-school art class. He would be in an after-school program anyway because my husband and I both work …

A learned a valuable lesson from my daughter recently.
Did you know broccoli is best fresh, right in the store, right off the produce aisle?
Yea, I didn’t know that either because I’ve never tried it. But apparently my 4-year-old was out to prove it during a recent grocery trip.
My daughter and son can not be more different when it comes to food choices. She’ll eat every color of the rainbow if it’s a vegetable: raw peppers, carrots, celery, lettuce, broccoli.
I’ve seen the girl devour an entire container of cherry tomatoes in …

With the latest H1N1 flu news from the Feds – as many as half of us could get sick this fall from the virus - my fellow parents and I have started a discussion: Will you get an H1N1 vaccine for your child?
My kids always get a seasonal flu vaccine, and so do I. My husband isn’t always so proactive, but he also doesn’t seem to get as sick. My son and I both have a history of respiratory illness. So as soon as the shot is available each year, I …

So when do you go with the desire of a child or make a decision for him?
My husband and I have always believed in exposing our two kids – now 4 and 7 – to a variety of activites. First, it keeps them physically active and second, it allows them to experience a number of sports to maybe make a decision to focus on one or two.
Plus, I don’t want the kids to have the option to come home every night with hours available to watch TV or play the …

Forgive my absence! My 6-year-old son had his tonsils removed and I took a week off work following the surgery. He did amazing. He slept through the night the last two nights – the first time in a long time that has happened. His post-surgery instructions meant he had to lay low for a week. We stocked up on a few new Lego sets and family came to visit. We rented movies. Just this past weekend we ventured outside. He flew a kite. We have had that kite in the garage …