Raising

Post-Holiday Tips

While there are lots of lists around telling us how to survive the holidays, I thought I’d take a different tack and offer a few suggestions for making the most of your post-holiday time: Don’t return anything till after New Year’s. The lines will be shorter, and you’ll be saner. Don’t delay too long, however, […]

Happy Holidays

Happy holidays to you and your families, however you define them. No posts for a few days while we make merry here at our house.

Electric Trains

My partner and I spent much of the last two days trying to get a fifty-year-old electric train to run around our Christmas tree (aka our non-denominational holiday bush) for our train-obsessed son. The trains are part of my ancestral set, which belonged to my uncle, then my brother and me. They’re nothing fancy–low-end O-scale

Christmas Tree Safety

With children in the house, most of us want to be extra-extra careful about household safety (without veering into overprotective paranoia, of course). With that in mind, it’s worth checking out these tips on Christmas tree safety from the National Safety Council. It should go without saying (but I’ll say it just in case) that

Tea May Reduce Ovarian Cancer

A new study by the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, concludes that drinking two or more cups of tea per day may reduce the risk of ovarian cancer. The researchers caution that more study is needed, and that tea drinkers as a group may make healthier lifestyle choices, which may account for the results. I’ve

Dykes on Bikes, Tykes on Trikes: Yikes!

The San Francisco motorcycle group Dykes on Bikes has finally won a trademark for their name, after initial refusals by the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office because of a perception that “dyke” was a derogatory term. Unfortunately, “Tykes on Trikes” seems to be in use by several non-LGBT organizations that either donate tricycles to kids

How to Build a Snowperson

If you’re in the Northeast today, and stuck home with kids watching the fluffy stuff come down, you might take a minute to review these instructions on how to build a snow [person]. OK, it’s really not that hard, and most of us don’t need written instructions. I like the tip about spraying the snowperson

Grilled Cheese Bags

If your kids love grilled cheese as much as mine does, you may be interested in the Toastabags from CHEF’s Catalog. Pop a cold cheese sandwich into these woven fiberglass bags, and slip the whole thing into a wide-slot toaster. Voilà! Melted cheese in minutes, and a clean toaster. At least that’s the claim–haven’t tried

Possible Risk of Bacterial Contamination Through ICSI

Spanish scientists last week reported research findings that indicate a risk of bacterial contamination during the common in-vitro fertilization procedure of intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), where the doctor injects sperm directly into the egg. The research was conducted on mice, not humans, however, and other scientists are saying they don’t believe there is any health

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