by Jane Samuel
There is something in my house besides summer’s insects that has been humming along happily since school let out. Filing my children’s brains – one impressionable nine-year-old’s in particular – with fluff and stuff. Fluff like toy ads: “the AMAZING Slushy Magic™ available for only four easy payments of $9.99.” Stuff like potty humor and child-friendly, anti-adult one-liners. […]
by Linda Anderson Krech and Gregg Krech
For many families the start of the school year has a more noticeable impact on day to day life than the start of the calendar year. This is certainly true in our family. As September rolls around, the daily routine of every member of our family, even our dog, changes. […]
by Dr. Barb Depree
What makes sex feel so good? What ignites passion and sustains attachment? What is it that makes your heart flutter? And how can you keep those feelings alive, especially in the bedroom, after 10—or 40—years?
Turns out passion and attraction—all the stuff of poetry, song, and story—are the product of your most ancient brain—the limbic system—which you have in common with lots of other animals and which regulates a chemical stew of neurotransmitters. Emotions, drives, impulses, and desires originate in the limbic system. This part of the brain is wired for pleasure and passion, and it operates independently of our conscious choice or will. […]
Valerie Gillies
Back to school does not bring out the best in dysregulated children. If you are seeing an increase in tantrums, meltdowns, clinginess, or regression to younger behaviors, you are not alone. Children all over America are bouncing off the walls, finishing off the summer with a bang. […]
by Dr. Barb Depree, M.D.
In a post last month we established that folks over 50 are reentering the singles scene with seriously outdated information about the sexually transmitted infections (STIs) that have become commonplace since their own prom nights.
When it comes to older people and STIs, “don’t ask; don’t tell” is the MO. Doctors don’t think to ask Grandma about her sex life, and Grandma sure ain’t talking. […]
by Jane Samuel
Four years ago, I naively walked through the life of a middle-aged woman with not much thought to the loss of a parent, let alone the loss of my mother. Then the dominoes in our lives began to line up, teeter and fall – some swiftly, some slowly, all painfully. […]
by Dr. Barb Depree, M.D.
In our little roundup of sexually transmitted infections, maybe you’ve noticed that many of them have no symptoms, and others mimic common illnesses like the flu or a urinary tract infection.
The take-away? There’s no way to know if you’re carrying an STI without getting tested. And there’s no way to prevent reinfection unless your partner gets tested, too. […]
by Valerie Gillies
And I would run away
I would run away, yeah…, yeah
I would run away
I would run away with you
Cause I am falling in love with you
No never I’m never gonna stop
Falling in love with you
The Corrs “Runaway”
I use music like a pyromaniac uses gasoline. It’s a mood accelerant. Sad? I can be sadder in a flash. Elated? Romantic? Hyper? There’s a tune for just about everything. Technological improvements, like the iPod I can’t quite master, caused me to misplace some of my favorite tunes. How appropriate it was that I found the loaded CD holder yesterday, the first of my 48 days of summer. I popped in Runaway and was swept back nearly 20 years, late at night after all four chicken pox ridden children had finally collapsed, my lover and I falling into each other’s arms in the dim light, and slow dancing around the kitchen. I don’t dance. But I did. And it felt so good that my mind captured it like the rare prize that it was, and beautifully stored it in sensurround. […]
Dear Reader: Today is the the last day of school for my two youngest children. Tomorrow, they will begin the long summer wait for the next school year to start. This cyclical passing of time is short-lived, I know, punctuated by those all-familiar rituals which change as they (and I) age. This essay is in homage to them and the reality that time is truly fleeting…
Today, I waved to both my daughter and son as they rode away on the school bus. It was the silly kind of wave – two arms flailing, and me jumping up and down as if I was flagging down a passing ship. I made the heart sign to them and blew them both a kiss. We all continued waving until the bus was out of sight. Walking back to my house, I had a lump in my throat. I am so sad. The times they are a’changing… […]
by Elizabeth Gregory
Like quite a few people I know, I had my first child in my late thirties–39 to be exact. My maternal grandmother had a child at 39, too, but that girl was her eighth baby and her last.
This difference summed up for me the change that had occurred in two generations, when I started writing a book about the new later motherhood–its causes and effects, personal and social. Where 1 in 12 first babies these days is born to a mom 35 or over, it was 1 in 100 in 1970. Add in the adoptive moms, and you’ve got a big group. […]