Our bedtime routine with our older son Henry goes as follows: my husband, Chris, reads him a story or two and I make one up while tickling his back. My story always involves a character called the Baby Dragon, who is usually separated from his mom, and a boy named Henry, who becomes the dragon's guardian and savior and eventually reunites the Baby Dragon with his mother. The recurrence of "a boy named Henry," or the idea that his namesake could appear in the third-person, somehow never gets old. And whether the characters have to take a magic carpet ride or a dozen balloons to find the Mommy Dragon, I infuse the stories with enough details from Henry's real life that he recognizes them. I think I think the key is to give equal weight to the magical and the quotidian so that kids see their lives as something special.

Have a tip or trick to share? Email us!

There is a lot of pressure on date night, and, the truth is sometimes it's the "night" part that seems untenable for new parents. We are simply too damn tired! When my younger son was born and my husband and I were wading through those first days of sleeplessness, we would enlist grandparents or hire a babysitter to come for a couple of hours during the day on the weekend so that we could have an outing together without yawning. The "day date," as we call it, takes the pressure off getting weekend night reservations (it's far easier to get into a good restaurant for lunch or to a bar at 4 pm for a late afternoon beer).  Perhaps the biggest bonus is that strolling around aimlessly during the day with your mate will unearth your carefree childless early adulthood.

Have a tip or trick to share? Email us!

I will most likely never make a baby book for either of my kids. I wish I were that kind of mom, but I'm not, and I've decided not to beat myself up about it. That said, I was thrilled to read Dan Ferraro's piece (in the second issue of Cookie) on setting up Gmail accounts for his babies to record their formative years. I took his advice and, for the past three years, have been sending emails to my boys (Henry, 4, and Willem, 2) in hopes that they'll someday read them and keep them as artifacts of their childhoods. My messages to them range from multi-paragraph love letters on their birthdays to one-liners that document a particularly funny or poignant phrase that comes out of their mouths-like the time a friend of ours was staying with us and woke up to Henry (an inch from his face) exclaiming, "Can you believe it's morning already?" Sometimes I'll send them pictures from the day's events.  I've also asked grandparents and loved ones to email them after visits. It's the new, modernized baby scrapbook, I think, that will give them an even clearer mental snapshot of who they were at the age of 4 when they review this stuff at age 20, 30, 40...

Have a tip or trick to share? Email us!

By the time I'm done cooking dinner, getting the kids ready for bed, reading bedtime stories, washing dishes, sorting through mail, and picking up toys, the last thing I want to do is go through the whole face-cleansing and moisturizing ritual. Our beauty editor suggested that I get my skin routine out of the way the minute I get home. So now, that's what I do (right after I walk in the door and change into my comfy outfit). It took a bit of getting used to, but once I got in the habit, I found it to be an end-of-the-night sanity saver. If only I didn't have to brush and floss and brush before bed...

Have a tip or trick to share? Email us!

Just before Ratatouille opened in theaters, I bookmarked on my laptop Pixar's nine-minute preview of the film so it was at the ready when I needed a quick (but not too quick!) distraction for my four-year-old, Henry.  Nine minutes -- or even five -- feels like an eternity when I'm trying to chop an onion or navigate the maze of automated instructions on the bank's customer "service" hotline. The rodent-tastic trailer is long enough to offer reprieve but not so long that it counts as a whole program. In short, guilt-free TV!

I'm scrambling for the next animated diversion but unfortunately can't find anything that runs longer than four minutes. I'll definitely be keeping tabs on the Wall E site, though. At the moment, only the two-minute trailer is up, but hopefully Pixar will provide a lengthier preview (like the Ratatouille one) as we get closer to the film's release on June 27.

In the meantime, try these almost-as-effective averters: Disney shorts, "That's How You Know" from Enchanted, Bee Movie Trailers (releases on DVD today!), and National Geographic videos.

With any luck, you'll be the only one crying as you chop that onion!

Have a tip or trick to share? Email us!