Lifestyle

My husband and I mysteriously arrived back from our month-long trip to Texas with extra baggage. And it seems to be stuck to our waists.

It is so close I can almost feel it – the shackles of early bedtimes and even earlier morning alarms coming off, full evenings free from doing homework and nagging about homework and checking homework, sun-kissed skin and floating around in swimming pools, water balloon fights and bike riding until the sun goes down – summer. It is so close. All we have to do is make it through May.

Pink eye is extremely common in kids. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, public schoolchildren in the U.S. miss 3 million school days each year because of pink eye.

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Disney theme parks have seen the use of their disability services program skyrocket in the last five years. Is it because cheaters are making use of the program to avoid what the majority of park-goers simply endure — the ride queues?

Q: My husband’s sons live with us about 40% of the time and I have my three sons full time. My husband works in another city during the week, so it is sometimes only me and five boys. Now his ex says we need to have the kids 50/50 (and the kids want this as well), and even though my husband is out of town a lot, she still thinks it’s his responsibility to take the kids. In reality it will be me looking after them and I feel that I am doing as much as I can, so I have refused. Am I being unreasonable? What’s good ex-etiquette?

PHILADELPHIA — Anxiety among children and teens is on the rise, and that concerns clinical psychologist and Temple University professor Philip Kendall.

Sparkling Rose may sound like an adult libation at your favorite Italian restaurant, but in the gardening world it is a Superbena or should I say a Super Verbena. Some in the green industry might consider it a novelty bedding plant, mainly due to its coloration. Personally, I don’t like the adjective novelty, mostly because of the dictionary’s No. 2 definition, which is small and inexpensive.

ATLANTA — Emory University clinical psychologist Stephen Nowicki understands the pain that parents feel when their children fret that they have no friends. He’s dedicated his career to helping children foster healthy relationships, and he’s worried we’re making it harder by giving them more time on the internet than on the playground.

PITTSBURGH — It started as a theoretical class project to improve the use of robots in a health care setting. It ended in a trip to California for two Carnegie Mellon students, who lived with a man with quadriplegia for a week as they tested and perfected their robotic interface.

On May 15, 1953, TV Guide ran a profile of Barbara Walters, young producer of a 15-minute children’s program called “Ask the Camera.”