• by Author and Relationship Expert Marina Sbrochi for GalTime.com

    Dealing with Divorce Over the Holiday Season Dealing with Divorce Over the Holiday Season making holidays happy when you're a single parent

    Managing the holidays when you are married with children definitely takes some finesse and strategy. Sometimes just the negotiating where to go can even be rough - "Should we alternate years for Thanksgiving and so on? OR Do we visit one house, then the other if we live in the same town?" Forget simplicity if both families live out of town.

    Now, throw a divorce on top of the holiday visiting mix. Not only are you splitting the holidays more than two ways , you are splitting custody of the your children on these holidays.

    Can I get a magic calendar please? Can we clone the children? While cloning the kids or waving a glitter-filled wand would be an easy fix, it's not likely to happen. So what's the divorced parent to do?

    Sometimes when the divorce is plain old nasty - the courts will tell you what to do. Not fun for anyone. Of course, I advocate being

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  • potty trainingpotty trainingI see that headline: Potty train your toddler in a weekend! And the skeptic in me says, OH REALLY? I don't remember how long exactly it took me to potty train my son. It's been a few years now. I just remember it was more of a process than a couple of days. So when I saw that headline again this morning, "Potty Train Your Toddler in a Weekend," I thought it sounded too good to be true.

    More from The Stir: Potty Training Works When You Break All the Rules

    But when I took a closer look, it actually looked ... realistic! Look, every kid is different and every family's experience is unique. But there are a few basic principles that make the whole potty experience work. Here's what I think works about this approach -- from the vantage point of hindsight.

    1. It's not really "just" a weekend. There's prep work before, and there's followup after, and then it's actually more like a three-day weekend, and results may very. The point is, telling yourself that you can make this

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  • 21 Things Not to Do After a C-Section

    By | Parenting – Mon, Nov 26, 2012 10:24 AM EST

    mom babymom babySo you had a c-section. It happens to even the crunchiest mamas among us. Things don't go according to plan, you end up with some severe something, lives are in danger, and cesarean it is. It can be a hard reality for some women, but we can't rewind to do anything differently so we have to press on ... and find some sort of humor in it. Because laughing does help -- though good Grover it's going to hurt like heck if you laugh too hard.

    More from The Stir: A Love Letter to C-Section Moms (That Everyone Should Read)

    Grab a pillow, especially you c-section mamas still in the recovery stage, and hold it softly against your belly because there may be some chuckles here mixed into the list of the things I think you should never ever do after a c-section.

    1. Don't waste 32,446 hours lamenting over the fact you didn't have a vaginal birth.
    2. Don't make the anti-cesarean-no-matter-what crowd get you down. There aren't a lot of them -- they just are loud. Not even midwife
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  • pregnancy testpregnancy testYou've deliberated long and hard with your spouse and it's time: You're ready to start a family! Time to make the baby. Whee! For most people this is the easy part, right? Just stop using birth control and just -- well, you know what to do. BUT WAIT! Don't throw those birth control pills away quite yet.

    There's a few things every couple should do before they try to conceive. (Or, for that matter, if you're sexually active -- Tequlia Sue and Fertile Myrtle.) You'll want to make sure you're in good health before you start that baby making. Here's a few things you should put on your to-do list.

    More from The Stir: The 7 Worst Reasons to Get Pregnant

    1. Take folic acid. If you're not already taking this supplement, start taking 400 micrograms now and keep taking it through your pregnancy. It can help prevent a certain kinds of birth defects. You can get folate from green leafy vegetables and enriched grains, too.

    2. Get a full preconception checkup. Tell your doctor

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