If you knew you could save your child from a lifetime of pain you would.

If you could save your child from an early death you would certainly do that too.

What if while doing those things you could also pick their intelligence? Their height and their ability to run fast? Those things may also help them as they go through life, wouldn't they?

I have just returned from volunteering with Scientist in the Schools, in my son's grade three classroom.

I'm not sure that one day a term is really a way to make kids excited about science, though the leader assured me that as long  as the teacher continues with the themes, the kids learn scientific concepts throughout the term.

Well, that's a big if in a French Immersion classroom with a lot of kids, chaos, and other curriculum necessities on the list. I'm not so sure that kids are learning too much science in elementary schools. So science concepts sort of all into the we do at home bag. One thing that a primary teacher once told me is that the kids who bake with their parents regularly are farther ahead in math and science when they arrive at primary school.

There are lots of risk factors when trying to conceive with IVF (in-vitro fertilization) and one of the big ones is weight, the other is age.

Wanna-be mothers can't do anything about their age, but they can perhaps do something about their weight. Doctors in Canada are discussing banning obese women from receiving IVF.

Helicopter parents are getting blamed for everything these days. First they are stunting their kids emotionally, and now they are making their kids clumsy and fat.

Researchers were studying playground design by observing how kids interact with the equipment, and the one thing they noticed was that the parents kept getting in the way. The researchers realized over the seven-week study that whenever the parents were around, kids were only half as likely to engage in active behaviour.

A study released last week proves what many had suspected: when a man becomes a father his testosterone drops - substantially.

The researchers measured testosterone levels in 624 men when their levels were high and what they found is that five years after parenthood the levels dropped as much as 34% in the men. The steepest drops were in the men who spent the most time caring for and hanging out with their kids. 

My daughter has mild eczema and when it gets itchy I put on this beautiful, organic, locally-produced cream full of essential oils and well-researched plant extracts.

And when that doesn't work, I pull out the cortisone.

I have found the answer to why men can open the fridge and can not past the first shelf, and why kids can’t find their library books on the bookshelf marked Library or their rainboots in the cupboard.

I glanced at the Social Studies: A Daily Miscellany of Information in the Globe and Mail a few weeks ago and this headline caught my eye: Can’t See It For Looking? The tidbit  referenced a Duke University study that found that airport security employees may miss a deadly box cutter if they find a water bottle first. They did a series of tests and found that identifying easy to spot items diverted people away from finding the more hidden items.

I have a potty mouth. Everyone knows it, except my kids. Every time my husband drops the F-bomb (usually at another driver but sometimes at the raccoons digging up the grass) he tells the kids that I am much worse than him. And I agree.

And that, I tell my kids is the key to swearing. Knowing when to use it.

There was an infamous study in the 60s about marshmallows, four-year olds and self-control. Researchers placed a marshmallow in front of a 4-year old child and told them that they were going to leave the room and if the child did not eat the marshmallow then they would get a second one, and if they did eat it, then there would only be that one and only. Kids used all kinds of methods to avoid eating the sticky goodness, and the ones who tried to ignore the temptation were the ones who were the most successful at waiting. But the ones whotempted fate by licking or smelling the marshmallow rarely made it through five minutes, let alone fifteen. The study caught up with these kids years later and guess what?