The kid in the crib

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Jane Roper

"What do you do when you find out you're pregnant - times two? When Jane Roper found out she was pregnant with twins, she searched high and low for a memoir of the first years with multiples, but came up empty-handed. Four years later, she wrote the book she wished she'd had as a new mother of twins. Double Time is an entertaining, up-close and very personal look at Jane Roper's first three years raising twin daughters. From trying to get pregnant to processing the idea of twins, from round the clock feedings and diaper changes to the joy of watching "twinteractions" between her girls as their (very different!) personalities emerge, Jane tells all. Meanwhile, she struggles to keep a history of depression under control--and find answers when her symptoms get worse. All this while falling steadily in love with her duo as they grow from sleepy newborns to mischievous toddlers with a penchant for potty talk. Full of warmth, honesty, occasional advice, and more than a little humor, Double Time is a smart and engaging account of the first three years with multiples, as well as a refreshingly candid and vulnerable look at parenting, clinical depression, and the quest for work-family balance. It's Jane Roper's story, but it's one that will resonate with countless women--especially those parenting in double time"-- "Double Time is an up-close and very personal look at Jane Roper's first three years raising twin daughters. From trying to get pregnant to wrapping her head around the idea of twins, from round the clock feedings and diaper changes to coping with the Sisyphean logistics of two babies, double tantrums and differing rates of development, from trying to be super-mom to struggling to keep a history of depression under control, Jane Roper tells her story in a voice that is funny, self-deprecating, smart and completely natural. Full of honesty, warmth, occasional advice, and more than a little humor, Double Time is a smart and engaging account of the first three years with multiples, as well as a refreshingly vulnerable and honest look at clinical depression, the struggle for "me time" (hah!), and falling in love with a devilish little duo who are determined not to nap at the same time"--

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Anya Kamenetz

"No sooner is a child walking and talking than the ABCs and 1-2-3s give way to the full-on alphabet soup: the ERBs, the OLSAT, the IQ, the NCLB for AYP, the IEP for ELLs, the CHAT and PDDST for ASD or LD and G&T or ADD and ADHD, the PSATs, then the ACTs and SATs-all designed to assess and monitor a child's readiness for education. In many public schools, students are spending up to 28% of instructional time on testing and test prep. Starting this year, the introduction of the Common Core State Standards Initiative in 45 states will bring an unprecedented level of new, more difficult, and longer mandatory tests to nearly every classroom in the nation up to five times a year-forcing our national testing obsession to a crisis point. Taxpayers are spending extravagant money on these tests-up to $1.4 billion per year-and excessive tests are stunting children's spirits, adding stress to family life, and slowly killing our country's future competitiveness. Yet even so, we still want our kids to score off the charts on every test they take, in elementary school and beyond. And there will be a lot of them. How do we preserve space for self-directed learning and development, while also asking our children to make the score and make a mark? This book is an exploration of that dilemma, and a strategy for how to solve it. The Test explores all sides of this problem-where these tests came from, why they're here to stay, and ultimately what you as a parent or teacher can do. It introduces a set of strategies borrowed from fields as diverse as games, neuroscience, social psychology, and ancient philosophy to help children do as well as they can on tests, and, just as important, how to use the experience of test-taking to do better in life. Like Paul Tough's bestseller How Children Succeed, it illuminates the emerging science of grit, curiosity and motivation, but takes a step further to explore innovations in education-emerging solutions to the over-testing crisis-that are not widely known but that you can adapt today, at home and at school. And it presents the stories of families of all kinds who are maneuvering within and beyond the existing educational system, playing and winning the testing game. You'll learn, for example, what Bill Gates, a strong public proponent of testing, does to stoke self-directed curiosity in his children, and how Mackenzie Bezos, wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and mother of three, creates individualized learning experiences for each of her children. All parents want their children to be successful, and their schools to deliver true opportunities. Yet these goals are often as likely to result in stress and arguments as actual progress. The Test is a book to help us think about these problems, and ultimately, move our own children towards the future we want for them, from elementary to high school and beyond. "-- "In many public schools, students are spending up to 28 percent of instructional time on testing and test prep. Starting this year, the introduction of the Common Core State Standards Initiative in 45 states will bring an unprecedented level of new, more difficult, and longer mandatory tests to nearly every classroom in the nation up to five times a year--forcing our national testing obsession to a crisis point. Taxpayers are spending extravagant money on these tests--up to $1.4 billion per year--and excessive tests are stunting children's spirits, adding stress to family life, and slowly killing our country's future competitiveness. Yet even so, we still want our kids to score off the charts on every test they take, in elementary school and beyond. And there will be a lot of them. This book is an exploration of that dilemma, and a strategy for how to solve it"--

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Mark Yakich

"Your wife is killed by a cashew (anaphylactic shock), but there isn't time to grieve because your toddler son is always at your heels--wanting to be fed, to be played with, or to sleep next to you all night long. A change of pace seems necessary, so you decide to visit your parents in order to attend your twenty-year high school reunion. What begins as a weekend getaway quickly becomes a theater for dealing with the past--a past that you will have to re-imagine in order to have any hope of a future for you and your son."--Page 4 of cover.

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Gina Wilkins

It's the perfect place for a wedding ... and Paul Drennan's daughter will make a beautiful bride. But Bride Mountain Inn co-owner Bonnie Carmichael only has eyes for the father of the bride. Too bad she's already married--to the inn itself. Still, if anyone could make her think of her desires, it's this sexy single dad. Marrying off his only child, Paul can taste freedom for the first time in two decades and falling for the wedding planner is not on his agenda! Until spending time with Bonnie makes him rethink his future plans.