ArcaMax

For children, vacations pass in a haze of pleasantness.

Distance and inconvenience disappear into a fog of naps, snacks and entertainment, and they never have to remember to check the plane's seatback pocket. They don't see a check at a restaurant, examine the line items on a hotel bill or set an alarm to make an early flight.

I, however, am ...Read more

In Greece, members of parliament come from dozens of political parties, varying on the spectrum from neo-fascists with logos eerily evocative of swastikas to Putin-sympathetic communists.

You might call it chaotic, with some seats occupied by fringe extremists and parties forced to align with those with whom they share only a loose ...Read more

Let's say you've seen a picture, one that shows a curly-haired toddler, his eyes glazed with confusion as he sits on a stranger's lap.

Let's say the Highland Park police release the photo publicly, disseminating it far and wide, trying to find the boy's parents. Maybe you wonder, "What could have kept his parents from him?"

Let's say you ...Read more

I'm too young to have an arthritic hip.

That's what I tell myself while I rub prescription gel in to numb a sharp, insistent pain that is most certainly not from arthritis.

I'm too young to need reading glasses, let alone go up in magnification, I say as I shop online for 1.5 strength "cheaters."

These lidocaine patches ...Read more

I'm planning an overseas flight with my kids this summer, and I have a bad feeling.

Not because of COVID (though that promises now to, forever, be a problem), not because of tensions between Turkey and Greece (though that could get ugly fast) and not because I've seen post after post warning that travel this year will be hellacious.

It's ...Read more

I got my first gray hair at 16.

It wasn't entirely unexpected. My dad -- who also went prematurely gray -- had dyed his hair since I was a child.

Even so, it made me nervous to find that silvery strand, seeing decades' worth of hair dye in my future, stretching out in expensive hair salon appointments as far as the eye could see.

I decided, ...Read more

When summer approaches, some diet, hoping to get their bodies swimsuit-ready. Me? I'm getting my stomach prepared for summer food.

Winter might offer soup, casseroles and chili, but it can't hold a candle to summer's riot of tastes.

From appetizers to dessert, summer's got it all. There are drinks -- iced tea, sweetened or black, and cold beer...Read more

The post appeared on Facebook, the last refuge of those with no other options.

"Our community is desperate," Kimberly Endrizzi wrote in her plea. "We have kids drinking expired formula because it's better than nothing."

She described how her 4-year-old son Greyson has a rare metabolic disorder called phenylketonuria, or PKU, and needs a ...Read more

Either parenting has gotten exponentially harder in the last two-plus years, or I've developed in that same time Olympic-level complaining skills.

I'm willing to accept the latter possibility if everyone else accepts the former.

I'm also willing to accept that it's gotten harder to be anything in this country: a neighbor, a co-worker, a person...Read more

When I finally gave up on what had been both a herculean and a Sisyphean effort to breastfeed, resigning my lanolin and breast pump to mere props in my nightmares, I wanted to know more about alternatives to breastfeeding.

I asked my dad, who grew up in the mountains of Greece with no electricity and no weekly pediatrician visits, what did ...Read more