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s your wife a strict disciplinarian, while you prefer to let things slide? Is your husband a screamer, and you're an "inside voice" kind of mom? When you have different parenting styles, it can often feel like you're at odds with your spouse. "My husband doesn't seem to see half of what our son does," laments Christine Richards, a mom in suburban New York. "I don't want him to grow up badly behaved, so I end up being the heavy."

Have a good cop/bad cop situation brewing in your home? Here are strategies from Harvey Karp, M.D., author of The Happiest Toddler on the Block (Bantam), for navigating this common parenting conundrum.--read more

t’s hard to resist quick-and-dirty medical tests. After all, they’re fast, easy, cheap and noninvasive. The only problem is that their accuracy is limited. For the past several decades, the standard quick-and-dirty test for obesity has been the Body Mass Index (BMI): Multiply your weight in pounds by 703, and divide the result by the square of your height in inches. A normal BMI is 18.5 to 25; anything over that means you’re overweight. Sure it’s easy -- all you need is a calculator -- but is it accurate?--read more

This simple salad, made with corn, fresh basil and orzo (small pasta that resembles rice) is just right for summer menus. Low in fat and full of flavor, it can be served as a side dish or turned into a main course by being tossing in cooked chicken, grilled salmon or any other cooked meat.--read more

• To give a room a taller feeling, place matching tall plants in the corners and add a torchiere light behind a sofa or chairs for extra illumination.
• Buy a brass knocker for your front door. Consider having it monogrammed.
• Bring out your good china, glassware, silver and placemats, place them somewhere where they accessible so that once a month you can use them for dinner when you cook a special meal with a theme
• Turn an ugly old tub into a nicer combination tub-shower or just a glass-enclosed shower.

Click through for more great tips!--read more