Posts by Trisha Leigh Zeigenhorn

Heading into your office and finding a complete and utter mess isn’t anyone’s idea of a good morning – not even when the culprit is totally cute. As a mom of a toddler, I can definitely attest to that fact. When Australian Bree Blakeman opened the door to her office at Australian National University in...

Pets can be a lot like little kids sometimes: they’re stubborn, they don’t like to be told ‘no,’ they think they know better than you, and, yes, many times they have to learn their lessons the hard way. For instance, you can tell your dog (or your toddler) that we don’t mess with bees because...

Books are one of the best things in the world. And if you asked a good number of people, they would probably say that Star Wars is another of the best things in the world. And regardless of all of the controversies that have surrounded the series through the decades, one thing has never changed:...

Bloggers, vloggers, Instagrammers, and social media influencers are the new normal – millions of people subscribe to the channels and posts of people who (often) have zero qualifications to give advice about anything. But the Internet doesn’t care about what you know, it only cares about what you say you know – and also how...

If you have a dog, you know the drill – even if it’s so hot you’re dripping sweat and can literally feel your skin burning, and even if it’s so cold you can barely hold a leash with your frozen fingers, they’re absolutely not going to do their business until they find the perfect spot....

There have been multiple studies (and also people claiming to know stuff who basically make it up based on personal experience) about the role that birth order plays in our personality and development. It seems first-borns are leaders, and also more prone to anxiety. Youngest kids are spoiled, middle kids are good at fending for...

Beloved and time honored children’s character Winnie the Pooh is, in fact, a bear. He lives in the woods, he eats honey, he loves to sleep, he looks like a bear…all of the signs are there. So why, then, is he referred to as “the pooh?” And what exactly IS a pooh, anyway? I have...

In real life, people can be with whomever they want – young-young, young-old, it doesn’t matter. In Hollywood, though, age gaps get a little more political. And while Hollywood is notorious for pairing older actors with younger actresses as love interests, some of these movie age gaps – not all of which are even romantic...

There are many reasons to lament the demise of glaciers around the world – for one, they are the visual proof that the earth is warming, no matter what the weather outside your window or the politicians in their offices want to claim. For another, many of them have been around for millennia, and as...

There are cool inventions, and then there are products that are so brilliantly simple and totally useful that you turn green with envy, unable to believe that you didn’t think of it first (and you aren’t the one now making bank). Inventing things is harder than you think, though, and there’s a good chance the...

We all knew that one kid in school – the one who sat in the back of the room (or in the front, if they really dgaf), picked their nose like they were mining for gold, and ate their findings with relish. It was gross, right? Unnatural. Something you would never do as an adult,...

When I saw there was a Goodreads poll looking for this answer, I had some ideas on what might win the day – Something by Tolstoy? Gravity’s Rainbow? Grapes of Wrath? Turns out it’s none of those (though I, personally, have quit all and feel no regrets on the topic). In 2013, Goodreads compiled members’...

Technology and screen time are one of the most talked about, if not the biggest, challenge facing parents of this new generation today. How much, how often, what kind, how much control and supervision – the list of potential landmines is endless, ever-growing, and starts before your child even speaks his first word. Every parent...

The fact that the Coca-Cola at McDonald’s is the very best version of the product – bottled, canned, or fountain – has long been a well-accepted fact among enthusiasts everywhere. And while we know that it used to be the “best” because it contained traces of actual cocaine, they swear that’s no longer the case....

Until you’re a parent, you can’t know how normal it will be to talk about another person’s bowel movements. It’s natural, somehow, to be in the room when your child smells it up. You wipe, you wash, same routine – even though it’s not your butt. And if this describes your life, well, then you,...