Author: Tammy DiDomenico

Award-winning writer Tammy DiDomenico lives in DeWitt with her husband and two sons.

As our children get closer to adulthood, they develop a greater desire for independence and autonomy. We parents must prepare them for life without us. This is letting go. The process is imperfect. When the balance between attentive parent and teenager-with-burgeoning-self-awareness is askew, harmony can be difficult to maintain. As a parent to two teenagers—18 and 15—I’ve found myself in the midst of a fair share of disagreements. I still have a ways to go before I can declare myself a successful parent of young adults. But I can say that I’ve learned a few things about how best to…

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Right near the front door of Justin and Kristina Bomgren’s Baldwinsville home hangs a recent photo of their two sons. Dominick, 5, is bright-eyed with shiny, dark hair. Evan, 3, is fair-haired with a kind, peaceful face. Both boys are smiling, clearly delighted in each other’s company. Hair color aside, there is a clear family resemblance. But what the photo doesn’t show is that Evan is living with Angelman syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that affects the nervous system. He is an adorable toddler who smiles a lot and loves to be the center of attention. But he also suffers…

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Infertility is an increasingly common problem that affects each woman — and her partner — differently. The physical and emotional stress can be overwhelming. For Nicole Gates of Mattydale, the strain hit hardest nearly two years after she and her husband, Nick, successfully brought their son Jaxson into the world with the help of in vitro fertilization. The couple sought treatment with Robert Kiltz, M.D., at CNY Fertility in Syracuse after Nicole was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome in 2013. Despite her joy in doting on her son, she became consumed by the thought that she might not ever be…

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Allison and Ian Cornue have full lives: Both co-own family businesses, and their Cazenovia home is bustling from the adventures of their little girls — Viola and Arielle — and their affable dog, Wally. As engaged as they are with the day-to-day joys of family life, the memory of their first child —  Caeli Rose — is omnipresent. Allison was a finalist in Family Times’ Mommy + Me Cover Contest, a competition for mothers and their babies born in 2017. In her essay for the contest, she wrote: “A ‘rainbow baby’ is a baby that is born following a miscarriage,…

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It’s 5:12 p.m. on a random-summer weekday evening, and I am struggling to keep up with my 17-year-old son and his friend as we are whisked around the north end of a college campus in northern New York. We were late arriving, as usual. It’s raining, and the guide wants to get us back to the admissions building before the staff leaves for the evening. By now, as this is our 10th campus visit, I’m well aware of how colleges market to students these days: Hype up the abundance of food choices, technology and the sports facilities; head to the…

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Of all the skills elementary students acquire, learning to read is probably the most important. Literacy unlocks all the other skills and information that teachers have to teach and students need to know. The Reading League is an organization whose purpose is to help teachers bring evidence-based practices into their classrooms, and Maria Murray is its founder. The league is a volunteer partnership made up of educators, researchers, school administrators, parents, support specialists, healthcare providers and others. Murray has been a literacy professor at SUNY Oswego since 2008. With the Reading League, which she started two years ago, she focuses…

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