The bun has been in the oven for nine months, and now it's toasted golden brown. Time to get it out!

Jolie Kerr is a cleaning expert, advice columnist, and author of the New York Times bestselling book, My Boyfriend Barfed In My Handbag ... And Other Things You Can't Ask Martha. Her flagship column, "Ask a Clean Person", debuted in 2011. Here on Lifehacker, we've launched a new iteration of it, focusing on parenting and all the messes it brings. 

Whether you're trying to coerce an energetic toddler into the bath or a less-than-energetic preteen into taking their (much-needed) daily shower, you may be facing what feels like an uphill battle to get your kids clean.

Jolie Kerr is a cleaning expert, advice columnist and author of the New York Times bestselling book, My Boyfriend Barfed In My Handbag... And Other Things You Can't Ask Martha. Her flagship column, "Ask a Clean Person", debuted in 2011. Here on Lifehacker, we've launched a new iteration of it, focusing on parenting and all the messes it brings. 

It's a long weekend, you guys! That means family visits, winter hikes and traffic headaches. Now, in my family we generally we decide to pack up right after Friday breakfast, but because we have two small kids and are fairly disorganised, we inevitably end up leaving at pretty much the worst possible time for long-weekend travel: After lunch on Friday.

An anonymous mother wrote a piece for Today titled "How to Imagine the Unimaginable". It's the type of story that as a parent, you can't bear to read, which means that you must (though do be warned that it deals with sexual abuse).

Every parent has offered incentives: "If you're patient while I get the tyres rotated, we'll get ice cream afterwards." Or, "if you play nicely with your cousin, you can use the iPad before dinner." Teachers certainly have used behaviour rewards for time out of mind - but offering incentives for behaviour isn't necessarily the best way to build character and increase motivation.

I was three and a half months pregnant when my partner and I separated, and I suddenly had to rearrange my life around something I'd never anticipated: single parenthood. In operatic moments, I made mental ledgers of all the things I'd likely have to give up as a sole caretaker: my demanding career, my exercise routine, my friends, reading, going out to dinner, going out to movies, going out at all. I was terrified to parent alone.

Parenting can feel like a long practice in trying not lose your shit. You will fail sometimes. That's OK. The best thing you can do is accept that it happens and find ways to mitigate the explosion.

Your kid's birthday party is coming up! Have you figured out where you're gonna put the petting zoo? Are the 1000 butterflies ready for their release? Did you remember to book your the child's favourite band and name the party -chella? You did confirm that the skydiving Trolls will be dropping in after the mermaid laser show, right?

When it comes to teens getting enough sleep, numerous forces are working against them. Early school start times are wreaking havoc on their circadian rhythms. An overload of after-school activities is turning bedtime into gotta-start-on-homework time. The buzz of texts from friends, the screens shining in their faces and the constant lure of just one more game or episode of Riverdale are keeping their brains wired well into the night. And all the lectures coming from concerned mums and dads seem to be dissolving into thin air because, well, adolescence. And so they slog through their days, cranky and short-fused and barely able to respond to basic questions. As parents, you wonder if there's anything you can do to help.

My seven-year-old daughter has gotten into some straight-up terrible TV shows of late. While I'm glad one of them is a magical-girl show like Sailor Moon, which organically extends her genre palette, it's absolutely awful. I long for simpler times - times when I'd watch Peppa Pig with her.

It happens to every parent eventually. One moment, your child is asking innocent questions about the Wiggles. The next, they want to know where babies come from. I call it the 'awkward question time-bomb' - it comes without warning and poor preparation can be catastrophic. Here are some firsthand tips from a survivor to help you get prepared.

You knew it would happen, but you never thought it would happen this fast: Your child has become a teen. And now, suddenly, everything about you is annoying or embarrassing - the shirt you're wearing, the way you walk, the questions you ask, the gifts you buy, the pace at which you spread cream cheese on your bagel. The kid can't stand being around you.

Relationships are hard. Parenting is hard. Combine those two and you're in for some bumps in the road large enough to rival those rutted rainforest paths that break your axle and pop your tires. No two people can agree on everything. Not even, or especially not, how to raise a kid to be a functional member of society.

Video: When you read to kids, you do so much more than "reading" - you put on a performance and hold a conversation. You do voices, you show them the pictures, and you follow the special cadence of kids' books.

Dexter, my ten year-old, recently blew the dust off an old skateboard he found in our garage and started taking tentative runs down the driveway that reminded me of his wobbling first steps.

In those early days of new parenthood, a trip to the doctor's office for a baby check-up can feel like a grand occasion. Aside from giving you a reason to put on pants and interact with real-life adults, it's an opportunity to finally get some quantifiable data on this tiny being whose existence of eating, sleeping and pooing can seem so erratic. The big test is when the nurse takes your baby's measurements.

High school and university students are suffering from unprecedented levels of anxiety, and anyone raising teenagers these days knows they're coping with huge amounts of stress. This goes double for girls, who have what Rachel Simmons calls "role overload" in her book Enough as She Is: How to Help Girls Move Beyond Impossible Standards of Success to Live Healthy, Happy and Fulfilling Lives. Girls have to be smart and beautiful and athletic and ... they have to look as though playing all these roles takes no effort at all.