We’ve blogged before about parental do-overs, things you’d do differently if you had another child. One thing to add to my list: get a bigger diaper bag.

My diaper bag seemed plenty big before my son was born, with a roomy interior and a plethora of pockets to put bottles and wipes, a toy or two, and maybe even some stuff of my own, like an extra cardigan and a magazine.

But now that I have a kid, now 17 months, I find myself toting an extraordinary–and seemingly necessary– amount of stuff. My bag is always bursting, causing the pockets to bulge and necessitating me to carry an extra tote bag or two just for the overflow.

Who knew such a little guy could generate so much stuff? But I guess one of the tricks of being a parent is to have lots of “just in case” contingency gear on hand, since kids are anything but predictable. Let’s see: there are the diapers, wipes, changing pad, diaper cream, purell, sunscreen (we live in hot, sunny Texas), hat, a sippy cup, some snacks, usually a zip-loc bag with his lunch, a couple of toys or books and an extra change of clothes (in case an accident happens). When he was younger, I also toted around a blanket, burp cloths, and some gear for nursing, like pads and a nursing cover, and stuck in a sling, in case I needed to go hands-free. All of that, plus my own stuff—keys, wallet, phone, sweater, reading material (I can never go without)—never quite fits.

Mysteriously, whenever my husband and son go off together, my husband manages to efficiently carry just a small bag. I still haven’t quite figured out how he does it, although I bet wearing clothes with roomy pockets helps a lot.

And don’t get me started on traveling long-distance. On planes, my kid’s gear invariably ends up creeping into the space of my fellow row-mates. And our car has turned into a packhorse of its own, or a small nursery/kitchen, with all the toys and cheerios strewn inside. (I don’t know how we would have functioned back in New York, without a car to tote and store stuff.)

On the blog Strollerderby, a mom recounts how she, too, has become a packhorse because of her 3-year-old. “STUFF has taken over our vacations. Bags of it,” she writes. She also cites a recent New York Times piece in which the essayist writes of the “plane shame” she feels traveling with her small daughter, because of all the gear she carries: “I was once a streamlined business traveler. I was efficient, rarely checking a bag…I would breeze through security. Now, I look like a refugee fleeing a burning village, with all of my belongings on my back.”

Readers, do you often feel like packhorses–either because of your kids’s stuff, or because of your own things–when you head out of the house? Any tips to be more streamlined, especially with kids’ gear, when traveling?

The Juggle wishes all of you a happy holiday weekend!

A frustrated reader wrote my “Work & Family Mailbox” to complain that one of the federal government’s biggest child-care tax breaks for working parents – the employer-sponsored dependent care flexible spending account – isn’t working for his family. He asks about prospects for improving it.

These accounts are an important benefit for working parents, because they allow payment of up to $5,000 of child-care expenses with pretax dollars. Depending on your tax rate, signing up can save thousands of dollars in taxes.

My accountant repeatedly urged me to use my employer’s plan. However, the accounts have some problems. The $5,000 ceiling on eligible child-care expenses hasn’t been raised since the original federal legislation was passed in 1986, and it’s way out-of-date. The dad who contacted me says he and his wife spend more than twice that amount on child care. Since 1986, inflation has slashed the value of the tax break nearly in half, says a spokeswoman for Corporate Voices for Working Families, a nonprofit backing a change in the limit.

A bipartisan move is afoot in both houses of Congress to raise the cap, but worries about the federal budget deficit loom as a major obstacle. The House proposal, co-sponsored by Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky) and Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Tex), would raise the limit to $7,500 from $5,000. A Senate bill co-sponsored by Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Me.), would make it $7,500 for one dependent, and $10,000 for two or more dependents. Both measures would provide for raising the cap as necessary to keep pace with inflation. Opposition is expected to surface, because the changes would cut into federal revenue amid spiraling deficits.

The proposals don’t address another practical barrier for many families – the requirement by many plans that caregivers be licensed or certified by the state before payments to them are eligible. That cuts out a large number of parents with caregivers who don’t meet these standards. These may include unlicensed providers who are providing care legally, but want to avoid the red tape required to gain certification. This also may include illegal immigrants, or nannies who are paid “off the books,” a setup I don’t recommend.

Also, the accounts aren’t available to everyone; about 70% of employers offer them, according to the Society for Human Resource Management. Flexible spending accounts aren’t an option for self-employed people or small-business owners who lack cafeteria benefits plans; these taxpayers may be eligible to take child-care tax credits on their income-tax returns, however.

I only participated in my employer’s plan for a few of my 13 years of using child care. Sometimes, the paperwork hassles were too daunting. Most of the time, I was using child-care providers who were legal, but didn’t qualify.

Readers, do you have access to a flexible spending account? If so, how useful has it been for you? In general, do you think working parents should be given more government help with rising child-care costs, despite other priorities such as trimming the federal budget deficit?

This post is going to be more than 140 characters long, making it useless for the latest diversion that’s worked its way into my juggle: Twitter.

For a long time, I resisted joining up with the microblogging service, which broadcasts users’ comments and links via mobile devices and the Web in 140-character-or-less bursts called tweets. I was already spending a lot of time on Facebook, which I’ve found very useful in coordinating my social life as well as in networking. Twitter seemed like a repository of self-indulgence that wouldn’t add much to my life. But with the buzz about the service growing, I gave in and signed up in early May.

It wasn’t that interesting at first, but as I began “following” more people (and news organizations, like the Journal and the New York Times), I found to my surprise that Twitter was far more entertaining and useful than I’d expected. The entertainment comes from the often funny (and, by necessity, always pithy) tweets from both friends and strangers. One I enjoyed from comic actor Rob Corddry: “Watching both kids. When people say ‘they grow up so fast’ I want to slap them right in their bad memory.”

The useful part is that Twitter can be a great way to both learn of news events and survey what people are saying about them. It’s no substitute for firsthand reporting and rigorous editing, of course, but it can be a fascinating supplement. That got a lot of attention amid the recent post-election drama in Iran, where many protesters turned to Twitter to both broadcast eyewitness accounts and help to organize and advise one another. Michael Jackson’s death, too, brought a flood of memorial tweets. I’m also able to track news specific to my industry, both through the mix of Twitterers I’ve decided to follow and through aggregators like Muck Rack, which collects journalists’ tweets. (This WSJ article and a follow-up are great introductions to how to use Twitter.)

It also turns out that, for me, Twitter and Facebook don’t really have to compete. Instead, they’re complementary. I use an application called TweetDeck that sends my tweets simultaneously as Facebook status updates, which has made me a more frequent and interactive Facebook user.

We’ve written about social networking and the juggle here before, touching on employer monitoring of social-network postings, parental monitoring of kids’ social-network use and other aspects. Readers, what’s your take on Twitter? Do you tweet, follow others who do—or think it’s all a waste of time? (And if you’re inclined, you can follow me at www.twitter.com/johnjedwards3 and the Juggle at www.twitter.com/thejuggle. You can also join the Juggle’s new Facebook fan page by searching for “The Juggle-WSJ” on the site.)

Note: Due to technical difficulties, comments weren’t getting through. The error has now been fixed.

Summer travel season is here, and according to my colleague, Candace Jackson, many of us are taking shorter trips than ever before.

The average vacation is just 3.3 nights, according to the U.S. Travel Association. Families are choosing whirlwind vacations for a bunch of reasons: Shorter trips save on lodging and rental-car expenses, and in this shaky labor market, folks are also worried about spending too much time away from the office. Meanwhile, hotels and resorts are discarding minimum-stay requirements, admitting guests who only want to stay a night or two.

“In these times of stress people need to get away, but they can’t afford to be away very long,” said John Trevenen, the general manager of the Mayflower Inn & Spa, Washington, Conn., which dropped its four-night minimum stay requirement, allowing guests to come for a single night and buy spa treatments and meals a la carte.

Of course, as we’ve discussed before, taking short trips can be tough for families with young children. Getting there can be such an ordeal that it doesn’t seem fair to have to turn around and come right back. So instead of cutting back the number of days, some families are scaling back their destinations, traveling closer to home or staying with family, friends or at campsites or vacation rentals, instead of pricey, far-off resorts.

And some people, like my family, are choosing not to go anywhere at all, and are enjoying “staycations.” We are excited to spend a few days this month doing some home-improvement projects and spending quality playground time with our one-and-a-half year old son.

Some Juggle readers have already gotten a head start discussing vacation plans. Readers, as the recession has deepened since last summer, any adjustments to your vacation plans? Anyone taking shorter vacations? Or scaling back your destinations?

Image: National Lampoon’s Vacation

I’ve always expected my juggle to get easier as my children have grown more independent, and it has. But I still have plenty to learn about keeping my life on an even keel, as I realized this month.

Nothing in recent years has compared to the white noise of my early years as a working mom – the nonstop fatigue of juggling work, parenting small children, marriage, housework and extended family. During my second pregnancy, I was so exhausted some days on my commute to my downtown Chicago office that I once told my husband, only half-joking, that I could easily have lain down in the middle of that city’s Wacker Drive, a major thoroughfare, and taken a nap between the lanes of speeding traffic.

While I find parenting older kids less tiring, I’m learning that it requires more advance planning. Cruising along last March and April, I was focused almost entirely on work, and our family life was going well. My son was finishing high school, and I was looking forward to my daughter’s return from college for the summer.

Then a quick succession of happy but time-consuming events knocked me off course. My daughter arrived home for a few weeks’ vacation before starting summer school and her summer job. The rare pleasure of having her around the house, starting interesting conversations and projects and inviting me to join her in marathon TV-watching sessions of “Six Feet Under,” her latest find, gave me some good excuses to neglect work deadlines.

Then came my son’s graduation, bringing on a celebratory party, visits from out-of-town relatives, a marathon midweek graduation ceremony and a string of other parties and open houses to attend. He immediately trained for and started a lifeguard job, then enrolled in an independent-study college course, requiring some parental help with unfamiliar details.

All the while, deadlines at work were crashing in on me like sneaker waves at the beach – those surging tides that submerge unwary tourists without warning. I soon found myself almost as tired as when my children were small. By last week, my editor was gently suggesting that I need a vacation. Looking back, I realize it would have been better to plan ahead for the family demands and ask ahead for a week of vacation to meet them.

While the demands of the preschool years were far harder, the waxing and waning of teen’ needs impose challenges of their own. Elder care, I’m told, is even harder; while I could have planned ahead for my family activities – which were essentially happy events — elder caregivers’ crises tend to erupt without notice, give rise to sadness and impose all-consuming demands.

We’ve written before about whether people become better at balancing work and family as they grow more experienced. But how has your juggle changed as your children grow older, or as other family demands evolve? Is it easier in any ways? Or more difficult?

Meeting Mr. or Ms. Right can be tough anywhere. But for singles in Japan, dating has become a high-pressure hunt.

As my Tokyo-based colleague Miho Inada reported yesterday, “konkatsu,” or “marriage hunting,” is the latest national pastime in Japan, where marriage rates have plummeted in recent decades. During that time, writes Ms. Inada, women have sought careers, rather than marriage, while men have become less aggressive about finding partners because of money troubles and uncertain jobs.

The konkatsu mantra: Don’t just sit there waiting for the right person to come along. Singles need to actively seek a spouse. One company has even unveiled a “konkatsu bra,” with a clock under the bra cups that counts down to a marriage deadline. Inserting an engagement ring into the heart-shaped ring box between the cups stops the ticking and a congratulatory wedding march begins to play.

I don’t necessarily agree with the konkatsu philosophy; I think it’s sometimes tougher to find the right mate when that’s your primary focus. Of course, you’ll never meet someone if you don’t make at least some effort, but appearing too desperate or without other interests can also be a turnoff. (The same philosophy can apply to the job search, as we’ve written about before.)

High-pressure tactics such as konkatsu also make me thankful that I never had to do anything gimmicky to meet my husband. We met in a very commonplace way–through a mutual friend, at a party—nearly a decade ago, when neither one of us was actively looking for a mate. Most of my friends met their partners the same way, through friends of friends, although some have had success with online matchups. Taking the time to date can be really tough for busy professionals, as we’ve written before, so many of us want to date people who are already vetted by a friend, or who at least seem to be compatible virtually.

Readers, how did you meet your mate? Were you actively looking, or did you just happen to find love? How did you fit dating into your juggle?

My colleague Elizabeth Bernstein writes today in her “Bonds” column about touchy-feely offices.

“I get bear hugs from men and unsolicited kisses on the cheek from women,” writes Ms. Bernstein. “Coworkers of both sexes grip my elbows, tap my knees and pat my back.” Even the office cleaning lady flung her arms around her and stroked her hair, telling Ms. Bernstein she just wanted to say “Hi.”

Many of us are stressed out with our workloads, juggles and finances and could use a hug. But all this office touching begs the question: When is it OK to put your hand on someone in the office, even in friendship and support?

Corporate lawyers and human-resources staffers say we should generally keep our hands to ourselves in the workplace. One person’s friendly pat can quickly turn into another’s threatened lawsuit. There are also some folks you should probably keep your hands off, adds Ms. Bernstein, including pregnant women, your boss and the cute summer intern.

What’s more, different workplaces have different cultures. You may want to keep your hands to yourself if you work in a stuffy law firm. But back slaps might be commonplace in a talent agency.

Other workers say that the human touch can make an office more supportive. Kathy Casey, 48, a Seattle chef, told Ms. Bernstein that she often touches her staff—patting arms, squeezing shoulders, giving hugs. Sometimes it’s to reassure an employee she’s had to reprimand, but often it’s to comfort someone having a bad day or to congratulate someone for a job well done. “It’s a sign of compassion and caring,” she says.

Readers, how touchy-feely is your office? Is it full of huggers, back-slappers or hand-shakers? Or is it more hands-off? What’s your take on workplace touching?

Whenever I read about parents who buy their children a major gift — such as a car for graduation — an old memory pops into my head.

A longtime friend, who grew up in poverty but later made a small fortune as a hard-working adult, gave his two children everything he’d wanted as a kid – new sports cars and expensive clothes and vacations. The outcome defeated all his good intentions as a parent. Neither of his kids moved out of his house until they were in their late twenties or thirties, and they led wild, dissolute lives. Watching their example, I concluded years ago it would be better to make my children work to pay for their own stuff. Even if I could afford a car, my kids have long been told that acquisitions on that scale must be bought with money they earn.

But I, like the author of this thoughtful essay in The New York Times, am starting to waffle on this issue. In this piece, Michelle Slatalla tells how she wrestled with the temptation to buy her 18-year-old daughter a pricey prom dress the teenager wanted badly. After initially refusing, Ms. Slatalla gave in.

Like many parents, she’s reconsidering the notion that we have to push our kids toward financial independence as quickly as possible. The bad economy is keeping young adults in their parents’ homes longer, as I’ve written in my “Work & Family” column. Living costs today are so high that all the emblems of adulthood – a college education, a car, a home – take far longer to earn than in the past.

Ms. Slatalla raises another issue. A study she cites, at the University of Southern California, suggests that the more resources children are provided by their parents, the more willing they are to support parents in old age. With today’s parents likely to live far longer, that’s no small matter. What goes around comes around.

Perhaps it’s better to help teens and young adults a little more, but to use big gifts as a way to teach values, as my colleague Joseph White recently wrote about doing for his own kids. The car selections for teens he recommends aim to get young people started in the right direction. For example, he recommends steering clear of the high-powered sports cars teens love, which are also a common death trap for reckless young drivers, in favor of an economical, not-too-powerful family sedan. A Ford Taurus may elicit sneers from teenagers, Joe writes, but it can get them off to a sensible start.

Readers, what’s your view on big-ticket gifts, such as cars, at graduation or other big events? Is it best to require young adults to earn their own money for major consumer items? Or has the time come for parents to help more, given the high cost of living and the state of the economy?

Would you trek to a retail store just because it offers 90 minutes of free child care?

A growing number of consumers are saying yes, as Swedish home-furnishings retailer IKEA draws long waiting lines for the free child care offered at its stores.The idea, of course, is to allow parents to buy more stuff, but a growing number of cash-strapped consumers are using the service just to get a little free time, an Ikea spokeswoman says. Some drop off their kids at Ikea’s “Smaland” play areas, modeled after a Swedish farmhouse and forest, then just walk the store aisles for a while or settle into the stores’ café, using their laptops to tap the free wireless available there.

Katherine has posted in the past on the allure of retailers and restaurants with child-friendly play areas. Some parents avoid fast-food restaurants’ ball pits and play structures like the plague, because they fear spreading germs – especially in an era of swine flu. Others seize the chance for a break. As a parent, I fell into the latter category, setting aside my worries about contagion in favor of an enjoyable change of scenery and a chance for the kids to burn off some energy.

Ikea has been offering free child care in its stores since its founding in 1958, reflecting the family-friendly culture of Sweden, where it was founded, says the Ikea spokeswoman, Mona Astra Liss. In recent months some stores have seen a 10% to 20% increase in child care usage. “That’s fine with us” if parents come just for a break, says Ms. Liss. “In better days they’ll probably become a customer.” Ikea’s Smaland accepts only children who meet the height limit, of 36 inches to 50 inches, and offers activities such as videos, crafts, books or puppets. The free baby-sitting, one single father says, gives him a little break and makes his five-year-old son happy.

Other retailers and gyms also offer free or low-cost child care. For instance, some Fred Meyer stores in the West, a unit of Kroger that sells a wide range of food, clothing and household items, offer free child care for an hour, while Life Time Fitness offers two hours a day of child care for members for just a few dollars a month. And a San Francisco store, Mani and Nanny, allows moms to get nail treatments while their kids use drop-in child care.

Readers, would you use free child care at a store? Or are such public play areas too risky, especially in an era of swine flu? If you did drop off your child, would you feel compelled to buy something? Or could you kick back and enjoy some guilt-free time to yourself?

Archimedes had his eureka moment in the bath. I have mine in the shower.

When I take a shower, I compile mental to-do lists, compose paragraphs to pieces I’m working on and work through thorny problems that have been nagging me all day. There’s something about the solitude, the sound and feel of the water and the fragrant lather of the shampoo and soap that help my mind achieve clarity.

Last week, my colleague Robert Lee Hotz wrote a “Science Journal” column about how our brains achieve insight and “a-ha” moments. Apparently, letting our minds wander and daydream helps us achieve mental breakthroughs; our brains may be most actively engaged when our minds are wandering and we’ve actually lost track of our thoughts, a new brain-scanning study suggests. (This burst of mental clarity can be so powerful, Mr. Hotz writes, that, as legend would have it, Archimedes jumped out of his tub and ran naked through the streets, shouting to his startled neighbors: “Eureka! I’ve got it.”)

The problem is, all this mind-wandering in the shower means I often end up taking long, luxurious showers. That’s both expensive and bad for the environment. (And all the steam generated is rotting the wood in our decades-old bathroom.) My shower-habit is also time-consuming–and time is a luxury that I don’t have much of these days as a working mom. (I normally shower at night, after my son goes to bed, so I’m available during the morning rush in my house.)

So I’ve recently set out to take shorter showers. One thing I’m doing is not washing my hair every day. Daily washing, according to dermatologists, hair professionals and this report on NPR, strips locks of beneficial oils and can damage our hair. (There are now even “dry shampoos,” which you spray or powder onto your hair, which are given a test-run here.)

I wonder, though, if my shorter, more time and energy-efficient showers will have any effect on my mental clarity and creativity. Sometimes I get breakthroughs during other moments of the day—say, while running or walking—but nothing, so far, beats those a-ha moments in the shower.

Readers, when do you find moments of clarity? Do any of you achieve breakthroughs in the shower? And in the spirit of Friday fun, any tips to save time or energy consumption when showering?