Back-to-school night just passed and some mom friends were talking about how special these nights are... and how awful it is if a parent has to miss it. But sometimes missing a big event really, truly, can't be avoided. So if a parent just can't make it to the play, or choir recital or open school night... how bad?

To find out, I called my friend and Mommy Advisor Rosanne Tobey, director of Calm and Sense Therapy, a counseling service, for her take on the situation.

"This is a tough one," she started. "How a parent handles it depends on how big a moment it is for the child. If it's a really big moment, like the first day of kindergarten, of course it's going to feel worse for the child."

But for other important events, like a school play that a parent just can't make it to, it's still not ideal to miss them, but there may be ways you can mitigate the damage, Tobey said.

"For instance, I know a mom who just had surgery and couldn't go to back-to-school night..."

What 5-year-old doesn't love a tea party? But there is caffeine in tea ... which seems like an iffy idea for little ones. No?

Hmmm, well ... is a little spot of tea for children bad, and if so, how bad? To find out, I phoned Mommy Advisor Christine Palumbo, a nutritionist in private practice in a Chicago suburb, who's an adjunct faculty member at Benedictine University.

"Weak [caffeinated] tea is fine," said Palumbo, "Or, if a mother is concerned about caffeine she can always purchase decaffeinated tea." Palumbo had other ideas to get the nutritional nod of approval.

The peanut-butter aisle used to be a simple place. In fact it wasn't an aisle, there were just a few jars -- the kind Mom used to use, and the other kind. But now there's a panoply of peanut (and other nut-) butters, none of which my regular-peanut-butter-loving children will eat.

And if we're telling the truth, does anyone relish the separated kind of peanut butter where the oil floats on top and gets all over your hands as you try in vain to stir it without having it run down the side of the jar? But the natural kind looks so ... healthy. It seems like the peanut butter that gets you an A+ in lunch-making.

But is it wrong to give the kids what they want, which incidentally is the same brand Mom used to buy?

How many times have we heard how how important it is for parents to present a united front to the kids? But really: Must parents always agree? Or is it really so bad if one parent is more strict and the other is more lenient about certain issues? Hmm.

To find out the truth about this, I called my friend and Mommy Advisor Rosanne Tobey, director of Calm and Sense Therapy, a counseling service.

Tobey felt pretty strongly about this one. "This is a bad one," Tobey stated. "Presenting a united front is important. You've got to be on the same page when you're parenting."

But what if you don't agree? "Even if you don't agree," Tobey stressed, "you need to appear to agree."

But why?

"Because," Tobey said patiently, "If you often don't agree, the kids will soon figure out they can divide and conquer you. It's confusing if they get one message from one parent and a different message from the other. You end up with children thinking they have one good parent and one bad parent."

So, what if one of you is consistently more strict than the other? Here are Tobey's tips for what to do when you're not on the same page as your partner:

Discuss it away from the kids. "You have to get to a place where you agree, and it has to happen outside of earshot of the kids."

Find some common ground. "Let's say you agree a child committed a crime but you disagree on the penalty. Tell the child you both don't like what she did, and work the penalty out privately so you're on the same page."

What if you both feel really strongly about your positions?

"You have to be grown ups--which means someone will probably have to concede."

Trust your partner. "Be open to the fact that your way is not the only way. Parenting doesn't always work best the way you think it will." You may think a heavy disciplinary approach is best, and then you discover that your children do better when you let them help make decisions. "Being open to other parenting styles allows you to find out."

Side benefit: If you're open to the notion that your spouse might have a good idea, you'll get to common ground faster, and avoid fights. "That's what most parents fight about," confirmed Tobey. "Each parent wants to be right and to have it their way all the time"

Talk about general parenting philosophy with your spouse. "We're all human, and sometimes you or your spouse will do something that will cause the other parent to say, 'Hey, lighten up,' and that's normal," said Tobey. If you talk in advance about certain child behaviors that you both agree are intolerable, then you're set up to support each other.

So, how bad is it to not present a united front? "It's not good," admonished Tobey. "Your child needs to see both parents as respectable authority figures. Ideally, you're parenting as a partnership, and trusting each others' judgment in addition to your own."

Have you had a less-than-perfect parenting moment and you're wondering, "How bad"? Send it to Sabrina at PrincessLPink9@aol.com. She'll try to answer as many as she can.

Sabrina Weill is the founder of the pink and princess-y gift site: PrincessLovesPink. Many of the Mommy Advisors in this column are the writer's personal or professional friends.

"How bad is it to leave one child out?," a mommy blogger wrote via email. "I have many friends that won't have play-dates or sleep overs for one without making plans for the other. I think it works against them, because the kids get so coddled and learn that everything has to be even."

Does everything always have to be even among siblings? To find out, I called my friend and Mommy Advisor Rosanne Tobey, director of Calm and Sense Therapy, a counseling service.

"I agree with this mom," Tobey said. "There's not necessarily anything wrong with trying to keep things equal when they're too young to understand. Otherwise you're going to end up with constant tantrums. But by kindergarten or first grade, kids can start to understand that the world isn't even all the time."

Here are Tobey's tips on how to keep the peace when things aren't equal:

Have special time with the "left-out" child. When one sibling gets invited to a party and the other doesn't, try to make time to focus on that child so she feels special. But Tobey warns, don't oversell your at-home activities -- as in, "We'll have the most fun at-home day ever!" -- or you'll be setting yourself up for failure.

Explain the situation in terms that make sense to a child. "Tell your child that she wasn't invited because she isn't in the birthday girl's class or isn't her age, not because they aren't friends, which can hurt your child's feelings."

Sympathize with your child. "It's okay to say, 'I can see you're disappointed. I would be, too. What can we do that's fun together?'" Make sure you don't trivialize her feelings. Allow her be sad about it. "If your child is sad or angry about not being invited, that's okay." She's learning that life isn't always fair, which isn't a fun lesson.

Encourage siblings to develop separate friends. They will come to expect that they won't always be invited to the same parties. "They'll learn to develop a little independence from their sibling."

So is it bad to leave one child out if the other sibling gets invited to a party?
It's okay to let her feel disappointed and to help her work through those feelings. "I don't think it's terrible to keep things even," added Tobey. "But if you keep trying to make everything perfectly even, as the kids get older, you're setting yourself up for a lifetime of "gotcha" from the kids; they'll always find a way to think things are uneven." Instead, help your kids develop by experiencing the disappointment, recovering from it and developing resilience.

Have you had a less-than-perfect parenting moment and you're wondering, "How bad"? Send it to Sabrina at PrincessLPink9@aol.com. She'll try to answer as many as she can.

Sabrina Weill is the founder of the pink, princess-y gift site: PrincessLovesPink. Many of the Mommy Advisors in this column are the writer's personal or professional friends.

"During my daughter's refusal-to-eat-most-foods stage (which to be honest, is ongoing), I figured out that if I cut her sandwiches into cute shapes, she'll eat them.

"But as I pack her 25th camp sandwich, I'm thinking: That's a lot of white bread. I envy friends who pack hearty 22-grain sandwiches for their kids. Is white bread with no crusts as bad as it seems and if so... how bad?"

To find out, I called up Mommy Advisor Christine Palumbo, R.D., a nutritionist in private practice in a Chicago suburb, who's an adjunct faculty member at Benedictine University.

"Cutting off the crusts, are you?" I was hopeful at her jokey tone, which implied: This isn't a big deal. "Moms cutting crusts off goes back many generations," she continued.

"This is a situation where picking your battles is the best way to go. When you cut crusts off you're missing out on some of the nutrition in the bread, but it's not enough to worry about.

"Most kids like white bread because it's soft," she added. And delicious! But wait, isn't all that soft deliciousness bad for them.

Palumbo stands by her, "this isn't so bad" philosophy, and has some thoughts about how to make the healthiest bread choices that children will like.

Try white-wheat. "Look for one of the newer white whole-wheat breads and serve that to your children -- don't make a big deal about it; just serve it. That way, the child gets some of the benefits of whole-wheat bread but it's still white and soft and will be appealing to them."

Avoid high-sugar breads. "Oftentimes, breads marketed toward children will have more sugar, so experiment to see what a child will eat." Sugars (including sugar by other names like sucrose and high fructose corn syrup) shouldn't be first or second on the ingredient list. Compare labels and pick a bread with lower grams of sugar on the nutrition facts panel.

Look for a short ingredient list. "If the list is short and includes mostly ingredients that you can easily pronounce and spell, that's a good sign," said Palumbo.

Get bread that's perishable. "Look for a bread that says on the label 'store in icebox' -- it most likely was made with fresh ingredients and without a lot of preservatives."

Try the bakery. "At a chain bread store or a grocery's bakery, those breads are so delicious because they are baked fresh with fresh ingredients."

Bottom line: How bad is it to feed a child white bread sandwiches with the crusts cut off? "This is not important at all," said Palumbo. Go forth and trim crusts.

Have you had a less-than-perfect parenting moment and you're wondering, "How bad"? Send it to Sabrina at PrincessLPink9@aol.com. She'll try to answer as many as she can.

Sabrina Weill is the founder of the pink, princess-y gift site: PrincessLovesPink. Many of the Mommy Advisors in this column are the writer's personal or professional friends.

"It's not like they watch a ton of TV. It's just that they love it so much. My kids are allowed to watch one hour a night, from 7 to 8 p.m.," said a mom of two elementary-school-aged kids.

"But from the minute they come in the door after camp, they start asking: 'Is it seven? Is it seven now?' They might as well be watching for four hours a day because even when they're not watching, they're spending all their energy pining for TV. Is this normal?"

To find out, I called my friend and Mommy Advisor Rosanne Tobey, director of Calm and Sense Therapy, a counseling service.

"I don't think this mom is doing anything bad here, per se," Tobey said. "Letting them watch a little bit of TV is a choice, but what I would recommend is, if they're going to watch it, put the TV time where it works best for the mom."

Meaning what exactly?

"Meaning: Let them watch it when they first walk in the door," explained Tobey.

Brilliant. That way they're not clamoring for it all evening. Makes sense. "And she needs to stick to her guns about the one-hour limit," Tobey warned.

Here are Tobey's other tips for keeping kids' TV-related whining in check:

Be clear about the deal up front. Tell the kids that you're changing the TV rules and explain clearly what the game plan will be going forward. Turn off the TV while telling them the rules so they hear you.

Set consequences for deal-breaking. "If the kids whine when you turn off the TV," Tobey said, "give them a warning, then say, 'If you fight me on this, no TV tomorrow.' And you have to follow through on that." Tobey concedes that "tomorrow" would, in this case, be an extremely long day.

No TV right before bed. It's been well-documented that watching TV too close to bedtime can interfere with sleep -- keeping this rule consistent will make it easier to enforce.

Bottom line: How bad is it if the kids pine and whine for TV time? Letting them watch an hour a day is not bad, Tobey said, especially if a mom is not giving into whining but rather setting limits and sticking to them. Even better, make that hour a mom-convenient time that offers a chance to get things done, or just regroup.

Have you had a less-than-perfect parenting moment and you're wondering, "How bad"? Send it to Sabrina at PrincessLPink9@aol.com. She'll try to answer as many as she can.

Sabrina Weill is the founder of the pink and princess-y gift site: PrincessLovesPink. Many of the Mommy Advisors in this column are the writer's personal or professional friends.

"The BlackBerry gives me freedom, for sure," a mom-friend confided. "But I sometimes wonder how bad it is that I answer the call of the BlackBerry when I'm with my kids."

Turns out, her tween covered up her mom's BlackBerry screen, mid-text, saying something like, "If you're not going to be with me, don't be with me. But if you are going to be with me, please be with me, and put this thing away."

Don't you just love that amazing kid-clarity? But still, there's a nagging push-and-pull here: The magical ability to get e-mail anytime, anywhere, allows parents to spend more time with their kids instead of being chained to the office. But do those interruptions, even when brief, make kids feel like they're playing second banana to a machine?

To find out, I called my friend Rosanne Tobey, director of Calm and Sense Therapy, a counseling service, for her take on the issue.

"I think a mom needs to be honest with herself, and ask herself, 'How important is this message?,'"she said. "'How important is it that it get answered right now?'"

On some days, Tobey concedes, there will be e-mail emergencies and phone calls that can't wait. "But then you need to ask yourself, 'Is today the day that I should be out to dinner with my child?'"

Here are more tips for separating work-time from parenting-time:

Try not to multitask. "No parent can pay attention to her e-mail and her child," says Tobey. If you need to answer an e-mail, tell the child you need to take a break. Note the time so you don't end up making her wait too long.

Set boundaries. If you can, do it with colleagues, and if at all possible, with your boss as well. The majority of e-mails can wait a few hours. If it will help, put an auto-response on your e-mail saying you're away from your desk but will be back at 7:30 p.m. to respond.

Practice. If you're used to answering e-mails the second they come in, it will take practice and discipline to ignore them for a few hours at a time. Give yourself time to feel uncomfortable and know that this is an adjustment period.

Bottom Line: How bad is it to answer work calls and e-mails while you're with your child? It's not ideal, Tobey says. Doing this consistently can be tough on your relationship. "Being with your child and not engaging...is like holding out an ice cream cone and saying, 'You can't have this.' It's not fair."

Have you had a less-than-perfect parenting moment and that has left you wondering, "How bad?" Send it to Sabrina at PrincessLPink9@aol.com. She'll try to answer as many as she can.

Sabrina Weill is the founder of the pink and princess-y gift site: PrincessLovesPink. Many of the Mommy Advisors in this column are the writer's personal or professional friends.

"So, it's summer," my friend says, "and that means a steady inflow of ice cream into many members of our family. And by 'steady,' I mean daily. And by 'daily,' I mean sometimes twice a day. So, exactly how bad is that?"

Is daily ice cream so bad? And if so, how bad? To find out I called Mommy Advisor Christine Palumbo, R.D., a nutritionist in private practice in a Chicago suburb who is an adjunct faculty member at Benedictine University. She listened patiently to my friend's "nutritional defense statements" (which included "this really only happens in the summer" and "ice cream has calcium, right?") before rendering her comments.

"Well," Palumbo started. "There's ice cream, and then there's frozen treats." Ok, go on...