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From the heartwarming to the hilarious, from the need-to-know information to keep your kids safe to the funny everyday parenting moments, our TODAY Parents team covered it all in 2022. We are celebrating the stories you loved most in our Parents section this year, from a dad's secret trick to a getting a good family photo to the card a girl gave her preschool teacher that could only make her mother laugh in exasperation. 

But first, the news...

That deadly blizzard in western New York has left families scrambling for essentials, and now officials say the death toll from the freezing weather has risen to 57 people in the U.S. The holiday travel nightmare is also continuing with Southwest canceling 70% of its flights. And congressman-elect George Santos, a Republican from New York, has admitted to lying about his career and education during his campaign for a House seat. 

A 'tired' mom created a funny first day of school sign —for herself.

It's not just the kids who mark the first day of school with a chalkboard-style sign. Jeni Bukolt of Waxhaw, North Carolina, put a funny spin on the tradition with a board of her own that read, "I am 42 years tired. I'll probably miss a school 'theme' day. I really like sleep. Please don't ask me to volunteer. But I will buy you supplies." While her board was filled with one-liners, the mom of two was really just trying to get a simple message across to other parents during a stressful time. "Parents put so much pressure on themselves to live up to a certain standard on social media," she told us. "No one has a perfect life and we don't have to judge each other."

📖 A boy came home in tears when no one signed his yearbook. Here's what happened next. 

A challenge any parent knows is dealing with a child distraught over something that happened at school. Cassandra Ridder faced that moment when her son Brody, 12, tearfully shared with her that none of the kids in his sixth-grade class signed his yearbook with any messages. “He’d written a note to himself. It read, ‘I hope you make some more friends,’ and he signed his own name,” she told us. Ridder shared her heartbreak on social media, and the next thing Brody knew, he had a yearbook filled with encouraging messages from eighth grade through high school from newfound friends. He even made a new friend in Hollywood: actor Paul Rudd. "He's on cloud nine," his mother said. 

📷 A dad cracked the code of getting his kid to smile in family photos with this one-word trick.

In the moment, it can seem like the parenting equivalent of climbing Mount Everest: getting your kids to smile for pictures. One dad has cracked the code, as he demonstrated with side-by-side photos of his 5-year-old son with a pained grimace and a sweet smile. “My son when I tell him to smile vs when I yell out ‘poop!'" dad Adam Perry wrote on Twitter. Perry and his wife know that humor is the only way they can get that great smile out of their little boy. They've also learned it's a universal tactic after hearing from others. "They're like, I tried it and it worked!'" Perry told us. "Also, it doesn't just work with kids. Adults are doing it too to make each other laugh in pictures."

✉️ A mom shared a hilarious card that her daughter gave her preschool teacher. 

It's the thought that counts! Preschooler Ruby Williams wanted to create a nice card for her teacher, and it resulted in her mom, Brinn, getting a puzzled text message from the school. Ruby can't read, so she accidentally grabbed some meant-for-adults cards from her mother's desk that read "A best friend you can have sex with" on the outside with “How great is that?” on the inside. Luckily it got a laugh from the director of the school. "I see these things happen to other parents and I’m like 'Yeah, that doesn’t really happen.'" Brinn told us. "And now I’m like 'Well, yep it does, because I’m seeing it firsthand right now.'"

Thanks for letting us in your inbox this year!
See you again tomorrow morning.

Written by Scott Stump | Edited by Philip Caulfield

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