I don't have many friends. This isn't a call for help or pity. It's just a fact. A fact that has been true my entire life: I have always struggled to make friends. As a kid I was by myself most of the time at home, living in a series of run-down rural places or small scruffy neighborhoods without other kids my age. In elementary and junior high I had a best friend or two, but that dwindled in high school. I was not a popular teen, even in the smaller universe of band nerds. In fact, it was a little bit of the opposite -- often enduring both the covert and open ridicule that is the hallmark of growing up. I made two or three good friends early in my college career, but we went our separate ways after dorm life. As an upperclassman, I didn't form strong friendships at the student newspaper. On the contrary; one editor printed my name on the back of a T-shirt with "Major Issues" listed as my nickname. In my mid-20's I struggled to find women to fi...

First, they closed the schools. Then the libraries. Then restaurants and indoor play spaces. For the last 10 days or so my family has been stuck at home, trying to prevent catching or spreading COVID-19, the dangerous coronavirus that has swept across the world. It's tough to be thrust into this kind of disruption of our normally scheduled craziness. Anxiety is high, the weather is cold and rainy, and we're all getting on each other's nerves. Here is what we've been doing to stay busy. Distance learning  Somebody help this octopus Bickering Distance learning while bickering Picking apart the mixed Play-Doh colors Using books as skates to slip and slide across the living room floor Looking for toilet paper Crying in the home office Kid yoga that devolved into rolling on the floor and kicking one another  Moments before it all went south Not checking our retirement accounts More distance learning Looking for hand soap Yelling "stop yelling!...

A few weeks ago, my neighbor's infant daughter had an allergic reaction of unknown origin. She landed in the ER with hives and swelling, and my neighbors felt worried and overwhelmed. Understandably so. Raising a child with serious or potentially life-threatening allergies adds an extra layer of unpredictability and fear to parenthood. It's like having unmarked landmines in your back yard, and telling your kid to go outside and play. Your mission, should you choose to accept it. It's been almost six years since my son was diagnosed with food allergies to virtually all tree nuts, peanuts (FYI, peanuts don't grow on trees and aren't actually nuts), and sesame seeds. Thankfully we've never endured a second allergic reaction, but we're always ready just in case. This is how we manage his food allergies: Always carry emergency epinephrine When he was 10 months old, I gave my son some peanut butter and he developed a mild case of hives. Our pediatrici...

It turns out there's not a lot of logic involved in parenting. There's bravado, confusion, joy, and exhaustion, but very little logic. Sometimes I hear the words coming out of my mouth and think, "WTF did I just say?" I'm not sure what else I expected. After all, children are snack terrorists who have no filter and feel everything at 11. If it pops into their little brains, they do it. Or somebody does it. Because both of my children disavow all knowledge of the majority of the things that happen around here. So I began compiling a running list of Things I Never Thought I'd Have to Say. Things that make me shake my head and deepen that wrinkle between my eyebrows. Things that make me wonder if there's something wrong with me, with them, or both. In the early years, it was mostly about things that shouldn't be in the mouth. Please don't lick the dog. Please don't lick the trashcan. Stop letting the dog lick your tongue. We don...

This is for those people like me, who find Christmas neither holly nor jolly. To those for whom the season means staggering around under the weight of even more responsibilities while carrying a plateful of forced merriment...I get you. To those feeling clouded by disappointment or tearful memories of Christmas past; to those aching with loneliness for loved ones who are gone or were never really here...I'm with you. If you tire of being told to "remember the reason for the season!" when the very hate that savior preached against grows hourly in our world...I know how you feel. If visits to Santa Claus and trips on the Polar Express remind you of the lies we tell our children in hopes they won't grow up so fast; if you grieve for how long it's been since you believed...your melancholy sighs are mine too. If you can't suffer any more days of going to work in the dark and coming home in the dark; if the cold eats at your bones no matter how warm you a...

It's been just over two years since we made the heart-wrenching decision to withdraw our son  two weeks into his second year in a preschool program. They had declared him "atypical of his peers," insisted on having him evaluated despite advice to the contrary from his doctor and a former school psychologist, and told us they didn't have the services he needed (before knowing or caring what his actual needs were). Two years ago I was beside myself with outrage, displeasure, and anxiety. I knew we needed to get him out of there and onto a different path, even if I didn't know which direction to go. My job was merely to do the next right thing, one thing at a time, until we found where we were supposed to be. A banana and an orange are different, but both grow from flowers. The best choice we have made for our son was rejecting the school's pushes to have him labeled at such a young age, and enrolling him in a Montessori setting where he could blossom i...

The baby gates are long gone. The booster seat is gathering dust in the basement. And I just folded my last Winnie the Pooh sheet. After nearly seven years of familiarity, I solemnly packed away the classic Pooh sheets that each of my children slept on - first high in their cribs, then in low toddler beds. The sheets they must have stared at for hours waiting for sleep to come, the ones with simple E. H. Shepard sketches of Hundred Acre Wood residents playing together happily. My son was stripped of his Pooh decor when his sister came. Now almost 4, she too has moved into a "big girl bed" that no longer warrants (or fits) her baby items. My boy's walls are covered in super heroes now, and my daughter has graduated to butterflies and flowers. With a bit of sadness I didn't expect, I gently placed our A.A. Milne friends into a cardboard box. First the sheets. Then the best friends Pooh and Piglet artwork and embroidered wall hangings came down. Next into the box w...