Every year around Halloween I get a longing to watch the spooky television specials I saw as a kid. It's no wonder -- the old Christmas specials like Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer have been playing since the '60s. But where are Garfield's Halloween special, the one with Donald Duck and the witch, or the cartoon version of Ichabod Crane? Several years ago I set out to find and watch these again. And I couldn't help but notice...these are terrifying for children. Why was I ever allowed to watch them? As far as the Legend of Sleepy Hollow goes, well, the gist is enough to scare the bejeezus out of a child. A legendary man without a head, riding a horse, brandishing a sword, chasing an innocent (slightly dorky) schoolmaster out of town. So let's just put aside the appropriateness of beer drinking at the old Snooker and Schnapps Shoppe, the love triangle, and the fact that Ichabod spends his school time daydreaming about his lady's bountiful wealth. "Katrina...

Sometimes you don't know the right move, but you damn sure know the wrong one. I had to pull my 4-year-old out of a preschool that he loved due to reasons he doesn't know and would not understand. He's going to dearly miss his best friend, an extrovert who has helped draw him out of his shell. He's going to be discomforted by a new environment, new people, new routines, new rules. But I can't leave him in a situation created by adults who, I really believe, refused to work with this child's best interests at heart. There is no manual or how-to guide for making the right choices for your one beautiful, unique, loved child. Every choice has repercussions -- good and bad. Some I can see right now, some I won't be able to see for years. It's terrifying and enormous that what I do today will reverberate within him for the rest of his life. If I deliberate too long, I'm paralyzed. So many what-ifs. So many could-be's. Not atypical. Buds just ha...

My son's favorite socks for almost four years have been by Fruit of the Loom. They are toddlers' ankle socks, white on top of the foot and a color on the sole -- either red, navy, blue, or gray. He likes to mix and match them, but generally these four colors go with everything in his dresser drawers. They also have a tight band of elastic so even when he was tiny, the socks stayed on. All in all a wardrobe win. Socks: Like hugs for your feet. These socks are logical. Toddler S, M, L -- he's worn them all. For convenience, the size is even printed on the inside of the elastic part so I don't mix them up. He's in the toddler large size now, and they're getting too small. Or he's getting too big. Like the attentive and caring mother I am, I go out and try to find new ones in WHAT I ASSUME would be little boys' size small. Because that makes sense, right? The next size up from toddler large socks is little boys' small socks.   WRONG WRONG W...

As I sat down in the tiny chair and steeled myself for Pre-K orientation, I began to look around the room at the small desks, the empty bulletin boards, and the other people who were there with me. And I noticed something -- all of the other parents looked so grown up. They definitely looked like parents. Like what my friends' parents looked like when I was a kid. Like mature, capable adults prepared to successfully handle whatever challenges life may throw at them via their children. Claire Huxtable could really adult. And then I had a terrible realization: I'm in the wrong room . You know where I should be? Freshman orientation. Not for my kid -- don't be ridiculous. For me. I'm totally ready for high school now. I'm confident enough to care less about what others think of me and strong enough to resist peer pressure. I can smoothly navigate a sea of hormones (unless it's PMS). I'm really good at time management, not to mention reasonably responsi...

Dear Buyers, Congratulations! You are soon to be the new owners of an 1,840 square foot (not including the finished basement) colonial in a highly desired and constantly revolving neighborhood. This was our first home, both individually and as a couple. We brought three Boston terriers and two children (in that order) home through these doors, and we move on with a lot of excitement and a measure of sadness. I wanted to leave you a few notes about the place we're leaving behind. Between the two houses on either side we've had five sets of neighbors. We borrowed a pick-axe from one and a rake we forgot to return from another. The same rake neighbors borrowed eggs from us during a cookie-baking emergency, and we attend each other's kids' birthday parties. I hope you become as fond of them as we are, enjoy some drinks by their fire pit one night, and maybe loan them some sugar sometime. We will miss having them next door to us, and my kiddos will really miss pla...

First and foremost, I would like to apologize to my mother for each of the hundred thousand times I had an outsized reaction to something that should have been relatively minor. Secondly, I'd like to apologize to my husband, who has endured my tear-fests and rage outbursts for almost a decade. Such tenacity he has shown. Thirdly, I should probably apologize to every room mate, boyfriend, and close friend I've ever had. During one particularly nasty fight, a college cohort accused me of always being in the midst of a crisis. Perhaps she wasn't wrong. I now know what each and every one of you has endured with me. For my daughter, too, is high maintenance. I'm going to need more of these. For example, my sweet little girl has never once in her 18 months come down sick. She's never had the sniffles or a mild cough. But she has, at least a hundred times, been DEATHLY ILL. When my daughter gets a cold, she is not long for this life, and won't let me forge...

The summer after I gave birth to the baby, I treated myself to a new swimsuit. It was one of those forgiving tankini styles in black, with strategically placed blue ruffles. Dillard's was having a special sale, so I got some free gifts with my purchase -- a set of cheap flip-flops two sizes too big and a pair of ugly plastic sunglasses. I knew I would never use either but felt guilty throwing away items that were perfectly good, so I left the items in a bag on my bedroom floor until I decided what to with them. That was in 2013. One entire presidential term came and went while that bag sat on my floor. (Thanks, Obama.) I am not a good housekeeper. Clutter tends to follow in my wake , from winter shoes I may need to wear tomorrow to bills I need to sort through to toys I should give away. And when I begin to feel overwhelmed by raising two tiny, needful humans and living through a time of deep political unrest that may affect my family's sole income stream, my housekeeping...

She was the strongest person I'll ever know. I don't have appropriate words to describe my mother. It wasn't that she was determined, because that implies an overall plan of action. She just kept going. I wouldn't call it perseverance, because that invokes the idea that eventually she prevailed. She didn't; she just kept going. She was not quite persistent or tenacious, and certainly not resolute or steadfast. She woke up every day and did what had to be done all day long, no matter how difficult or unfair or unpleasant. She was not energetic or particularly positive or even hopeful. She just kept going. When the car broke down on the side of the road, she walked with the groceries in her arms. When the electricity was shut off for a week, she heated my bath water on a Coleman stove in the kitchen and carried it to the tub. When my chronically unemployed father couldn't put food on the table, she visited the local food pantry in the next town as often as t...

September and October were given mostly to anxiety . By November depression had set in, but I didn't recognize it for what it was. Instead I blamed the stress of my little girl's first birthday party, or the chaos of those relentless months with so many celebrations to attend and gifts to buy, or the inevitable disappointment that the holidays hold as I try to recapture some feeling of happiness I never quite got my fingers around as a child. I kept thinking if I could just get over the next hurdle, I'd start feeling better. Any day now. Any. Day. By January I was too tired to fight with it anymore. It followed me from room to room in my house. I went to sleep with it and woke up with it. Finally I called my psychiatrist and asked her for a change in my medication. I'm no stranger to recurrent, severe depression. Note I don't use those words lightly -- I actually read them once on my medical chart. "Major depressive disorder, recurrent, severe +...