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

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

Me: *clicks new message icon" "Hello again, Karen. I hope things are going well for you. Our giveaway contest is going extremely well. Thanks again for helping get that set up. I'm reaching out for two reasons" 3yo, in the living room: Momma! Me, from the office: What? 3yo: The dog won't stop licking me Me, yelling: Chappy, STOP LICKING HER "After this current lickaway"  backspace  " giveaway is over, we're going to run a second one for Q4" 3yo, suddenly in office: Momma! Me, startled: ACK. What? 3yo *hands me a lavender ball of tulle and fake velvet*: Will you put on my princess dress Me: Okay, but then you have to go have quiet time so Momma can work *struggles to find dress's neck hole, which won't fit over child's head because she's trying to put her head and arms through the neck hole at the same time while also holding her dolly* 3yo, muffled: Ma dis dresh doeshnt fet Me: *forces head t