My dear, sweet child to whom I gave life, I love you more than all the stars in the sky. Even more than all the dog hair on my carpet. But if you do not lie down and take a nap , I will come up there and knock you out myself . After all, sweet precious child, sleep is very important. It's like rain is to flowers: nourishing, tranquil, refreshing. You need sleep because you are a growing, learning, busy little boy. And because without a daily nap, you morph into a whiny, demanding asshole for the remainder of the day. I simply cannot handle that today , or any day, ever. It makes me want to snuff out that spark of life I planted in you with a loving karate-chop to your vagus nerve. Let me remind you, love of my heart. Relay races from one side of your crib to the other is not napping. Taking off all of your clothes -- AND YOUR DIAPER -- not napping. Throwing your lovey up in the air just to watch it fall and cackling maniacally, also not napping. Rolling on your back maki...

Have you ever listened to nursery rhymes? I mean really listened ? They're awful. Terrible! We've got cradles falling out of trees, a gourd-obsessed husband who can't afford to feed his wife, and a woman with no access to birth control who is forced to suffer the indignity of living in footwear. It probably wasn't even nice footwear -- like cheap knock-off Uggs you'd buy at PayLess that start to smell like cottage cheese. I don't know why these negative nursery rhymes are still a staple of parenthood, but I do know some of them are rooted in truth. London Bridge, for example, really did fall down. Or almost. The original bridge across the river Thames, built in 1176, was damaged by two major fires: one in 1663 and another in 1666. It survived, but needed constant repairs (thus the verse "build it up with wood and clay") until it was finally replaced a couple hundred years later. Research shows the chances of those who have seen both London and Fran...

My boy needs a dog or two. I've mentioned before how much richer my life is because I share it with dogs. Likewise, it's equally important to me that my child grow up with dogs. Humans at every age have a lot to learn from canines: their unabashed joy and unconditional love, among other gifts, are traits we should strive for at every stage in life. Our pets touch our lives so deeply in innumerable ways, teaching us while we are teaching them. Here are some of the reasons every child should have a dog: Empathy and compassion. It's vital to me that my child learns at a young age there are other beings in his world, living creatures that feel pain and fear, joy and love. I want him to understand that his actions toward others have consequences, good and bad, and to work toward always being kind and loving because this is the right thing to do. So we learn early that you pet dogs with gentle hands,  don't poke them in the eyes with yardsticks, and for god's sake d...

Most of my childhood is buried in a landfill somewhere near Houston. This is not a metaphor, but rather the sad outcome of foreclosure proceedings on my family's home when I was 12. When we left the white brick house, we moved into a rickety green wooden rental that slashed our living space in half. We took what we could carry in our vehicle -- mostly the necessities -- and left the rest behind. (When your home is being foreclosed, you generally can't afford a storage building.) But the house, and thereby everything in it, belonged to the bank, so they quietly and efficiently hauled off our belongings to a BFI landfill. Family and wedding photo albums, my mom's wedding dress, most of my and my brother's toys, our bronzed baby shoes that hung on the wall as proof of how far we'd come, a wall full of books, the majority of our family mementos and brick-a-brac. The junk that makes a house a home. I'm telling you this because of an angel named Gloria. Growing up, ...

Ah, Christmas - that special time of year when we jingle our bells, deck our halls, and throw all of our musical sensibilities out the window. Christmas albums mediocre and awful abound, featuring tired renditions of old favorites and new music that aims to be the next Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You" but lands somewhere closer to Justin Beiber's rap-tastic "Drummer Boy." Some songs just rub people the wrong way. I've heard a lot of complaints about "I Want A Hippopotamus for Christmas," for example. Other than the distinct possibility of being killed by a hippo, the song is kinda cute. I'd be interested in seeing how a child gives a hippo a massage in the garage, for example. Other people take issue with the violent nature of "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer." I don't have any problems with this one either; in fact, I agree with the statement that Santa Claus really shouldn't have a driver...

Sunday would mark my mother's 64th birthday, if she had lived past 56. Hers was a slow and miserable decline. While I would never wish to prolong her suffering, I do wish her sicknesses could have loosened their grasp long enough for her to meet my child(ren). But more than that, I wish I could have gotten to know her as an adult. There are bits and pieces I recall of her between the mental and physical illness, but they are viewed through the cloudy eyes of a child. It would be completely differently to know her as an adult, and that's one of the many things her death took from me. circa 1981 It is difficult to be a mother without a mother. There are long stretches of blankness in my childhood, things I can't remember because I was too young or too inexperienced to know what to hold on to. That's one of the things I miss most about talking to her -- there are so many questions I wish I could ask about who I was as a child, and how I am like (or unlike) her as a ...

This antidepressant is stealing all my funny. I've been on medication since I was 12. Without it, I sit in corners of dark rooms and listen to Counting Crows CDs on repeat. That's right, I go straight 1994. And I'm hard core, baby, writing angsty poetry between debilitating anxiety attacks and episodes of Friends. I'm funny, but only in a dark, fatalistic sort of way. Like Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice, except without the shoplifting a few years later. With the help of modern pharmacology, I am lollipops and rainbows. Well, that might be a slight exaggeration. At the very least, I am Cuba Libres, witty one-liners, and imaginative, entertaining banter. I like my meds like I like my men: strong and lab-tested for adverse reactions. A few weeks ago, I flipped the script and started on baby-friendly antidepressants in case our plans for #2 materialize. It turns out I don't do as well on the less-potent dope. Since then I've downgraded from rum and sarcasm ...