This morning in the preschool drop-off line, there suddenly appeared a snake in my car. I knew this because of the (suspiciously preschooler-sounding) hiss emanating from behind my seat. Without warning, another snake joined in from the passenger-side back seat too. I was surrounded. "OH NO! A SNAKE! A SNAKE" I called out. "Quick! What would scare a snake? ...A dog!" So I started barking furiously, even growling, but it was to no avail. Two silly snakes were still coming after me. My dog made fearful whines and ran off. "What else would scare a snake?" I said. (The snakes laughed at me. They laughed!) "A bear!" And so I started growling, albeit not very convincingly. I even swung my best paws in the air in the general direction of the snakes' reflections in my rear-view mirror. Did it scare them? Not even a bit. My bear lost its bluster and ran to hide in the bushes. I was running out of options. "OH NO! HELP! What will sca...

A few months ago, my then-4-year-old son was a bit under the weather -- froggy throat, crusty nose, occasional cough. So we spent the morning of an otherwise beautiful fall day watching cartoons. Usually I stick to the educational stuff, but he saw a commercial for something about genies who grant wishes while getting into mayhem, and he begged to watch more. Who can resist a flying carpet story and a nemesis with long purple hair? Sure, why not. During a break in the mystical action, we saw this commercial for something called Barbie New Born Pups. In the ad, Barbie kneels next to a blonde dog of unrecognizable pedigree-- a golden retriever maybe? -- and gives it a loving scratch. The next thing you know, human hands push down on the dog's back, the dog crouches down a bit, and from out of the dog's middle region falls a puppy. There's no warning, no signs of labor, no backstory about a lovable mutt neighbor-dog who jumped over the fence a few months ago. Just BAM....

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...