"Some kids just need it," the principal told me, with a look on her face that said she understood that need. We were standing in a doorway during the school open house, talking about some of the things the school offers that are so beneficial for my children.  One of those things is giving students the choice to have "quiet lunch" - meal time with just a few other students in a classroom, away from the cavernous cafeteria-slash-auditorium that teems with boisterous students. It's was a new program this fall, and both of my kids joined in.  Over the last five years, my son has complained many times about how loud the cafeteria can get. So loud that he has to yell to be heard, so loud that the principal has walked down from her office to deliver admonitions and a warning glare. Like his mother, my son finds it overwhelming and distressing to be in noisy or chaotic places for too long; it was no surprise to me when he said he signed up to have "quiet lunch...

Alone with me in the car, my 7-year-old daughter had a confession to make.  "Sometimes I think my brother is Mr. Grumpy Pants," she said.   "I think you're right," I told her. "Sometimes he is Mr. Grumpy Pants. And you know what? I think he gets that from me."  My sweet girl was quick to point out that I am never a Grumpy Pants, and I am in fact the Best Mom in the Whole Entire World.  While I deeply appreciate her adoration, it's come to my attention that after nearly a decade of parenting, I am less patient, more tired, more prone to raising my voice, and moodier than I was before having children. Motherhood has made a lot of my bad qualities worse.  Unfortunately, I think my son has inherited almost all of those bad qualities.  Some days being his mother is as unpleasant as listening to a recording of my own voice set on repeat. The same parts of myself that I get sick of, I also have to manage in him. I know where it comes from, but that doesn...

I'm standing in that unused space between the kitchen and the raised dining room with the fake parquet floor. In front of me is a waist-high set of black wire shelves where my dad keeps the detritus of his day - wallet, plastic coin pouch that he squeezes to open, bits of paper with notes about Jesus being Lord and yesterday's lotto numbers. And he's yelling at me: "Extraneous details! I don't need extraneous details!" I'm 7 or 11 or 9, and he can't name my school teachers, my favorite cartoons, or the friend at whose house I just slept over. All those details I try to tell him about my days or my nights, in that winding and never-to-the-point way of children's stories, are cut off with a scolding that I am drowning him in a wash of tiny, impertinent minutiae. Points so fine you'd think he'd been stabbed.    I feel shrunken and unimportant, like a once-intricate wax figure melted down into a blob of generalities.  7-year-old me So when my s...

 "That Santa stuff isn't real," the boy from across the street told my kids.  Uh-oh.  I was upstairs folding laundry, but I still heard the boom that would likely lead to an avalanche of eye-opening revelations (and maybe some tears).  "Who do you think comes in your house at 3 in the morning and leaves you presents?" my 9-year-old son insisted. "He's real, I've seen him! At the mall!" my daughter, who had just turned 7, chimed in. "That's just a guy in a suit," the neighbor boy replied dismissively. Proof of life From the second floor, I called out, "Okay, that's enough!" to the kids arguing in my living room. Pretending we suddenly had to eat dinner, my husband asked the neighbor boy to leave. And we braced ourselves for what might be coming.  My son is a very young 9. He still loves playing dinosaur fights with his stuffies, snuggles with me at bedtime while I sing the same lullaby I've sung since he was a tod...

Sleep when the baby sleeps.  But not when you're driving aimlessly to keep him asleep, or rinsing the sour tang of formula out of tiny clothes, or talking a walk with the stroller because you haven't seen the outdoors in three days. Sleep when the baby sleeps, but not when you're making dinner or being interrupted in the shower again or when your husband is asking about your day which revolves entirely around doing for others.  Sleep when the toddler sleeps, but not when she's teething or refusing a nap or finally sleeping and this is the only blessed hour of silence you have.  Sleep when the children sleep, but not through stomach viruses and weird sounds in the night, thirst or bad dreams, hacking coughs or nosebleeds. Not through repeated night terrors, burning questions, and mornings early enough to scald your eyes. Sleep when the pre-teens sleep. But not when they're at their first sleepover or swimming in heartbreak or struggling to find their tribe. There is ...

I want to live on the edge, but with a 401K and a black minivan where I can blast Snoop Dogg. I want to have a wedge-shaped yard chock full of outdoor accessories, to buy in bulk, and hear the latest gossip about who got an HOA violation for her grass being over the 8-inch limit even though she measured it and it was only 6 inches, thankyouverymuch.  I want my kids to ride their bikes in circles until they get dizzy and fall down, and then go set up a lemonade stand on the main road to snare homeowners who aren't lucky enough to live in our spherical utopia. I want to live that cul-de-sac life. Upper class of the middle class. There's something extra special about a suburban street terminating in a bulbous dead-end. It sets apart residents of that circular community-within-a-community while also bringing them closer together. Closer than those aloof residents who enjoy seemingly unlimited street parking, anyway.  Translated literally from French, cul-de-sac means "arse of ...

Into every family vacation, a little misfortune must fall. Here's how to tell when it's time to end your beach vacation: 10. A wave steals husband's sunglasses  9. Backs of your hands get sunburned 8. Found a tick in the 6-year-old's hair 7. Somebody mentions the alligators at the state park, "but they don't bother you none" 6. Husband loses his hat 5. 9-year-old throws tantrum that we never let him do anything (while holding a boogie board, standing in the ocean, on vacation) 4. Sprained your ankle 10 minutes into a trip to the beach 3. 6-year-old gets stung by a jellyfish, has complete freak-out melt-down screaming on the beach 2. You run out of Blue Bell ice cream 1. Electricity goes out at the resort when it's 93 degrees outside These, my friends, are sure signs that it's time to pack it up, at least until next year. 6-year-old: "Are we going to take any ice cream home?"